Provided by: nut-nutrition_15.5-1_amd64 
NAME
nut-nutrition - analyze meals with the USDA Nutrient Database
SYNOPSIS
nut-nutrition [dbname]
DESCRIPTION
NUT allows you to record what you eat and analyze your meals for nutrient composition.
The database included is the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 22.
This database of food composition tables contains values for calories, protein,
carbohydrates, fiber, total fat, etc., and includes all the nutrient data in the USDA
database, including the Omega-6 and Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Nutrient levels
are expressed as a percentage of the DV or Daily Value, the familiar standard of food
labeling in the United States. The essential fatty acids, Omega-6 and Omega-3, are not
currently mentioned in these standards, and a reference value has been supplied.
You may search this list of foods and view nutrient values for different serving sizes;
you may also rank foods in order of level of a particular nutrient. You may change the
daily calorie level to correspond to your personal metabolism, and the levels for fat,
carbohydrates, fiber, and protein are automatically adjusted. You may customize the
ratios of carbohydrates to protein to fat to suit your personal regimen. You may add your
own recipes to the database, by creating them from the foods in the database. You can
also add foods from the information on commercial food labels. The program is completely
menu-driven and there are no commands to learn.
NUT can be called with an optional argument to specify a database subdirectory. For
example, if a user tracks meals for other family members, each person can have his own
database, and each database is entirely separate. The database subdirectory name (if
there is one) is displayed on all screens.
The functions included are:
Record Meals: Foods are found in the database, a number of servings, weight, or calories
is entered, and thus a meal is recorded showing the amount of each food eaten. The meal
date can be entered in full "yyyymmdd" format or as a positive or negative offset from
today, such as "-3" or "+1". All numbers expressing food quantities are entered as
decimal numbers, but the number of servings can also be entered as a common fraction such
as 3/4. An analysis screen can be brought up by typing a dot. Individual foods are
deleted from the meal list by entering the food number shown, but you can also modify the
quantity by typing the food number and a new quantity, for example "2 100g", i.e. change
food #2 to 100 grams. Another way to change the quantity is to type "protein", "carb", or
"fat" instead of an explicit new quantity; for example, "2 carb" indicates you want the
second food's quantity changed so that the meal's Daily Value for non-fiber carb is
satisfied. To do the analogous operation on three foods so that protein, carbs, and fat
all become exactly equal to the Daily Value for the entire meal, use the "pcf" command
like this: "pcf 5 1 2", where 5 is a protein food, 1 is a carb food, and 2 is a fat food.
For the program analysis to come out right you must record all the meals the program is
set for. For instance, if set for three meals, and you eat more than three, combine them
into three; if you eat less than three, record some mimimal item such as an ounce of water
for each missing meal. (See below under "Delete Meals and Set Meals Per Day" for the
means to set the program to between 1 and 19 meals per day instead of the default 3.)
Analyze Meals and Food Suggestions: An analysis of meals in the database is presented in
terms of the percentage of each nutrient, where 100% signifies a rate of 100% of the DV
(Daily Value) per day. The program will analyze any subset of the latest meals recorded,
considering each meal to be an appropriate fraction of a day. By pressing "s" on the
analysis screen, nutrients for which the DV have not been achieved are listed, and some
random foods are chosen from the database which contain the additional nutrients. By
pressing "c" the ratios are reset to cause the meals being analyzed to represent 100% of
calories (but see "Set Personal Options and Log Weight" below for options that can be
locked in place and not reset from the analysis screen). By pressing "m" the
macronutrient ratios are reset to the absolute values in the analysis, including calories,
protein, carbohydrate, and fat. (There is also an "n" option, not shown in the prompt,
which works just like "m" but sets the macronutrients by percentage rather than absolute
values.) By pressing "e" all values are reset to the absolute values in the analysis. By
pressing "o" all DV defaults are restored. By pressing "d" the display alternates between
DV percentages, absolute values of the DV nutrients, and a series of screens of all
additional nutrients in the database. (There is a hidden "p" option that moves the screens
back the other way.) When you leave the analysis screen (or the "View Foods" screen) with
a particular set of nutrients showing, that set of nutrients will be used in the other
functions in the program, including printing menus, ranking foods, and drawing graphs.
If the value "(nd)" shows up on a screen, it signifies the database has no data for that
particular nutrient for the foods viewed.
If the analysis screen is brought up during "Record Meals", it analyzes backwards from the
meal being viewed, which might not be the last meal; however, the "Analyze Meals" screen
from main menu option 2 always analyzes from the last meal in the database.
The "Record Meals" and "Analyze Meals" analyses each separately remember how many meals
were last analyzed, so that a user could, for example, always look at a single meal on the
"Record Meals" analysis, and always look at a couple of weeks of meals on "Analyze Meals",
but not have to specify how many meals each time.
Delete Meals and Set Meals Per Day: Some or all of the collected meals may be removed from
the database; or an automatic feature may be selected which keeps the meal database from
getting unnecessarily huge, deleting the oldest meals in excess of a number of meals set
by the user. When all meals are deleted, an option may be set to change the program's
default from 3 meals a day to 1 to 19 meals a day.
View Foods: Foods can be viewed using the same interface as for "Record Meals," specifying
whatever serving size the user wishes to see analyzed for nutrient content, and if
necessary typing a "d" or "p" to change the display to a different set of nutrients. You
can type just the beginning of a food name or a part of a food name, and a numbered menu
of all possible completions continues to be shown until a unique food is chosen.
If the value "(nd)" shows up on a screen, it signifies the database has no data for that
particular nutrient for the foods viewed.
Add Foods and Modify Serving Sizes: This item has three selections, "Add a Recipe," "Add a
Labeled Food," and "Modify Serving Sizes."
To add a recipe, foods are selected in exactly the same way as adding a meal, a number of
servings or weight is entered for each food, and the recipe is recorded. Then the
software divides the recipe into the number of servings desired, and provides an
opportunity to adjust the weight of the servings to allow for water gained or lost in
preparation.
NUT allows you to add a labeled food with an ordered list of ingredients and a nutrition
statement. The new food will have additional nutrients that were not on the nutrition
statement, but that the database says are in the food. First, the labeled food is named.
Next the program requests that the food's listed ingredients be found in the order of
greatest to least. Do not worry about ingredients you cannot find. No amount or weight
is set for any ingredient--the ingredient is simply selected. Selected ingredients may be
grouped with parentheses where an ingredient number is followed by either "(", ")", or "!"
to begin a group, end a group, or remove a group indicator. To delete an ingredient,
simply type its number; to move an ingredient, type its number, an "m", and the
destination--such as "5m2". When the ingredient list is complete, the nutrient lists are
presented so the nutritional information can be copied into the program. Whenever you quit
a nutrient screen, an opportunity is presented to select a different set of nutrients.
The "DV" percentages for this part of the program are the USA standard 2000-calorie Daily
Values, and not any customized options--but users can always set the label's nutrient
information in grams. Only Daily Value nutrients greater than zero are considered as
constraints when NUT constructs an approximate recipe in order to fill in nutrient values
that were not expressed on the food label. Occasionally the "recipe" that NUT estimates
for a packaged food will only show a "trace" of every ingredient, and this is NUT's way of
saying that according to the food database, there is no way to match the ingredients with
the constraints of the nutrition statement. After the recipe is displayed there is an
additional opportunity to edit the nutrient values. Perhaps the food was so heavily
fortified with vitamins that the user waited until after NUT constructed a recipe to
specify the additional vitamin amounts. Whatever the rationale for additional editing,
the user has total control over the nutritional information no matter what NUT's
approximate recipe suggested. The new food record is saved in the database in the same
manner as a recipe.
To modify the serving size of an existing food, the food is selected and the serving sizes
on file are displayed so one can be selected. Alternately, the user may simply type in
his own serving size consisting of number of grams, the serving unit (such as cups or
tablespoons), and the serving quantity.
View Nutrients and Rank Foods: The nutrients are reviewed and one of the nutrients is
selected to list all the foods rich in that nutrient. The food database can be queried in
this manner for nutrients per 100 grams, per 100 grams dry weight, per 100 grams within a
USDA-defined food group, per 100 calories, per serving, per serving minimizing some other
nutrient, and per recorded meals (average intake per day). The set of nutrients operated
on are the last set viewed or analyzed.
The "Rank Foods per Recorded Meals" option is useful for discovering which foods
contribute the most to your intake of a particular nutrient. When you use "Record Meals"
to view a meal earlier than your last meal, this "per recorded meals" option looks back
from that same meal, to show which foods you were eating during that earlier period.
Likewise, the program remembers how many meals were last analyzed, and only searches that
subset of meals to find which foods to list.
Note that processed foods which contain hydrogenated vegetable oil or significant "trans-"
fats may not contain as much of the essential fatty acids as the program shows because the
USDA database does not yet completely distinguish between essential fatty acids and the
"trans-" fats, which cannot serve for essential fatty acids in the body.
Set Personal Options and Log Weight: These screens set and remove options, locking options
in place so they cannot be reset from the analysis screen. Options are to change the DV
for calories and the levels for fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and protein are then adjusted
appropriately (there is also an automatic feature to do this for you from your average
calories, or else from the "Weight Log Regression" daily results if the latest entry
included both weight and body fat percentage); control how the program adjusts essential
fatty acids in relation to calories, or else use absolute amounts; set the saturated fat
percentage; set the fiber absolute amount; set the carbohydrate percentage; set the
protein percentage; set the carbohydrate absolute amount; set the protein absolute amount;
and restore all program defaults. Some of the carbohydrate and protein settings are
mutually exclusive and affect the fat percentages as carbs, protein, and fat of course
must total 100%; however, calories per gram vary from food to food, so the percentage of
calories from carbs, protein, and fat will vary even if grams of each remain constant, so
consider these settings approximations. A special value may be set for the carbohydrate
absolute amount to indicate a constant gram amount of Non-Fiber Carb always added to the
Fiber DV--simply enter the Non-Fiber Carb amount as a negative number.
The "Essential Fatty Acid Options" uses the analysis field "Omega-6/3 Balance" to select
reference values based on Dr. William Lands' empirical equation for the percentages of
Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids in tissue phospholipids based on diet. When you reset the
analysis screen, the program recomputes all fatty acid values automatically, but you can
set the target Omega-6 percentage for your personal optimum of more or less Omega-3. You
can also set the maximum EPA plus DHA to the highest value where you get no side-effects,
and the program will then show when Omega-6 has to be reduced to meet the target. Turn the
feature off completely by setting the "Omega-6/3 Balance" target to 90/10, and then the
EPA plus DHA requirement will simply be the maximum EPA plus DHA value. The default is
that the feature is set for an "Omega-6/3 Balance" target of 50/50 and the maximum EPA
plus DHA value is 2.2 grams.
"Weight Log Regression" does not tell you what you weigh; what it does is apply linear
regression to a series of daily weight and body fat percentage entries to smooth out the
random noise and tell you which direction your weight is trending, how fast it is going
there, and how much of the change is lean or fat. When both fat mass and lean mass are
going down, calories are too low. If the lean mass change number is less than than the
fat mass change number, this is a sign of insulin resistance; and conversely, the larger
the spread between a high lean mass change number and a low fat mass change number, the
greater the insulin sensitivity. To make a daily entry, type the weight and body fat
percentage at the prompt, like this: "150.2 17.9". If you did not measure the body fat
percentage, just type the weight. This algorithm is free of units, so it will work with
weights in pounds or kilos. The daily entry is automatically timestamped, so it should be
entered into the program immediately after measurement. The algorithm does not have the
precision for weight measurements taken much more often than daily. If you want to erase
the weight log and start over, just type a "!", or you may directly edit the file
"WLOG.txt" in the ".nutdb" directory.
Plot Daily and Monthly Trends: The list of nutrients is presented and one nutrient is
chosen for its level to be graphed facing a plot of protein, carbohydrate, and fat
calories. The user enters the number of the nutrient plus a letter, either "d" or "m" to
specify "daily" or "monthly" i.e., "22m". It is only necessary to enter the "d" or "m"
once in order to set the mode. Monthly graphs cover the entire period of the meal
database; daily graphs cover 36 days back from the last meal viewed or analyzed. The
graphs of Daily Values for fat are special and show the constituent fat types symbolically
where . = non-fatty acid constituents, s = saturated, m = monounsaturated, 6 = unspecified
Omega-6, 3 = unspecified Omega-3, L = linoleic acid, A = arachidonic acid, n = linolenic
acid, e = EPA, and d = DHA. In a similar vein, the "Total Carb" graph shows non-fiber
carb as "." and fiber as ":".
Record 'The Usual'--Customary Meals: When NUT asks what you are having, you can answer
"the usual." Specifically, this function allows you to record a customary meal, and give
it a name. Later, when recording a regular meal, all these foods can be added to the meal
quickly by typing "theusualname", where "name" is the name you gave to the customary meal.
Foods added this way can be individually deleted from the meal, and other foods added,
because this function does not make the individual foods lose their identity as in "Add a
Recipe."
Print Menus from Meal Database: Makes a printable file (called "menus.txt" in the current
directory) which lists foods and quantities recorded for each meal, and a nutrient
analysis that is the sum of nutrients for each meal, not the rate of nutrient intake as on
the "Analyze Meals" screen. In common with other functions in the program, it looks back
from the last meal recorded or analyzed, only prints the number of meals last analyzed,
and prints that set of nutrients last displayed on an analysis or "View Foods" screen.
FILES
sr22.nut Joined text version of USDA Nutrient Database
FOOD_DES.txt USDA-format food records for user recipes and edits
NUT_DATA.txt USDA-format nutrient records for user recipes and edits
WEIGHT.txt USDA-format weight records for user recipes and edits
WEIGHT.lib Joined serving sizes from USDA Nutrient Database
food.db Food database
meal.db Meal database
theusual.db Customary Meals database
OPTIONS.txt Personal Options records
WLOG.txt Weight Log records
WLOG.old Last deleted Weight Log
version NUT software version number
menus.txt ASCII print file of meal database
AUTHOR
Jim Jozwiak (jozwiak@gmail.com, av832@lafn.org)
http://nut.sourceforge.net/
COPYING
Copyright (C) 1996-2010 by Jim Jozwiak.
2010.05.02 nut-nutrition(1)