Have you ever wondered how to determine the nutritional information for a recipe made from scratch? We have and stumbled upon The Kitchn.com, a daily web magazine devoted to home cooking and kitchen design.
They have a wonderful “Good Questions” section featuring readers’ questions on various recipes and ingredients; one reader was interested in knowing how to determine the nutritional information for a recipe made from scratch, and asked the following.
Is it simply a matter of:
1) Taking the data from an ingredient’s label?
2) Multiplying the quantity used in the recipe?
3) Adding all these together to get the total?
4) Determining the serving size and number of servings in the recipe?
5) Dividing by number of servings?
Or is there more involved? Where can I find nutritional data for ingredients that don’t have nutritional labels: meat, seafood, poultry, produce, etc.?
To clarify, I desire to create almost the ENTIRE nutrition label as it pertains to a recipe, not just calories, not a meal.
Simple example – I bake whole wheat bread. I want to know per slice/serving the —
Calories
Fat
Cholesterol
Sodium
Carbohydrates
Fiber
Sugar
Protein
— of the finished bread.
The ingredients are: yeast, water, molasses, whole wheat flour, A-P flour, salt, honey, canola. I have that data for all the individual ingredients from their containers. Calories ALONE are not what I’m interested in.
The Answer
If you create a recipe with all of your ingredients and indicate 1 serving, the websites listed below provide the calories plus information equal to a standard nutrition label you would see on any packaged food.
The individual posing the question claimed the SparkRecipes calculator most closely provided the information he/she was in search of.
Emma Christensen, recipe editor for The Kitchn, suggested a New York based website NutritionData.com was up to the task. The website provides nutrition analysis gleaned from the USDA’s National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference and is supplemented by listings provided by restaurants and food manufacturers.
The source for each individual food item is listed in the footnotes of that food’s Nutrition Facts page. In addition to food composition data, Nutrition Data also provides a variety of proprietary tools to analyze and interpret that data based on calculations derived from Daily Reference Values (DRVs), Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs), published research, and recommendations of the FDA.
This website allows you to program in recipes. It has a very large database and the app version allows you to scan the bar codes on your food which automatically gathers the nutritional information. You can enter in a recipe, including ingredients, quantity, and number of servings, and the website calculates the calorie count.
SparkPeople.com calculates nutrients, types of sugar and vitamins or minerals and allows you to customize your own recipes. Users can also punch in serving sizes within a certain range.
MyPlate searches over 625,000 foods and 1,500 fitness items and tracks your caloric intake. The website acts as a diet coach, nutritionist, and food planner. But your data will not be saved until you register.
Spoonacular allows users to upload their own recipes and automatically calculates the nutritional information based on USDA information.
Inquisitive foodie with a professional investigative background and strong belief in the organic farm to table movement. Author of Bad Seeds: A FriendsEAT Guide to GMO's.
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