Diet Analysis

This assignment is aimed more towards Nutrition experts. 

The diet analysis software program will calculate the following information for each of the foods that you have consumed: calories,protein, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, total fat, saturated fat,unsaturated fat (monounsaturated plus polyunsaturated), cholesterol,iron, potassium, sodium, calcium, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin,niacin, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin C. Include these nutrients in your analysis. You can include more if you like. If you cannot find an exact match in the listing, find a comparable food and estimate nutrients.

Once you have the breakdown of the foods you have eaten, compare your intake to the recommended daily allowances for your age, gender, and size, then analyze your diet for nutritional value. Are you under-nourished or over-nourished? If your diet is adequate, explain why. If you need to make changes, explain why. Most important— explain why the various nutrients are necessary in our diet. What is their need to the body. For example, you might say something like–“My vitamin C intake is less than half the recommended level. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant, as well as necessary for collagen synthesis. A deficiency may lead to bruising, bleeding gums, or frequent infections. By adding a medium orange and 1/2 cup of V-8 juice to my diet, I more than make up for my deficit.”Or you might say–“Vitamin C is an important antioxidant, as well as necessary for collagen synthesis. A deficiency may lead to bruising, bleeding gums, or frequent infections. I typically include an orange, tomato, and green pepper in my diet nearly daily and take in more than enough vitamin C to meet the RDA.”

Something to keep in mind as you do your analysis, if you are currently maintaining your weight, then the number of calories you are consuming matches the number of calories that you are burning. Thus, if your profile says that you should be consuming 2000 calories, your diary indicates you are consuming, say 1000, calories, AND you are not losing weight, then you either skimped on your diary, or your metabolism is very sluggish. The diary is much more likely to be the issue for the majority of people in this circumstance. What I am saying is, you probably do not want to be saying in your analysis, “I guess I need to add more food to my diet.”

Also, do not worry about over consumption of water-soluble vitamins, or vitamin A (beta-carotene) that comes from plant sources. If you eat two carrots, for example, you are going to exceed your RDI for vitamin A, but since it is from a vegetable, it is not a problem. If, on the other hand, you eat liver and exceed your vitamin A RDI, cutting back is a good idea. Regarding the water-soluble vitamins, if you consume 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables, and some or most of your grains and cereals as whole grains, you WILL exceed the RDI for those vitamins. That is NOT a problem. Please do not state something like, “I guess I need to cut back on the broccoli in my diet.”

One more thing– it is not necessary to consume 300 mg of cholesterol per day. That number is an upper-limit guideline. If you consume no cholesterol (which is true of all vegans), your liver will make all the cholesterol you need. If you eat two eggs everyday, you will exceed 300 mg. As I said, it’s a guideline. Expect your written part of this analysis to be at least 7-9 pages (more is fine), typed, double-spaced,, in a size 12 font.