nut(1) nut(1)
2014.01.01
NAME
nut - analyze meals with the
SYNOPSIS
nut [dbname]
Nut [FLTK OPTION]... [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 26.
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.
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Automatic Portion Control: A major feature of NUT is to be able to
associate a meal food with an automatically-adjusted quantity to
enable easy portion control. For instance, if you want food #4 on the
menu to always be adjusted so that the entire meal exactly meets the
Daily Value for protein, type "4 p"; if food #7 is a carb food, type
"7 c" to adjust non-fiber carb; or if food #1 is a fat food, type "1
f" to automatically adjust the total fat of the meal. An alternate
way to specify the previous three commands in a single command is "pcf
4 7 1". Then, as you edit other food quantities or add or subtract
foods, the automatic portion control produces an entire meal that
exactly fits your plan. There can only be one protein food, one carb
food, and one fat food designated per meal. An inappropriate
designation such as designating table salt as a fat food will usually
result in a quantity of zero. Negative quantities in designated foods
indicate too much protein, carb, or fat in non-designated foods. To
remove a portion control designation, type the food number and the
designation you want to remove; for instance, if food #5 is designated
as a fat food, type "5 f" to remove the designation, or else type a
new pcf command that does not include food #5 as a fat food. There is
also an extension to the feature to balance a meal for Thiamin "t",
Pantothenic Acid "n", Vitamin E "e", and Calcium "z", but these
commands have to be issued individually and not as part of a "pcf"
command. These additional commands "t", "n", "e", and "z" are only
valuable when meals habitually lack the specified nutrient and it
makes sense to try to get some of the nutrient at every meal to avoid
a large cumulative deficiency.
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 "e"
all values are reset to the absolute values in the analysis to provide
an easy method to compare periods (this feature is not in the
graphical interface). By pressing "o" all DV defaults are restored
replacing comparison mode. 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 "p" option that moves the screens back the other way. When you
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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.
Shortcut to food rankings and graphs: From the analysis screen you
can type the name of a nutrient as shown, such as Calcium with the
capital "C", and if NUT can find the nutrient, it will provide the
food ranking and graph functions for that nutrient directly without
having to go back to the Main Menu and navigate the hierarchy. You
only have to type enough of the beginning of the nutrient name so that
NUT can uniquely identify the nutrient.
Delete Meals and Set Meals Per 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
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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 (this feature is not in the
graphical interface). 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
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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 options for
nutrient levels to use when analyzing meals. 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.
The options for polyunsatured fat and the "Omega-6/3 Balance" target
select reference values (there are no "Daily Values" for these) based
on Dr. William Lands' empirical equation for the percentages of
Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids in tissue phospholipids based on diet.
The program recomputes all fatty acid values automatically whenever
the analysis changes.
"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. 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 or even stone (but not stone plus pounds). The
daily entry is automatically timestamped, so it should be entered into
the program immediately after measurement and the program will not
accept more than one entry per day. 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. Clearing the weight log leaves
the very last entry in order to quickly start a new cycle of logging.
The daily lean and fat mass totals can be seen explicitly by looking
at the "WLOG.aux" file in the ".nutdb" directory.
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The "Calorie Auto-Set" feature utilizes "Weight Log Regression" in a
special way to automatically optimize the calorie level to improve
body composition. Since the user is inputting daily weight and body
fat percentage measurements and eating according to the calorie level
shown, NUT can determine if fat mass is going down and lean mass is
going up at that particular calorie level. If so, NUT does nothing.
If fat mass is going up, NUT lowers the calories by 20. If both fat
mass and lean mass are going down, NUT raises the calories by 20. If
NUT makes calorie adjustments and is able to correct the direction of
the regression lines and thus achieve true progress, NUT then
automatically clears the weight log to start the cycle again, and
initializes the new weight log with the terminus of the previous
regression. Therefore, each regression cycle between clearings should
reflect lean mass going up and and fat mass going down. Cycles
alternate between the previously described cycle which preferentially
prevents fat mass gain and an inverse cycle which preferentially
prevents lean mass loss: In this alternate cycle, if lean mass is
going down, NUT raises the calories by 20, but if both lean and fat
mass are going up, NUT lowers the calories by 20. The automatic
clearing of the weight log signals success for a cycle, but there may
be periods of progress when no calorie adjustments are necessary.
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
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"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
sr26.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.{date} Cleared Weight Log named with date of clearing
WLOG.aux Copy of Weight Log with fat and lean weights calculated
fontsize Controls changes in resizing of graphical interface
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) 1996-2014 by Jim Jozwiak.
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