Counting Tools

In my journey to good health I have found I count carbs and protein more and more.

I make use of nutrition labels, certain books, recipe information, etc. I also surf the web and have found many websites that are made for nutrition information hunters like myself.

So, for those of you out there that make use of carb and protein and calorie counts, what websites do you use the most? Which ones have you found the most useful and accurate?

I have to be honest, I cook my meals most often. I often use the recipe calorie counter at about.com. It allows you to paste in the entire recipe and the number of servings. Sometimes you have to correct the elements but it does a really good job and it uses the information from the USDA for nutrition data.

You may already know about this one. It's a site I use frequently, Calorie King. I like that I can change the portion measures and it automatically changes all the nutrition categories and displays in a standard nutritional label format. I dose insulin based on carbs, protein and fat.

I have the Calorie King app on my iPhone and sometimes use it when eating at restaurants. Sometimes I just swag. I prefer eating at home.

Just a tip that has served me well. While not a carb counting exercise, keeping a dietary journal with pre meal readings and post meal readings (1 hr then 2 hr) has been a huge help to me. I've gotten some surprises for my "try to stay from list" of foods - the biggest being oatmeal. Knowing that coupled with low carb high protein and fiber, has helped a great deal with lowering spikes and gaining more consistency. I've even found some things that will leave my readings lower after I eat than they were before I ate (I call them 'net negatives'). Good luck :)

My primary tools: Omnipod PDM to track insulin and IOB, most of the time. Glucosurfer on Android to track when using IM injections for corrections. MyFitnessPal to look up and track nutrition.

Primarily Calorie King and NutritionData.com, plus of course the manufactures websites and website of restaurants.

But then you have to add up all the numbers yourself to come up with a total.

So, because I'm lazy, I've been working on a custom 'Meal Builder' app for my own cooking. The app allows me to create 'Meals' which combine any number of individual ingredients, (like: 4 oz of ground beef, 1 oz of american cheese, 2 oz of Nature's Own white bread, 2 tbsp of Hienz ketchup, 50 grams of Del Monte green beans w/ 1 tbsp of Blue Bonnet margarine) [these are all made up number for demonstration purposes only] showing me the combined results including: Calories, Carbs (simple & complex), protein, fat, etc. Basically everything off the nutrition labels. It does all the math for me, for the entire 'meal' and save it for future use.

I have a database of the particular items we normally purchase: Ground beef, chicken, pork, turkey, bacon, a few of the prepared packaged items, condiments, etc. (Really, everything we buy at the grocery store.)
For any item not on our usual list, I do a routine download of the USDA National Nutrient Database, which the app can search for individual items.

And I've got a nice digital kitchen scale for weighing the ingredients.

My plan is to incorporate this into my Diabetes Management System, allowing me to select "Meal #17" from a list (which for example, might Burritos w/ a garden salad, or Baked ham w/ new potatoes and green beans, or scrambled eggs w/ bacon, etc.) and having the system do the math and prompt me with total Carbs (including simple & complex - adjusted for fiber, protein and fat) so that can be entered in the bolus wizard.

The ultimate goal is to track pre & post-prandial BGs, vs. bolus amounts vs. actual ingested nutrition info per meal.

I'm drooling over your app description!