I’m a vegan for ethical reasons. I’m not rigid about it, (the bean burgers I mention contain small amounts of eggs, for example) but I definitely watch which animal products I consume. If there weren’t healthy ways to get something critical, I would probably make an exception. I tend to believe that there is a vegan substitute for just about anything, however I’m open to be proven wrong.
I just set up a Chronometer account, that seems like a good service. Is there a way to put exact recipes in? I put in my breakfast this morning, which was some leftover homemade bread I made last night. Chronometer said that “homemade bread” had a gram of trans fats in it, which I doubt is accurate. I would suppose that there is high variation in nonstandard food items, and I’m hoping there’s a good way to address this.
You’re welcome, I’m just glad you found it helpful.
And yeah, Cronometer is great. You can add both custom foods and custom recipes.
Just click the “Foods” tab at the top and you can create a recipe. I have some of the things I make pretty often in there, like certain smoothies and other things that I always use the same proportions of.
You can also create custom foods if the brand of some product you buy has a very different nutrient profile from their defaults, you can enter it as a custom food (though you will often miss out on some of the micronutrient data that they have, so be careful with this, or copy the micronutrient info that you don’t know about product from one of their default database foods). Similarly, if there are duplicate records for a certain food you want to use, try looking at a few different ones to see which one has the most complete micronutrient data, then make sure you use that one.
And the Profile tab lets you set your targets for macro and micronutrients.
That’s really all you need to know. With this, you can find out for yourself if you might be getting too little or too much of anything and then experiment with different interventions. I would recommend making sure you don’t forget to track any fats or cooking oils you use. That way, you’ll know if you’re getting too much omega 6. The preset allowances for n-6 are probably too high. I encourage you to do your own research on the subject, but my personal recommendation is to try to keep your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio under 4:1. (Keep in mind only EPA and DHA count towards your n-3 number. “Other” omega-3s are only 3% bioavailable)
Again, let me know if you have any questions and good luck!
Thanks for such an in-depth reply.
I’m a vegan for ethical reasons. I’m not rigid about it, (the bean burgers I mention contain small amounts of eggs, for example) but I definitely watch which animal products I consume. If there weren’t healthy ways to get something critical, I would probably make an exception. I tend to believe that there is a vegan substitute for just about anything, however I’m open to be proven wrong.
I just set up a Chronometer account, that seems like a good service. Is there a way to put exact recipes in? I put in my breakfast this morning, which was some leftover homemade bread I made last night. Chronometer said that “homemade bread” had a gram of trans fats in it, which I doubt is accurate. I would suppose that there is high variation in nonstandard food items, and I’m hoping there’s a good way to address this.
You’re welcome, I’m just glad you found it helpful.
And yeah, Cronometer is great. You can add both custom foods and custom recipes.
Just click the “Foods” tab at the top and you can create a recipe. I have some of the things I make pretty often in there, like certain smoothies and other things that I always use the same proportions of.
You can also create custom foods if the brand of some product you buy has a very different nutrient profile from their defaults, you can enter it as a custom food (though you will often miss out on some of the micronutrient data that they have, so be careful with this, or copy the micronutrient info that you don’t know about product from one of their default database foods). Similarly, if there are duplicate records for a certain food you want to use, try looking at a few different ones to see which one has the most complete micronutrient data, then make sure you use that one.
And the Profile tab lets you set your targets for macro and micronutrients.
That’s really all you need to know. With this, you can find out for yourself if you might be getting too little or too much of anything and then experiment with different interventions. I would recommend making sure you don’t forget to track any fats or cooking oils you use. That way, you’ll know if you’re getting too much omega 6. The preset allowances for n-6 are probably too high. I encourage you to do your own research on the subject, but my personal recommendation is to try to keep your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio under 4:1. (Keep in mind only EPA and DHA count towards your n-3 number. “Other” omega-3s are only 3% bioavailable)
Again, let me know if you have any questions and good luck!