In doing this project, you will hopefully learn something about diet and nutrition, especially as it relates to your own diet. You will be asked to look up much of the material on your own rather than having it supplied in class to enable you to learn how to locate this information on your own and to make informed decisions based on available facts. A total of 100 points is possible. Please keep copies of all papers you turn in because I will be keeping the copies you turn in to document your progress from week to week. Special diet software, which you may choose to use to complete these assignments, has been loaded on the school’s computer network. Be aware that since this is older, 16-bit software, it doesn’t get along really well with the school’s NT network, and there occasionally are some strange quirks in how it works. Note that in order to use this diet software, it is necessary to have access to the codes used for the various food items (and the time to go to the “Open” Computer Lab when it is). Copies of these codes were placed in the Open Computer Lab for your use. Actually, however, many of the Web-based resources listed below are much easier to use, and for most of you, are available from home, thus I’m now recommending those over the software available here at school.

1. For one week (seven days), keep a food journal. Record everything you eat and what time you ate it. Remember to include things like candy, pop, beer, vitamin pills, etc., too. For packaged foods, you will probably want to keep the dietary information from the labels for future reference (see Step 2). Non-nutritive things like aspirin and prescription drugs need not be included. Also record general comments on how you feel (headache?, groggy?, lots of energy?).
   (10 pt.) 
2. Total up all foods eaten during that week (for example: 14 C milk, 7 oranges, 21 cans of pop, etc. – remember that 14 C of milk have 14 times the nutrients in 1 C of milk). If using a spreadsheet program (Works, Excel, QuattroPro, Lotus), it is suggested that to make adding up numbers easier, list in alphabetical order within food group categories. If you use one of the Web-based diet analysis programs, sorting food items by category is not necessary. 
   Using one or more of the resources listed below, determine the actual total amounts (grams, milligrams, IU, etc., NOT PERCENT) of Calories, total carbohydrates, sugar, fiber, total fat, cholesterol, protein, vitamin A (retinol), vitamin D (calciferol), vitamin E (d-alpha-tocopherol), vitamin B₁ (thiamine), vitamin B₂ (riboflavin), vitamin B₃ (niacin), vitamin B₆ (pyridoxine), vitamin B₁₂ (cobalamine), folacin/folic acid, vitamin C, sodium (Na), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), and iodine (I) that were in each food, then add up the weekly total for each nutrient and divide by seven to figure your average daily intake. Note that some software does not have a few things like iodine, but you do need to get more information than just calories and fat. 
   If you have a label from a packaged food item that lists “% Daily Value,” you will have to look up the actual RDA values (required in the next step, anyway) and do a bit of math. For example, if a food reports that it has 47% DV for vitamin C, you would need to know that the RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg, then multiply 0.47 (= 47%, remember?) × 60 mg = 28.2 mg of vitamin C in one serving of that food. 
   Note that using some of the Web-based resources listed below, the school’s diet software, and/or a spreadsheet program can help you do all this much more quickly.
   (15 pt. + 10 pt. for using computer) 
3. Using these same references, determine what the ideal daily amounts of each of these nutrients are for a person of your sex, age, weight, and height. For this, it is preferable to use the most recent sources because the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) are periodically revised. Compare your average daily intake to these values and determine where you are low (not enough zinc?), high (too much sodium?), or OK. You will also need to think about which highs/lows are OK and which are not. For example, high sodium is probably not OK, while high vitamin C probably is OK, and while low fat might be OK for some people, low thiamine probably isn’t.
   (10 pt. + 5 pt. for typing up on computer) 
4. Again, using these resources, plan a week of meals that will give you 100% of all of the above nutrients – a balanced diet (and yes, that means you do have to do the calculations). Start from what you normally eat and substitute more nutritious foods you’re willing to eat for less nutritious ones. Keep in mind ease of preparation and your own likes and dislikes – be reasonable in your expectations. Include at least one new food item or recipe you’ve never tried before, but are willing to eat. Again, using one of the Web-based diet analysis programs or creating a computer spreadsheet can help you do this much more quickly. Whatever you turn in must demonstrate that you have checked to see that this new diet supplies the full RDA for each nutrient.
   (20 pt. + 5 pt. for using computer) 
5. Go on this new diet for one week. Keep a food journal as before, again noting what and when you ate as well as general comments on how you feel.
   (10 pt.) 
6. Go back through all your notes. Given that one week is not really a long enough time for a change in diet to have any great effects, did you find any noticeable changes in how you felt from the old diet to the new? For your own benefit, you may also wish to look for correlations between certain foods and the way you felt after eating them: for example, if every time you ate eggs, you got a headache six hours later, that could indicate an allergy.
   (10 pt. + 5 pt. for typing up on computer)

• Nutrition Analysis Tool from University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign
• Searchable USDA Nutrient Database from Fatfree.com      (main page)
• Women and Nutrition from the FDA (has information applicable to men, too)
• Daily Values for Nutrients on Food Labels from the “Nutrition Farm”
• Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) from the “Nutrition Farm”
• Healthy Body Calculator from Joanne Larsen
• Nutritional Profile from CyberDiet.com
• Diet Analysis Web Page from ANET
• FitDay.com

• Adams, Catherine and Martha Richardson. 1981. Nutritive Values of Foods. USDA, USGPO. 34 pp.      (lib # TX 551.A32)
• (anon.) 1994. A Good-Sense Guide: Guide to the Foods you Eat. Black Dog & Leventhal Publ., Inc., New York. 432 pp.      (jsc)
• Gelb, Barbara L. 1978. The Dictionary of Food and What’s in it For You. Paddington Press, New York. 253 pp.      (lib # TX 551.G28)
• McGill, Marion and Orrea Pye. 1978. The No-Nonsense Guide to Food and Nutrition. Butterick Publishing, New York. 224 pp.      (jsc)
• Pennington, Jean A. T. and Helen Nichols Church. 1985. Bowes and Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used, 14th Ed. Harper & Row, New York. xxvii + 257 pp.      (or more recent edition)     (jsc)
• Robertson, Laurel, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal. 1986. The New Laurel’s Kitchen. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley. 512 pp.      (jsc)
• Watt, Bernice K., et al. 1975. Composition of Foods: USDA Handbook of the Nutritional Contents of Foods. Dover Publ., New York. 190 pp.      (dbf), (lib # TX 551.W37)
• Wong, Dominic W. S. 1989. Mechanism and Theory in Food Chemistry. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. xviii + 428 pp.      (lib # TX 541.W66)