Comments on: Should recipes include nutrition info?

By: pdquick

pdquick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:03:32 +0000

Due to an inherited heart condition, I have to limit my sodium intake to about a gram and a half a day. Even foods that are lightly processed or not processed at all can be high in sodium, and can bust the budget. I agree with the well-reasoned argument for not including nutritional information in recipes, but to dismiss all nutritional information is problematic. I care less about the precise number of calories and amount of folic acid than I do about the ratio of sodium to calories, but in order to know that, I have to have an idea of both. Cheeses, for example, can have 80 mg sodium per ounce or 300 mg per ounce, and when you’re rationing 1500 mg, the difference matters.

As for vitamin D, if your skin is light, sunlight poses a risk of skin cancer, and if your skin is dark, you probably can’t get enough vitamin D from the sun unless you live near the equator. Our ancestors either got their vitamin D from fish, or they got it from the sun at a time when they were likely to die shortly after reproducing. Getting skin cancer was the least of their worries. Fortunately, we now live long enough as a rule to need to be careful about it.

By: For The Love of Food | Healthy Eating Tips - Upgrade Your Healthstyle | Summer Tomato

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:02:09 +0000

[...] Should recipes include nutrition info? <

By: Erik

Erik — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:02:27 +0000

As father of a kid with Type I diabetes I can sympathize with some of your reasons for not doing nutrition analysis: it’s hard and inaccurate; yet we do it every day, for every meal. Our ‘Joy of Cooking’ is marked up with carb percentages and I frequent websites that do show carb counts.

I like your columns (as I like this website) because they introduce me to new food, and gives nutritional information in the wider sense. I’ll keep reading, whatever you decide, although you could save me some work

By the way, are you sure we can get enough vitamin D in winter on New York lattitudes? Many people don’t think so.

By: Nutritional misinformation in recipes « Later On

Nutritional misinformation in recipes « Later On — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:17:13 +0000

[...] in Daily life, Food, Health, Recipes, Science at 9:17 am by LeisureGuy Interesting post at Food Politics: The terrific food writer and cookbook author, Martha Rose Shulman, gets lots of requests for [...]

By: Fi Bird

Fi Bird — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:18:14 +0000

How refreshing – Bravo.
Kids Kitchen is a collection of 40 recipes cards for kids to cook; My publisher (Barefoot books) was keen to colour code the recipes with reference to food groups; not least to encourage the non reader to have fun with the recipe cards (pelmanism) My husband (UK General practitioner) has undertaken a course in Human Nutrition and so, I asked him to write the simple introduction (a fold out card) bringing together the US Pyramid and UK Eatwell plate and the importance of a balanced diet ( nutrition) in child friendly terms. However, when I run healthy cookery demonstrations for children in UK schools,I talk about colours of the rainbows on a plate and balance; encouraging a child to use his/her eyes to see how much fat, sugar and salt has been used in the recipe. This is the real benefit of cooking with raw not processed ingredients, the child can see what has gone into the food that is eventually eaten. We also talk about treats (no food police here but moderation is required) and of course, five portions of fruit and veg a day (by the way I prefer the US pyramid which separates fruit and vegetables).

Here in the UK, some supermarkets follow a traffic light labelling scheme (high to low in fat sugar and salt) and others a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). It is complicated for the layman to understand and family life is too busy to expect parents to put specs on or peer at labels, as they do a mad supermarket trolley dash between school runs. The last thing that I want to do, is to complicate my recipes with nutritional breakdowns. Many families lack basic food preparation skills; we need to encourage confidence in the kitchen and then, stir in a good dose of common sense. Of course, if there is a medical referral to dietician, this is another question but for the majority a return to simple home cooking from scratch is in my opinion, a route to a healthy diet.

Here is a link to a share your healthy and win contest (Barefoot Books UK and USA) promoting Kids’ Kitchen (I hope that this isn’t too cheeky) http://www.barefootbooks.com:80/uk/kids_kitchen_contest

By: Food For Thought – Tuesday, September 29th « Save Your Fork… There's Pie

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:56:12 +0000

[...] Should recipes include nutritional information? The case against, based on the idea that there are too many variables for it ever to be accurate. [...]

By: Alanna Kellogg

Alanna Kellogg — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:36:40 +0000

Count me in as someone who wishes nutrition information were available at every turn — and who invests the time and effort to provide nutrition estimates (and yes, I am quite aware that they are rough estimates but still, better than nothing) for all the recipes on my two recipe websites. Even after calculating this information for seven years, I’m still quite taken aback on occasion when something that looks “not that bad” adds up to far more calories (especially) than expected, even for relatively small portions. Building the calculations also lets me to illuminating what-ifs — what if I use less oil, what’s the difference in both calories and satisfaction? what if I add more vegetables/volume, what does that do? I think the reason so many food magazines / cookbooks / restaurants fear nutrition information is NOT the effort it would take but the very real fear that if the information were revealed, readers / buyers / guests would be horrified and change their behavior.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:26:56 +0000

I think it’s intersting that nutrition information is becoming so common on everything, that when people don’t see it on something they go into panic-mode. In reality, if the ingredients are listed, the nutrition info is right there.

By: Judith Kingsbury

Judith Kingsbury — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:17:17 +0000

I’m so glad to see this article! Once in a while I get a request to add nutrition information to my recipes. Apart from the huge amount of time and work involved in doing this for almost 200 recipes, I’ve always felt the value was dubious at best. My feeling is confirmed. Thank you!

Whatever happened to good old common sense! It should be enough to know generally how many calories are in various common foods. What are high carb foods? High protein foods? High fat foods? Reasonable portions? Anybody could learn this stuff in 4th grade! And should.

By: Janet Camp

Janet Camp — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:01:44 +0000

My question is this: WHY are people clamoring for nutritional information to be included in recipes? As mentioned in the article and some of the comments, common sense will give you a basic idea (is there two tablespoons of olive oil or 1 cup of olive oil? Cheese grated on top as a garnish or layered throughout?).

If you only eat one serving of most anything, you won’t have a problem and I’d venture that is true for diabetics as well–especially type II. I think serving size should get more attention than calories. As to nutrients, try to eat as many colors as possible all the time and you will be fine. Too many people get into nutrient fads and drink gallons of (sugar-laden) juice trying to get some particular nutrient benefit.

I have always thought that RD’s are the most unhelpful people in the world when it comes to enjoying food. They give you silly menus and expect you to carry around measuring cups. Michael Pollan’s advice is so much simpler and easier to follow. I never lost any weight with an RD, but have lost and maintained 45 lbs by following Pollan’s (and Marion’s–eat less, move more, mostly eat less) edicts. I measured in the beginning but can “eyeball” it now. I eat lots of Schulman’s recipes.