Subject: Re: Need database of FAT/FIBER/Protein/CARBO for person with disorder

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: 13 Apr 93 12:46:15 GMT

[email-masked] (Eric Sean Webber) wrote:
> My friend has a rare digestive disorder that requires her to know
> the ratios of FAT/FIBER/CALORIES/CARBOS etc in her food.
> Is there a FTP site with a database of these kind of figures for most foods ?

What you want is either the US Department of Agriculture's Handbook 8
(available by anonymous ftp from info.umd.edu, you'll need to root around
for it, it's in a directory called NutrientData) or McCance and Widdowson's
"The Composition of Foods" (available electronically for an arm and an leg
from the Royal Society of Chemistry).  They aren't quite comparable but
both have the data you're asking about.

However: the USDA's free analysis program is rather minimal and the usual
one based on the McCance and Widdowson data is atrocious.  Your pal would
be *much* better off forking out for a paper copy (McCance and Widowson is
not cheap, I'm not sure of the costs for the USDA Handbook 8; both together
are a bargain compared to living with an inadequately managed metabolic
disorder).

And: the appropriate solution for problems like this is usually to look for
*different* foods rather than analyzing what you're already eating down to
the last molecule in the hope that minor adjustments will do it.  Find a
dietitian with an imagination and start reading cookbooks from other
cultures.  (Some of Rose Elliot's books give nutritionally reasoned advice
that might help).

[ Followups redirected to the appropriate group, which is not this one. ]

-- 
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
   Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4192    FAX: 031 451 3431    INTERNET: [email-masked]
JANET: possibly backwards    BITNET: via UKACRL    BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

---

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: 13 Apr 93 12:46:15 GMT