nutrition calculators

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These were listed in the article noted below in today's Washington Post.

Dietpower is the only one that's listed in our file. Most are free. If

anyone tries any of these out, please report back if they're any good and

we'll add them to the files.

Balancelog (www.healthetech.com) Balancelog contains 4,000 foods and 300

physical activities. It can be downloaded to your desktop or your PDA (as

long as it has a Palm operating system) and customized to include your

favorite foods and beverages. Balancelog analyzes your diet and activity by

the day, the month or longer. And it will help you target

an intake for your particular goal. Cost $49.99; free 14-day trial for PDA.

Calories Per Hour (www.caloriesperhour.com) Developed by a frustrated

consumer who could not find information about calories burned during

exercise, this Web site has blossomed to offer extensive information from

the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Among other features, this site

(which is peppered with good humor) will calculate body

mass index and weight loss. Plus, it can help you figure out how many

calories you burned carrying groceries, walking the dog or doing those

exercises for your back. Cost: Free .

Dietpower (www.dietpower.com) This program, first developed in 1988, boasts

11,000 foods crafted into 21,000 different entries for easy access.

Downloadable from the Web or via CD, it can calculate calories in home

recipes and adjust daily calorie intake recommendations based on entries of

food and activity. A travel disk allows the program to be used on home and

office computers; a PDA version won't be available until next year.

Cost: Free for a 15-day free trial, $49.99 to purchase after trial.

International Health Eating Index (147.208.9.133/) Run by the USDA, this

online service enables you to record up to 20 days' worth of meals and uses

the USDA food database, considered the gold standard of calorie counts

(which commercial programs use to track calories). IHEI can give a sobering

jolt of reality as it compares what you've eaten to the well-known U.S. Food

Guide Pyramid. Most Americans follow a diet that looks less like that

pyramid than like an hourglass: heavy on sweets, fats and processed

carbohydrates and skimpy on fruit and vegetables. Cost: Free .

Pencil Power Yep, it's very low-tech, but jotting down foods as you eat them

is a simple way to keep tabs on intake. Some Lean Plate Club members report

using yellow " stickies " to record food eaten during the day, tabulating

totals at night. Others carry a notebook and some have reported great

success by writing food in their daily planner or desk calendar. To

precisely calculate calories, you'll need to read food labels carefully and

consult a calorie counter (available at bookstores). Or use the free online

USDA database at www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.plCost: Free.

Nutritiondata (www.nutritiondata.com) Lean Plate Club members often ask how

to calculate the calories in their favorite recipes. This site offers a tool

to do just that. It also tracks calories and physical activity and even

compares the nutritional value of ingredients in

your pantry. Cost: Free.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15674-2003Sep15.html