Welcome to ECstep’s Personal Nutrition Program
• User-friendly — • Comprehensive
This very easy-to-use Windows program can: • Find the healthiest foods, • Increase your knowledge about nutrients, • Check the nutrients in your favorite recipes • Improve your health.
The results can be: Saved, Printed, Copied, or Pasted to other programs including WORD and EXCEL.
This Windows program is shown below. You may think it looks complicated, but in fact, it is quite easy to use as you will see in the following.
You can find additional information on the help page of the program. If you have any questions about the program, you are welcome to contact me.
The program uses the downloaded free public USDA National Nutrient Database provided by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The database includes information on about 150 nutrients (including macronutrients, minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, and amino acids) in more than 8000 food items.
Below you can see the full lists of all the nutrients in the database (click the + sign).
(Please note: Probably you will not need information about all these nutrients. You can therefore select those – probably rather few – you want the program to show – see section “Select Nutrients” below.)
List of the macronutrients and sugars in the program’s database.
More information on my pages on protein, fat, carbohydrate and water.
List of the minerals in the program’s database.
More information on my page on minerals.
List of the vitamins in the program’s database.
More information on my page on vitamins.
List of the saturated fatty acids in the program’s database.
More information on my page on fat.
List of the mono-unsaturated fatty acids in the program’s database.
More information on my page on fat.
List of the poly-unsaturated fatty acids and sterols (including cholesterol) in the program’s database.
More information on my page on fat.
List of the amino acids, alcohol and stimulants in the program’s database.
More information on my page on amino acids.
Search food
1 – Find Food
You can easily find any food in the database.
You just enter the food item to search for. If you for example want to search for “cottage cheese” you just enter this in the long text box at the top. You may also enter positive and negative search criteria to make your search more specific as “cheese, cottage, creamed, -lowfat”.
2 – Search And Select
If you click the “2. Search And Select” button a drop-down list will appear with the search results. Among the three findings fulfilling your search criteria, you click the food item you want. In this instance “Cheese, cottage, creamed, with fruit” was selected as shown below.
Nutrient List
When the food has been selected, the nutrients and their amounts will appear immediately as shown below. You can scroll to see the results for all nutrients.
3 – Adjust weight
Initially, the amount (weight) of the food item is set to 100 g, which is the amount used in the database. You can easily adjust the weight in the small text box. When you do that, the results will immediately change accordingly.
You can change the weight to be measured in Ounces. You just click the ounces radio button. Then the weight is automatically recalculated to that unit. The next adjustments in the weight of the food item will be shown in ounces. The text in the upper yellow window will show the weight in both grams and ounces (in parenthesis). In the figure above the amount of the food item was set to 8 ounces = 226.8 grams.
Nutrient Results
As illustrated above the nutrient window shows the nutrients, their amounts, the units of measurement, and in the last column the nutrient density being the nutrient amount in percent of the amount recommended per kilocalorie. Values near 100 or above are fine.
Please remember that it is extremely difficult to receive too much of an essential nutrient (vitamins A and D are exceptions). See more on my page on vitamins and on my page on minerals.
The background color of the nutrient density is determined by the value (0-19%: red, 20-39%: orange, 40-59%: yellow, 60-79%: yellow-green, 80% and above: green). For non-essential nutrients, the background color will be gray.
Please note that carbohydrates including sugars are non-essential, see my page on carbohydrates. Of the fats only a few are essential, i.e. the essential fatty acids and the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), see more on my page on fat and my page on vitamins.
Instead of the nutrient density the average % daily value can be displayed instead (select in “Options” of the program).
You can easily print, save and copy the list of nutrients in the food.
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Food List
4 – Add The Food Item to the Food List
You can now add the food item to your food list on the right side of the screen. The text from the upper yellow window will be used.
At the same time, the lower right window will display some key information (the amount of calories, protein, lipid, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, and sugar) about the food item.
When more food items are being added to the list of food items, the total amount of the above data will also be displayed.
By repeating the above steps you can add all the components of your recipe to your food list, which can then be saved and later reloaded in case you want to modify it. You can also print the food list and copy it to be pasted into other programs including EXCEL and WORD.
Show the total amount of nutrients in the food list
If you click the “Show Total Nutrients In Food List” button, you can see the total amount of each nutrient you get from all the foods in the food list.
Thus the program gives you the possibility to obtain the full detailed information on the nutritional content in your favorite recipes.
You can also enter all the foods you eat in a whole day into the food list. Then you can see the total amount of each nutrient you get in one day.
This nutrient list can be saved, printed, copied, and pasted to other programs.
You can at any time display the nutrients in each individual food item in the food list by just clicking the item in question.
Nutritious Foods
Find foods with high content of nutrients
The program can help you find foods with the highest content of any specified nutrient. You use the menu item “Find” and then “Find Foods With High Content Of A Certain Nutrient”. A new window with a drop-down list of all the nutrients will appear as shown below.
When you click the nutrient you want to know about, a list of the foods with the highest amount of the nutrient will immediately appear.
Below is shown the result of such a search for Vitamin C. The list also includes the number of kilocalories as well as the amount of vitamin C per kcal, which may be of considerable interest to you.
You can scroll to see the full list of foods with the information and you can sort the list to show the foods having the highest and lowest amount of vitamin C. You can also sort the list according to the amount of vitamin C per kcal.
If you click a food item and then click “Get Selected Food And Exit”, the window will close and you will have all its nutrients displayed immediately in the nutrient list window as described above.
Then you can adjust the weight and add the food to the food list.
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Health Profile
As an aid in assessing and perhaps improving your health, the program gives you the opportunity to assess certain health measures.
This is based on your age, gender, body weight, height, activity level, and a few body measures. You can use both English and Metric measurements.
Based on the data a report is displayed with information about your Body Mass Index (BMI) and estimates of your Ideal Weight, % Body Fat, Basal Metabolic Rate, and Caloric Need.
You can save the profile and later reload it for an update. You can also print the report.
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Options
Select Food Groups
In the database, the foods have been classified into 25 food groups. You can select the food groups you want to include in your search. This could be relevant if you are a vegetarian or if you for other reasons want to concentrate on certain food groups.
You just check the food groups you want to include in your search. Your selection will be saved and remembered by the program and used until you change it.
Select Nutrients
As another option, you can select the nutrients you want to include in your search.
When you do that a new window will appear with all the nutrients in the database. For each nutrient, you will find a brief description, which may include the important roles of the nutrient in the organism.
All the essential nutrients including the minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids are shown with a green background and the average daily need is also given.
The nutrients, that are not essential, are shown with a grey background.
Less healthy, unhealthy, or even potentially harmful nutrients that you may want to limit or avoid e.g. the trans fats are shown with a red background.
You can check the nutrients you want to be reported in your search. You can check (or uncheck) individual nutrients or groups of nutrients (basic macronutrients, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids).
Your selection will be saved and remembered by the program and used until you change it.
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Other Options
The measure of nutritional value
Nutrient Density
This is defined as the nutrient amount present in percent of the amount recommended per kilocalorie assuming an average daily caloric intake of 2000 kilocalories (kcal). A nutrient density % of around 100 or above would be considered adequate. Nutrient density is the default option.
Nutrient Daily Value
This is a much simpler measure being the percent of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) present in the specified amount of food. Only for amounts of calories near the average daily intake could values around 100 be expected. For this reason, Nutrient Density may be the preferable measure.
Handling of missing nutrient amounts
In the database, some nutrients have not been specifically determined in all foods. However, the missing values can in most cases be assumed to be zero. Nevertheless, you can choose between the two options described below.
Skip missing (not determined) nutrient values
If you choose this option the program will only display results based on actual measured amounts for the nutrients you have selected – both for individual foods and for the total nutrients in the food list. This is the default option.
Include and mark missing (not determined) nutrient values
If this option is chosen, all the selected nutrients will be presented in the nutrient list. For a single food, a missing nutrient amount will be shown by “-“.
For the total nutrients in the food list, the program will attempt to calculate the total amount of nutrients assuming that missing amounts can be considered to be zero, which – as mentioned above – will be correct in most cases.
Nevertheless, the calculated total amount of the nutrient will be marked with a letter code indicating the number of missing values assumed to be zero in the calculation (a means 1, b means 2, c means 3, and so on).
The further down in the alphabet, the more assumptions of zero value have been made. For nutrients without a letter code, the calculation of the amount has been based on complete information (no missing values).
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Security
- The program has been successfully tested with every version of Windows including the latest
- The program is guaranteed free of any virus and malware
- You have unlimited money back guarantee no questions asked
- Card information will remain hidden from me
- Download the program from a secure (https) download page
- For extra security, you will receive a backup email with the link to download the program
How to buy
The introductory price is as low as $9.99 USD. This price is very low considering the facilities of the program. The price may soon go up. So do not wait.
To Buy: Click the blue Pay with Card button below.
Then Stripe sends a small secure window to your browser. There you enter your email and your card information.
When you have paid, Stripe will transfer you directly to my secure download page where you can download the program onto your computer. That page will also inform you on how to activate the program to run smoothly on your computer.
As extra security, you will receive a backup email with the same information. So make sure that you enter your email address correctly.
I wish you the best of luck with the program!
Remember: If you have any questions about the program, you are welcome to contact me.