i decided to write down everything i ate today and calculate the nutritional content, to see what vitamins/minerals may be deficient. i had to search many websites to find the recommended intake amounts and nutritional content of various foods. i was able to find a lot of information, except when it comes to minerals. a lot of food packages have basic nutrition information labels but lack mineral detail.

from my one day of examination, i have concluded that in a given day, i probably eat about 1500-2000 calories. today however, i only had about 1300-1400. i adjusted the recommended amount of fats, sodium, etc. and pretty much left the vitamins/minerals untouched because i came across web sites that did not adjust these either. the vitamins/minerals that are listed on labels are usually described only as percentage instead of how many mg or mcg is contained. i had to do a bit of math to get everything to work out but i was pleased that i was able to find and calculate so much information. i know that a lot of vegetarians get b12 shots because they eat an unbalanced diet. i was very happy to calculate that i consume more than enough b12. i had 135% today. my mother had me concerned about potassium since i'm trying to avoid fruits and tropical foods. again, i was happy to calculate that i was doing just fine for potassium. (thank you spinach!)

through my calculations, i learned that i eat less saturated fats and fats overall than the max recommended. i was really happy to see that my cholesterol intake was incredibly low. (thank you vegan diet!) i only consumed 5mg today. for a 1500 calorie diet, i could have ate up to 220 more mg of cholesterol, yeuch! good news aside, i think that i consume too much sodium and sugars. the minimum recommended amount of vitamins/minerals is 67% of what the labels state. that was too low for me. i decided that i would set the bar at 85%. areas where i am low are vitamin e, vitamin d (which i probably am ok on because i get some sunlight almost every day), niacin, vitamin b6, folic acid, zinc... it's really hard to judge the minerals because there was little to none of this information on food labels and i didn't want to spend any more time researching the mineral content of what i ate. a very helpful web site in my search for nutritional content of foods was santé. calculating everything was a bit grueling, but i think i'm going to do this once per week until eating a truly balanced diet becomes instinctual. (meaning, 'til i die!)