And....the nutrient analysis

So we know that Mark has done a great job managing his food budget over the last four days. In fact, he has had money left over at the end of each day. One of my goals in helping Mark through this challenge is not only to see if he can eat on just $3 a day, but if he can do so without compromising the nutritional quality of his diet. As I looked at Mark’s meals over the past four days, I had my suspicions about which nutrients he might have fallen shy in achieving his target intake, but wanted to verify what I thought.

Enter “Super Tracker”, the USDA’s personal coach for healthy eating. https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/

Super Tracker gives you the opportunity to set fitness goals, track your weight, and analyze your nutrient intake over time. While there are so many user friendly apps and web-based nutrient analysis programs, from a dietitian’s standpoint, what I particularly like about “Super Tracker” is that it gives a thorough breakdown of micro-nutrient (vitamins and minerals) intake, and then calculates where you exceed or fall short in meeting your daily needs. Once you set up your profile based on your personal data, it will calculate your nutrient needs from A – Zinc! Mark has also been using "Lose it" to track his calorie intake, weight trends, and fitness goals with success.

Let’s see how nutritious Mark’s economically feasible diet has been over the past four days. Overall, not too bad! Thanks to the fruits, vegetables, brown rice, oatmeal, and beans, he has met (and exceeded) his protein and carbohydrate requirements. Fat intake was a bit on the higher end, but only 2% higher than his goal. His dietary fiber intake (29 grams) was a bit low compared to his target (38 grams), but not bad if you consider the American public has a hard time getting a minimum of 25 grams per day. The two nutrients of most concern that Mark was lacking are calcium and vitamin D. I mentioned in a previous post that maybe Mark should incorporate milk into his meals, and since one cup equates to an expenditure of only $.20, it’s been do-able so far to have at least two cups in his day. Since milk is also a source of potassium, another nutrient Mark fell short in reaching his target, a cup or two will help meet that target as well. Lastly, Mark’s sodium intake was slightly higher than his target (2927 mg versus his recommended goal of less than 2300 mg/day). I’m thinking the extra sodium (and fat) may have come from the bratwurst and Franks! Maybe we can work on finding good substitutes for these, or perhaps just use less.