Nutrition Data

I love that emails to my clients are becoming good options as blog posts. I received an email from a client of mine that suggest I check out this site.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

I have seen this site before and I think it COULD be useful if you are unsure about how many carbs are in a particular food, or if you want to find out if moose liver has Vitamin A in it (answer: yes, a crapload). But unfortunately, what could have been a really decent research site turns out to be laced in a crapload of moose, well, not liver.

Some of the tools seem interesting. The nutrient search tool is kind of cool (it's how I found the moose liver), but honestly really only for nerds like myself who care how much Vitamin A is in a food. My fear is that MOST people will use this site for help or guidance on which foods are healthy. For each food listed, they have an ND rating that values the healthiness of a food, a fullness factor and quick pros and cons of that food.

Here is an example of why their suggestions suck.

Example:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/10525/2

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/10334/2

Look at the NUTRITIONAL TARGET MAP. Sounds professional, right??? Now look at the "ND rating". Tofu has an ND rating of 4.6. Beef? 2.5. Tofu more nutritious than grass fed beef? Riiiiiiiiight. Even worse is the fullness factor. Tofu more FILLING than beef? I think everyone can agree that is total BS. But let's go back to that whole ND rating...

Obviously the folks at ND didn't look at their own information on Vitamins and Minerals. According to them, tofu contains 8 Vitamins and Minerals. Beef? 18. So I am assuming their ND rating is based off of their summation of beef:

The good: This food is low in Sodium. It is also a good source of Protein, Vitamin B12 and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Niacin, Vitamin B6, Zinc and Selenium.

The bad: This food is high in Cholesterol. This food also contains Trans Fat.

And here is the summary of tofu:

The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Protein and Iron, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin B12, Calcium and Phosphorus.

Nothing bad for tofu. So it all comes down to cholesterol and trans fat. The evidence that animal cholesterol leads to high human cholesterol which in turn leads to heart disease is thinner than my hair in the last post. There are plenty of wonderful blog posts and journal articles backing the idea that dietary cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease. For a ridiculously in depth look get GOOD CALORIES BAD CALORIES by Gary Taubes or his smaller, beach friendly, WHY WE GET FAT.

But what about the TRANS FAT, Rob!!!!! Trans fat! Dear God! Hide the children! It's in our food! It's poisoning society! Beef DOES contain trans fat. But the wonderful folks at ND forgot one thing. There are two kinds of trans fat, natural and artificial. The primary natural trans fat, CLA, found in beef is, ummm, harmless and it might even have anti-cancer properties. It's not the same trans fat that's in Oreos!!
So if you're a nerd like me and you want to find out how much Selenium is in sea lion liver (answer: a crapload), then use ND for those purposes. Otherwise, avoid ND's low fat agenda.