Nutrition Health Center

Calorie Count of Foods: Best Sources

By Terry Dunkle*

To get the calorie count of foods, you can choose from hundreds of websites and dozens of software programs. My company has offered both sources for many years -- but I’m not here to blow my own horn. Instead, I want to describe five features that separate good calorie counters from bad.

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Size

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to look up a calorie count on a website or program that covers only a few thousand foods. Choose one that covers at least 20,000. (This is actually 10,000 fewer than you’ll find in a modern supermarket.)

Accuracy

Beware of online calorie counters that let users contribute foods by keying in nutrition facts from labels. User-contributed databases are notoriously inaccurate -- they put you at the mercy of everyone else’s typographic errors. They may also force you to scroll through hundreds of duplicates to find the food you want. (A few online calorie counters carefully check for dupes and errors. Ask.)

Based on 20 years of research by DietPower, Inc., this calculator is accurate to 5 percent for most users. (It's not for people who are pregnant or have metabolic disorders. Always see a doctor before starting a diet.)

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Tobacco user?

Height

Weight

Goal Weight

Target Date

Email Address

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Close Goal Weight
Your Goal Weight is the weight you want to achieve. (If it's a lot different from your current weight, you might want to set a goal that represents only the first step. Even a 10-percent weight loss will significantly improve your health.)
Close Target Date
Plan on losing no more than a pound or two per week.  Otherwise, you may eat too little for good nutrition and your weight loss may be temporary.
Close Lactating?
If you are breastfeeding, check this box and the calculator will add calories for producing milk.
Close Tobacco User?
Nicotine speeds your metabolism, making you burn calories faster. (That's why people who quit smoking gain weight.) Check this box if you average more than one cigarette, one-half pipeful, one-quarter of a cigar, or one dip of snuff or chewing tobacco per day.
Close Email Address
Once a month, DietPower will send you the most important nutrition news of the past 30 days, selected by national award-winning editors covering hundreds of medical journals. You can cancel this free, no-obligation service anytime with a single click. We produce it only to promote our weight-loss software. It won't put you on other mailing lists—We're Not That Kind of Company™.

Ease

Finding the calorie count of foods shouldn’t require you to “drill down” through food categories or worry about your spelling. A calorie counter should be able to pounce on any food in less than two seconds, even you misspell it or enter an alternative name (“wiener” or “weiner” instead of “hot dog” or “frankfurter,” for example). Similarly, you should be able to choose any serving size -- volume or weight, metric of English -- without jumping through hoops.

Versatility

Besides revealing calories, a good website or software will show dozens of other nutrients in the foods – fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, calcium, folic acid, antioxidants, and more. The best tools also calculate the number of calories you’ve burned in exercise, which allow you extra eating..

Intelligence

In rare instances (our software is one of them), tools that look up the calorie count of foods also monitor your personal calorie needs and give you a calorie budget guaranteed to bring you to a goal weight on a target date. In DietPower’s case, the program also reveals which of your favorite foods will most improve your nutrient balance. We know of no other program that does this in real-time, but will post any to which we are alerted (email webmaster@dietppower.com).

Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of DietPower, Inc.