- Record the foods and beverages you consume for three days. Don’t leave anything out (like alcohol) or change your eating habits. I am not grading the quality of your diet. There is a diet record form attached to this assignment. You can use this to record the foods and beverages you eat. I suggest you try to include two weekdays and one weekend day. This selection should give you a better representation of what you usually eat. If you are deployed and not eating your usual foods, makeup three days, but try to select foods and beverages you would typically eat and/or drink while at home. There is no right or wrong to this assignment. You will not be graded on the healthiness of your diet, so be honest and enter what you usually eat. The goal of this assignment is for you to learn about your diet.
For more complex foods, you will need to record each ingredient. For example, if the food contained green peppers, red peppers, pineapple, pork, sweet and sour sauce, you need to write each of these down and the amount (x cups pork, x Tb sugar, x Tb vinegar, x cup diced onion, etc.). Be as detailed as possible.
Analyze Food Record
- When you are done recording the foods and beverages you ate, then it is time to analyze your diet. We are going to use the diet analysis program, eaTracker. It is available free at this URL: eatracker.ca.
- Here are brief instructions: help guide (https://www.eatracker.ca/help.aspx)
- Briefly, once you are on eaTracker’s home page, click on the words, “Sign In” (upper right-hand corner). You can create a profile that the site will remember or you can create a profile that is not saved. You should create a login, so the program keeps your information. We will use this information several times in the class.
- Register and set up a new account. Remember to write down your username and password.
- You will now enter the site. Click on “Quick Start Guide” and watch the video. This will get you going.
- You can always leave the program and come back and enter more foods later.
- If you have a particular product you consumed, for example, sweet and sour pork at a restaurant, you will need to enter each ingredient using the recipe analyzer tool.
- If you don’t find a food when you enter it in the food search box, try a different name. For example, if you have the apple slices from McDonald’s, select “apple”, not “McDonalds Apple” for the food. As a last resort, you may have to find a substitute.
- Lastly, enter the info requested under “MyActivity.” This information will be used to evaluate your activity level.
- Once you have all the info entered, go to “My Food” and click on “Nutrients” under “My Eating Feedback.” In the upper right corner, click on “Print All Reports.” You will need to do this for each of the three days you analyzed. Then go to “Eating History” and print that report. I attached is a pdf with pictures to show you how to do this. You will be submitting four diet analysis reports.
- Have fun looking at the report.
Write Report and Submit Assignment
Now answer each question below. The total length of your report should be at least 500 words.
- Where did your dietary intake fall short of the food group recommendations?
- What changes might you make to meet the food group recommendations? Be specific. Discuss each food group that is less than 100%.
- Which nutrients were less than 100% in your diet?
- What role did physical activity level play in your dietary plan?
- In closing, provide a personal evaluation of this website. Do you feel that it was informative and useful? If so, what did you learn?
In the assignment area, submit the following:
- A Word document containing your answers to the five questions above. The responses should be typed in a Word file with your name included in the file title.
- Your four eaTracker.ca reports (Three Nutrient reports for each day and one Eating History report for the three days)