Wellness #39 Nutrition

1) The Nutrition Data website has a lot of features that would be useful in planning a nutritious diet. I looked at the Better Choices Diet, the glycemic index section, the daily needs calculator, and some of the details for individual foods. I learned that Cheerios is a negative 10 on the glycemic index, making it mildly inflammatory. This surprised me, as I thought it would be a little on the positive side of the glycemic index.

I would be able to use and find interesting several features on this website. I probably will not follow through with this, but if I did, it would be useful.

2) Recipes.sparkpeople.com: I entered the ingredients for the pumpkin pie recipe listed on the Libby's pumpkin can. I knew the results would be deadly, and they were. I discovered, however, that using nonfat evaporated milk took the fat content down by about a third.

Here are the ingredients:

Pie crust, frozen, ready-to-bake, 1 crust, single 9"
Granulated Sugar, .75 cup
Cinnamon, ground, 1 tsp
Salt, .5 tsp
Ginger, ground, .5 tsp
Cloves, ground, .25 tsp
*Grade A Extra Large White Eggs, 2 serving
Pumpkin, canned, without salt, 2 cup
Milk, canned, evaporated, nonfat, 13 fl oz

Here is the nutritional information for the whole pie:

Pumpkin Pie

1 Serving (Whole Pie)

Amount Per Serving


Calories 1,909.0

Total Fat 55.8 g

Saturated Fat 18.6 g

Polyunsaturated Fat 5.2 g

Monounsaturated Fat 20.3 g

Cholesterol 506.6 mg

Sodium 2,631.5 mg

Potassium 2,557.4 mg

Total Carbohydrate 304.0 g

Dietary Fiber 17.0 g

Sugars 227.6 g

Protein 56.4 g


Vitamin A 1,574.1 %

Vitamin B-12 17.0 %

Vitamin B-6 30.5 %

Vitamin C 44.5 %

Vitamin D 82.9 %

Vitamin E 57.9 %

Calcium 143.1 %

Copper 34.9 %

Folate 41.7 %

Iron 74.2 %

Magnesium 62.9 %

Manganese 115.6 %

Niacin 28.4 %

Pantothenic Acid 52.3 %

Phosphorus 105.8 %

Riboflavin 121.2 %

Selenium 24.9 %

Thiamin 44.0 %

Zinc 33.9 %