Analysis of Dietary Intake

After completing the computerized nutrient analysis of your 7-day food and beverage
intake answer the following questions using your individual nutrient analysis and
textbook.

1. Do you feel the seven days of the food record are typical of your usual intake?
Why or why not?

2. How many eating occasions did you average each day? Do you feel you
normally eat at designated meal times or would you consider yourself one who
snacks frequently? Explain.

3. Were there times when you were responding to psychological/social needs for
food rather than biological needs? Explain.

4. Please indicate if your calorie needs from your personal profile are based on the
data you inputted or have been adjusted for weight loss, weight gain or for
pregnant/lactating mothers.

Individual Dietary Analysis

Carbohydrates

1. What is the average amount of calories that you consumed in the form of
carbohydrates? If your program uses grams be sure to multiply by 4Kcals/gram. If
your program uses percentages state the average percentage of calories consumed
from carbohydrates.

2. Are you consuming the adequate range of carbohydrates according to the AMDR?

3. (a.) LIST your carbohydrate rich foods (10 grams or more) from each day in your
food record. (b.) Which contributes most to your CHO intake, starch or sugar?

4. What is the average number of grams of dietary fiber you ate? What are your two
major sources of fiber in your diet?

5. What is the Adequate Intake (AI) for the recommended amount of fiber to be
consumed daily (refer to your textbook)?

6. Should you be eating more fiber? If you need to eat more, what specific fiber rich
foods could you include in your diet? (List only fiber rich foods that you are
 willing to eat, have time to prepare, and can afford, or are otherwise available to
you).

Fat

1. What is the average amount of calories that you consumed in the form of fat? If
your program uses grams be sure to multiply by 9Kcals/gram. If your program
uses percentages state the average percentage of calories consumed from fat.

2. Are you consuming the adequate range of fat/lipids according to the AMDR?

3. What food items in your diet are high in saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and
polyunsaturated fat? Name at least two foods for each fat.

4. Why is it important to decrease consumption of this type of saturated fat? Why is

it important to decrease consumption of trans fats?

5. What was your average cholesterol intake? What is your main source of dietary
cholesterol in your diet?

6. What dietary (not blood) cholesterol intake is currently recommended?

7. What foods are sources of omega-3 fatty acids in your diet? Review your food
diary and list foods that you consumed which are high in omega 3 fatty acids.
Why is it important to consume this fatty acid (refer to your textbook please)?

Protein

1. What is the average amount of calories that you consumed in the form of protein?
If your program uses grams be sure to multiply by 4Kcals/gram. If your program
uses percentages state the average percentage of calories consumed from protein.

2. Are you consuming the adequate range of protein according to the AMDR?

3. List your protein rich food items for all days into two groups;
a. Animal protein foods (dairy/meat/eggs)
b. Plant protein (grains/legumes/nuts & seeds)

4. Should you alter your intake of plant to animal protein?

5. If you altered your intake of the above protein rich foods what effect would this
have on the saturated or total fat content of your diet? Be specific.
 Vitamins and Minerals

1. Complete the following chart:

Vitamins and My Average Intake RDA in units of

Minerals in % or units of measure or %
measure (refer to MyFitness
Pal or textbook)
Potassium
Vitamin A
Calcium
Iron

2. For each above vitamin or mineral which you consumed less than the RDA, list
THREE food sources that are considered good or excellent sources of that
vitamin or mineral you could eat. List only those foods you are willing to eat have
time to prepare and can afford, or are otherwise available to you. Also indicate
why you do NOT list a major source of a particular nutrient; for example you do
not like milk and therefore did not list it even if you need more calcium.

3. What is your average sodium intake?

4. What are the Dietary Guidelines recommendations for sodium intake?

5. During your seven day food intake did you use table salt to salt your food?
Remember this is not included in the final average of sodium intake. If you added
table salt to your food what do you think of your sodium content now?

6. Considering your sodium intake, what specific food selection or food preparation
changes, if any, do you feel you should make? Explain.

Total Calories

1. What is your RDA for calories?

2. What was your average daily calorie consumption?

3. Compared to your estimated energy needs, state if you are eating (too
few/enough/too many) calories and should be (losing/maintaining/gaining)
weight.

4. Is your recent weight history consistent with this? If not, why not? Record all the
reasons below on your answer sheet that you think apply to your situation.

_____ I probably eat more food typically than these seven days suggest.

_____ I probably eat less food typically than these days suggest.

_____ My physical activity estimate on the computer analysis was probably too high.

_____ My physical activity estimate on the computer analysis was probably too low.

_____ My own individual metabolism is probably higher than the computer program
uses to calculate caloric needs.

_____ Since my diet was high in carbohydrates and low in fat, I may not be storing
the carbohydrate calories as efficiently as I might if they were fat calories.

Nutrient Supplements

1. Do you regularly take any nutrient supplements? (vitamins, minerals, amino

acids) If so, record the amount of each nutrient.

2. Are the supplements you are taking useful? Explain in detail and be sure to review
your food intake of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. from your previous
work.

Summary

1. Review your answers from your diet analysis. Overall, how would you judge
your diet? _____Excellent _____Good _____ Fair _____Poor

2. What are your reasons for this dietary judgment?

3. Estimate your family history health risk factors. State the health conditions you
or other family members have that you know about.

Condition You Siblings Parents Grandparents

 High blood
cholesterol
High blood
pressure
Obesity
Stroke
Diabetes
Heart disease
Cancer
Osteoporosis

4. Given your family history, what are the health conditions to which you might be
predisposed?

5. Considering these dietary analysis results, and your personal family history of
chronic disease (from question 3) identify and discuss three specific dietary
changes, if any, you feel you should make and your reasons for these judgments.

6. Identify sources of error that decrease the accuracy of your analysis. In each
section mark the sentences that best describe your seven days. Be honest, your
answers will tell you how accurate your diet evaluation is and how much stock
you should place in your conclusions.

(a) Accuracy

 _____ I weighed or measured everything I ate.

 _____ I weighed or measured some foods, but I estimated how much I ate
of others.

 _____ I just estimated how much of anything I ate.

 _____ I really was not sure about amounts, so I just guessed.

(b) Ingredients

 _____ I know exactly how much there was of every ingredient in mixed
dishes.

 _____ I wasn’t exactly sure of the ingredients (or their amounts) in the
mixed dishes. I had to do some estimating of what they were, and how
much.
  _____ I ate some foods that are easily recognized, such as coleslaw or
vegetable soup, but what I ate may have been made with a slightly
different recipe from the one in the data base.

 _____ I used foods from the data base to “construct” the recipe, but I am
not sure how close they were to what I ate.

(c) Foods I could not find

 _____ I looked in the data base and found every food I ate, in the exact
same form I ate it in.

 _____ Using information from the label, I added foods I could not find in
the data base.

 _____ I found most of the foods that I ate in the data base, but in some
cases, I used the values for a similar food because the identical food was
not listed in the table.

 _____ I found most of the foods that I ate in the data base, but left out the
foods that I ate that were not listed.

 _____ I could not find quite a few foods in the data base. I did the best I
could, but I had to guess a lot.

(d) Nutrient values

 _____ The data base was mostly complete for the foods I ate. There were
very few missing values in the spreadsheet.

 _____ For many foods that I ate, nutrient values in the data base were not
complete. There were lots of missing values in the spreadsheet.

(e) How typical

 _____ What I ate on these seven days was exactly the way I eat during the
whole year since my eating habits are extremely habitual.

 _____ These seven days were typical of the way I eat, both in what foods
I usually eat and how much, but my food intake varies somewhat from
day to day.

 _____ These seven days were typical of how I generally eat, but there
were some foods I ate quite a bit more of (or less of) than usual.
  _____ This seven-day period really does not reflect the way I usually eat.

 If your responses to question 7(a) – 7(e) were always at the

top of each section, you can get a fairly accurate idea of
your nutrient intake. Why not more accurate than “fairly
accurate”? Because of several limitations in the data base
itself.
o Rounding off is built into the table
o Food values are average values

Even if you ate one tomato, exactly the same size as the one in the data base, you might
not have consumed the exact nutrients listed.
o Your tomato may have been picked green
o It may have been a different variety of tomato
o It may have been stored under less than ideal conditions

In other words, the data base is not perfectly accurate for all possible foods!

 If your responses to questions 7(a) – 7(e) were in the

middle part of each section, than your seven day record
gives you an approximate idea of your nutrient intake, at
least a ball park figure.

 If your responses to questions 7(a) – 7(e) were at the

bottom of each section, than your results are only a guess
about your nutrient intake. Hopefully, you have learned
something about the nutrients in some foods, but you may
not have learned very much about the nutrients in your
own diet.

(f) Where did your responses to question 7(a) – 7(e) tend to fall?
_____ Top (pretty accurate indication of nutrient intake)

_____ Middle (ballpark estimate of nutrient intake)

_____ Bottom (guess of nutrient intake)

Your answer to question 7(f) tells you how much stock to place in your conclusions.
Hopefully, all of your work gives you some idea of how nutritious your diet is, but it is not
absolutely accurate. A true picture would only come through very elaborate and
expensive testing.
 Weighing your food intake over a longer period of time and chemically
analyzing identical samples of everything you ate
 Determining your metabolic rate and activity level
  Conducting biochemical studies of your blood, urine, feces, and tissues.

7. What have you learned from doing this dietary evaluation? Do you feel that
it has been a worthwhile activity? How might its value as a learning activity
be improved?

Adapted from: Nutrition Science & Applications 4th Edition Study Guide. Lori Smolin and Mary
Grosvenor. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.