Detailed Explanation of Every Nutri Capability
Natural Sources:
In this feature you discover the top natural food sources of a selected nutrient. You select from a list of nutritional items that includes the most common and most critical vitamins, minerals, nutrients and substances relevant to our well-being. Each element may be good for certain conditions and bad for others. Varying amounts of most of these items are normally required for optimum health.
Our nutrition robot, Nutri, also tracks and takes into account a significant number of "nutrients" that are NOT commonly tracked by the food industry, e.g., biotin, molybdenum, oxalate, purine, CoQ10, beta glucan, myo-inositol, mercury, pesticides ... among others. Nutri knows about approximately 90 different nutrients and substances found in our food supply.
Food Facts & More
In this feature you can receive answers to such questions as What is good about a given food? What health issues can it help? or What is bad about it? The same questions are answered for vitamins, minerals, other substances (e.g., caffeine), herbal supplements and alternative therapies.
For food items, you will also see important nutrient content information. Our nutrition robot, Nutri, tracks and takes into account a significant number of "nutrients" that are NOT commonly tracked by the food industry, e.g., biotin, molybdenum, oxalate, purine, CoQ10, beta glucan, myo-inositol, mercury, pesticides ... among others.
In addition, you will see two sorted lists of conditions for which the selected item is helpful or harmful. These two lists are limited to the top-20 most helpful or harmful conditions.
And finally, you can see the references or the science behind every illness listed as helpful or harmful for the selected food item. Click on any illness and you will see the references list.
Top Do’s and Don’ts
In this feature, you can receive a list of suggestions of the most helpful and the most harmful choices to your health concern(s). The guidance is in the form of two separate lists of up to forty top items that are helpful or harmful to your selected condition or health profile. By design, these two lists are short so that you can easily remember the key considerations related to your selected condition.
Choose This Not That
In this feature, you can receive very detailed and easy to follow guidance, in form of three lists, the most helpful items to your Health Profile, most harmful items, and those items that will neither help or harm your specified conditions (referred to as neutral items). The dietary and lifestyle guidance that you receive is grouped by your choice of a food group.
There are ten different food groups to choose from including a group for vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements, and a separate group for alternative therapies and other considerations.
Each of the three lists mentioned above is a sorted list. In case of the helpful items, those that are most helpful are listed first. In case of harmful items, the most harmful are listed first -- you should either avoid consuming such items or cut back your consumption of those items depending on the severity of your illnesses or goal. In case of neutral items, better recommendations are listed first. In those cases where a group of items have the same helpfulness or harmfulness, they are sorted alphabetically. To keep these lists manageable in size, Nutri only lists those items that it considers common. We recognize that what Nutri (which was "born" in the US) considers common might be uncommon to others, and vice versa. And for that we apologize on behalf of Nutri! If your food of choice does not appear on any of the three lists, you should look for it under the Is This Good For You or Suggestions for You features.
Is This Good For You?
In this feature, you can receive a quick and easy to understand answer to the most frequent question that some people suffering from a chronic illness might have: Is this food or supplement or alternative therapy good for me? Nutri can answer such questions for any combination of over 300 illnesses, health risks, diets, allergies and medications. The answer will fall into seven categories from Very Helpful to Avoid (very harmful). In some cases a Note might accompany the answer.
In case of many herbal supplements and alternative therapies, there may not be adequate scientific evidence to support suitability of such a remedy for the selected conditions. In such cases, Nutri may not know the answer, and that will be indicated as such in the Note.
Note that the answers to the questions provided in this feature are always tied to the serving size assumption for a selected food item. For your convenience, serving size is always included in the Nutri's response to your question.
If your food of choice does not appear on the pull down menu, Nutri wants to know. Please email us about it.
Do-It-Yourself Diet
This feature is under construction! It will become available with the next major release of this portal. This feature will allow our clients to specify individual nutrients that they wish to consume more of, less of or avoid altogether. This feature is most useful to those people who suffer from a specific nutrient deficiency.
Based on your explicit mandate and without regards to any other health issues that you might have, our system will generate lists of food choices that best meet your requirements. We maintain data on over ninety nutrients in our system.
This feature is a lot more "intelligent" than so many sources and expert guidance available to you. And here is why. Nutri does not just produce a list of food items that might be rich in a desired nutrient! Its suggestions also take into account those nutrients that facilitate absorption of the desired nutrient and those that interfere or increase the need for the desired nutrient. For example there are a dozen of nutrients (e.g., Vitamin D, Oxalate), and countless number of foods (e.g., yeast-based products such as wine) that play a role in calcium absorption.
Note that for some of the more common nutrient deficiencies (e.g., Vitamin D, Magnesium), you can already find guidance in other features in this portal.
Suggestions for You
In this feature, you can receive up to forty suggestions within a food group for your selected health conditions and concerns. There are eighteen food groups to choose from including separate groups for recipes, nutrients (vitamins and minerals), herbal supplements, and alternative therapies.
The most helpful suggestions are listed first. When some items are equally helpful, they are sorted alphabetically. In some cases there may not be enough helpful suggestions, in which case items that are slightly harmful (i.e., limited consumption might be OK), will be included. The helpful items are marked with up to three green circles, neutral items with one yellow circle, and slightly harmful items with one red circle.
Unlike the Choose This Not That feature which only lists common food items, in this feature, focus is on listing the most effective or helpful items regardless of whether they are common or not. We hope this feature helps you discover new food choices that might be helpful to your health. In some cases there may not be any suitable (i.e., helpful or slightly harmful) suggestions, within the selected food group, for your conditions. In such cases Nutri will advise you accordingly.
Serving Size Assumptions
Except for what is noted below, our standard serving size for most foods is 100 grams or 3.5 ounces. For most liquids, it is about a cup. For nuts, seeds and dried fruits, the standard serving size is 30 grams (approximately an ounce). For butter, margarine, various oils and fats, fresh herbs (e.g., basil, parsley), crackers, uncooked grains or flour, fresh hot peppers, condiments (e.g., ketchup, mustard, pickles), sugar and salad dressings the standard serving size is 20 grams (which in many cases corresponds to one table spoon). For dry herbs, spices, salt, pepper and the like, the standard serving size is 2 grams (which in most cases corresponds to less than one tea spoon).
Please follow preparation guidelines for herbal supplements, and use a serving size appropriate for the specific use of the herb. Please use caution when selecting herbal supplements since these items are not regulated by the government authorities such as FDA.
Fruits and vegetables are normally assumed to be served raw. Various fish, seafood and meats are normally assumed to be cooked.
