Nutridiary: a review

With a goal to keep a food and exercise log, I explored the world of web-based diaries with food databases this week. I'm going to try at least two and review them because, well, that's what librarians do. Also, I will probably have to go beyond the freebie versions to go from a good database to a great database of foods, so I want to kick the tires of more than one before I put down good money for a product.

First up, Nutridiary. It attracted me because it pushed the concept of "meals." Since I used Sierra's MasterCook several years ago, I understood the value of that. It's the difference between adding peanut butter, jelly, and bread as three items or adding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as one item. The first time, you have to define what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is using the three items, but after that you get to treat it as one thing. As you use the product, that savings of time and effort just gets better and better.

Now, to using it. The only identifying information needed to register for the free version is an email address. There are community forums, which I have, so far, ignored. You can keep your email private and still communicate with the people in the community individually through an internal email form.

In order for it to give you all the benefit of the data, you have to enter weight, height, and goal weight (or weight maintenance). Although you could use the diary sections without entering any of that. If you provide some other measurements, it will attempt to compute a Basal Metabolic Rate to use in the calculations of calories burned and calories left to eat for the day. There are all kinds of caveats and warnings about why the BMR may not be right, but given all of the data I put in, I want to get lots of data out. Over time, if the BMR doesn't seem right, I can just set it to a number that works for me.

The usability seems optimized for people who have been using the software for awhile. For example, the "add meal" button on the log page takes me to a page of meals that I have already defined. Since I have defined very few, that's not much help. I have to remember to go to the "meals" tab at the top of the page to get to where I can define a new meal.

I also had some difficulty when I wanted to change the quantities of foods I had put into a meal. The page for defining a new meal only lets you add new foods to a meal, not delete or change old ones. It turns out there's a great facility for doing that but it's hidden under the obscure "modify" button for the meal, above the area where I am adding foods to the meal.

So far, I have been able to do everything I wanted with the software, but I had a few frustrating moments trying to find the page that would let me do what I wanted. The help is pretty skimpy and of no help in those moments of frustration.

The food database in the free version of the software is the USDA one which means that you get "bread, whole wheat, commercially prepared" but not "Natural Ovens 100% Whole Grain." Also, I had to enter my Quizno's Turkey Ranch and Swiss sandwich as bread, meat, cheese, etc--taking a guess at how many slices of bread equals their small whole wheat roll. A larger database will have brand names. Nutridiary claims they have over 800 brands and 200 restaurants represented in their premium database of over 20,000 branded food items. Quizno's is listed, so that database will be both more convenient and more accuate for me. Not bad at $19.95 a year.

For the same $19.95, I also get rid of the ads (which are easily ignored banner ads, although some of them move in annoying ways) and more storage space for the customizable parts of the software.

Sometime soon, I'll try and review Fit Day.

I found the software I wanted to review, by the way, by doing a search on "diet" in del.icio.us. A search on "diet" on the open web is just scary--FREE Diets! FREE Diet Advice! order diet pills online !!! (The explanation points were on the search screen, not my addition).     #

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