How to Track Nutritional Content

The nutritional content of a meal or any food item is the breakdown of nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food. Anyone who is on a diet often keeps track of caloric content, but a healthy diet requires not only calorie counting, but also keeping track of the nutritional content of the foods you eat. Fortunately, most foods are labeled to help make keeping track of nutrition easier.

Instructions

• 1

  Open a journal. Write down the parts of nutrition, such as "carbohydrates" or "proteins." Leave three to four lines between the different parts of nutrition.

• 2

  Look at the label of any food you eat. The label gives the nutritional breakdown and data, which is usually listed as grams.

• 3

  Read the serving size. This will tell you how much you should eat at a time. For example, if it says 2.5 servings and you ate half of the food item, you've eaten 1.25 servings. You would calculate the amount of grams for the parts of nutrition by first putting the full amount listed on the label, such as 20 grams of carbohydrates. Divide that number by 4 to get 5 grams and then add the 20 and 5 for a total of 25 carbohydrates. Repeat for the next nutritional fact.

• 4

  Write down the number of grams you are eating of each nutritional area for every item you eat.

• 5

  Add the total number of grams per nutritional area at the end of the day.