NUT Nutrition Software

Thanks to the good graces of , I now have my very own web page. Isn't it hip.

I have written open-source free nutrition software, NUT, which records what you eat and analyzes your meals for nutrient levels in terms of the "Daily Value" or DV which is the standard for food labeling in the US. The program uses the free food composition database from the USDA. This free nutritional analysis software was written for Unix systems (I use Linux), but see below for a pre-compiled DOS version. By experimenting, you can find the optimal level of the various nutrients and how to implement this with foods available to you. NUT can help reconstruct the lost instruction manual to your care and feeding because, when the authorities and crackpots disagree on the proper human diet, you can design an experiment using the food composition tables to discover the truth!

Features of NUT include:

• 7519 foods and 140 nutrients--the complete, latest USDA database
• Foods easy to find and add to daily meals
• Configurable for 1-19 meals per day and any dietary plan--including low carb, zone, low fat
• Comprehensive meal analysis for any number of consecutive meals
• Presents both easy-to-read percentage summaries and in-depth nutrient analysis, including Omega-3 and Omega-6 essential fatty acids
• Defaults to ounces or grams based on user input
• Suggests foods based on current diet
• Can easily create additional databases for other family members
• Auto-transfer of successful dietary strategies from analysis screen to configuration settings
• Allows recording of recipes and customary meals for fast data entry
• Guesses recipes of packaged foods
• Creates graphs of nutrient intake showing daily and monthly trends
• Sorts foods richest in each of the 140 nutrients
• Reveals which foods contribute most to user's nutrition
• Runs on Linux, *nix, Windows (DOS); allows dual-boot PC systems to share the same data; and has no dependencies on other programs
• The price is right--it's free! And you can read and modify the source code.

Here are:

• the latest source code archive compressed with gzip: nut-13.7.tar.gz
• my opinions on how to improve your nutrition
• a frequently-asked question
• How I Use NUT
• Find the Optimum: It's Easy as 1, 2, 3!
• Find the Optimum: How NUT's Default Polyunsaturated Fat Reference Values Were Derived
• Find the Optimum: Which Fats?
• Find the Optimum: A Word about Insulin Resistance (Which Carbohydrates?)
• Find the Optimum: Notes on Vitamins and Minerals

Here is the pre-compiled DOS version of NUT. If you use your built-in WinZip to unzip the file, it may make a functioning desktop icon for you! The executable is called "NUT.EXE" and the first time it runs (in an MS-DOS or "Command Prompt" window), be patient while it creates the food database in the "NUTDB" subdirectory. Then browse the documentation in "NUT.HTM". The raw data is in the "NUTSR20" subdirectory and the source code is in the "src" subdirectory.

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