Nutrition Assessment and Recipe Analysis Applications
Dietitians going into private practice often wonder which is the best nutrition assessment or
recipe analysis software that is available on the market. Unfortunately, the answer is, it depends.
You must consider a number of factors when choosing your ideal software platform, including
but not limited to features, compatibility, and cost. The first thing to do before shopping around
is to make a list of all of the requirements you are looking for in your nutrition tool. The
following examples provide some ideas and useful information.
PC vs MAC
Do you use an Apple or PC-based computer? Just about all of the programs are PC compatible,
but some of the programs are not compatible with Apple platforms.
Features/uses
Will you use the software to analyze overall dietary habits for a nutrition coaching client? Do
you want a user-friendly graphic interface that allows both the dietitian and client to use and
communicate via the service? Do you want clients to input their daily intake on their own, so
you can access and provide feedback on what they input? Will you need to analyze the exact
nutrient intake for patients with clinical conditions or deficiencies? Will you need to create and
standardize recipes? Are you responsible for making food labels?
Price
Setting a maximum price limit can help narrow down the options and will give you a realistic
idea of what kind of features you can purchase with your budget. Is it a flat fee cost, monthly, or
yearly? Standardize all prices (ie, make all prices yearly to get an equivalent view of cost).
Updates
Does the service/program offer and/or require periodic costs to update licenses or versions?
Customer service
Some programs offer limited customer service/support. Others charge for support after the first
year.
Warranties, satisfaction guarantee, and free trials
Most applications have free trials for you to test out the service. Take advantage of this, so you
know what you are getting!
What are you currently using?
This review contains a relatively comprehensive, but probably not exhaustive (there is always
something new) list of the nutrition assessment and recipe analysis programs on the market and
their features/costs, as reported by the companies’ Web sites. If you have particular experience
with one of these programs, please let us know or report your feelings on the RD411.com
Facebook page!
ESHA
http://www.esha.com
Genesis® R&D—product formulation and labeling software
Genesis R&D enables food technology professionals to automate both nutrient analysis and the
creation of a variety of labels. With one click, users can automatically generate a label,
complete with ingredient and allergen statements. Other label formats include supplement facts,
aggregate, dual declaration, and the new child label.
Genesis R&D features and benefits:
 Nutrient search
 User-added allergens
 Label-rounded spreadsheet
 Labels: United States, standard, tabular, dual declaration, aggregate, and more for all your
labeling needs (Canadian, Spanish, and bilingual label formats optional)
 Allergen statement and additional allergen statement
 Child label
 Supplement Facts panel with dual recommendation and proprietary blend options
 A meticulously researched database of more than 47,000 foods and food items, including raw
materials, chemicals, and food industry ingredients—users can add an unlimited number of
new foods and modify existing foods
 Trans fat data and label display option
 Automatic ingredient statements, allergen statements, and nutrient content claims
 Cost entry and calculations
 Yield adjustments
 Moisture and fat processing
 Customer service
 Meat and dairy product formulators
 Moisture and fat adjustments: Subtract or add water/fat, and view results on screen
immediately
 Yield tables: Enter food as purchased and obtain nutrient values for edible portion only
 Bar code generation
 An intuitive, user-friendly interface that uses the latest in ingredient search technology
 Automatic nutrient analysis for 160+ nutritional components, including food exchanges
Additional Genesis R&D details: http://download.esha.com/docs/gensqlslick.pdf
Cost: $4,999 as of October 2011 for one license; $999 per additional license
Food Processor® SQL—nutrition and fitness software
and FoodProdigy—online companion
The Food Processor SQL enables nutrition professionals to evaluate client dietary and fitness
needs, calculate nutrient recommendations, analyze nutrient intake, plan meals, develop
exercise programs, and present the data in a variety of formats.
FoodProdigy lets your clients conveniently and immediately document their diet intake and
activities from their personal computer, rather than relying on memory or keeping a journal by
hand.
Food Processor SQL and FoodProdigy features and benefits:
 Nutrient search: Search function for items high or low in a specific nutrient
 Precise nutrition and fitness planning: Automatic dietary intake and activity analysis, weight
management, and recipe and menu development
 Diet analysis and recipe planning: Instantly compare client dietary intake against
recommended nutrient standards, analyzing for 160+ nutritional components
 FoodProdigy, the online companion to Food Processor SQL
 Database of more than 35,000 foods, recipes, and exercises from a variety of sources, with
continuous updates as new information becomes available
 Ability to add an unlimited number of new foods to the database and modify existing database
foods
 Advanced client information tools: Features such as tracking medications, contact
information, allergies, etc
 Dietary intake organized by day and/or meal, with analyses done per unit (day or meal) or
averaged over a number of days
 Wide variety of printable and exportable reports, including spreadsheet reports, Nutrition
Facts panel with trans fat data, single nutrient report, and many others
 Exercise tracking based on metabolic equivalents (METS) and exercise information from the
American College of Sports Medicine (exercise database contains 654 individual activities)
 Sophisticated food search: Many new search options
 Fitness and weight management: Variable traits, including age, weight, height, gender, and
activity level to create the personal profile for which you specify standards—as
recommendations for weight gain or loss and special dietary needs are entered, calories and
calorie-dependent nutrients are quickly recalculated
 Customer service
 Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) guidelines
Additional Food Processor SQL and FoodProdigy details:
http://download.esha.com/docs/FPSQLpdf.pdf
Cost: $699 as of October 2011 for one license; $150 per additional license
Additional services (for added cost): Import/export utility, Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPPA) access control, ESHA database licensing
Evolution Nutrition®
www.evolutionnutrition.com/
Evolution Nutrition is designed for individuals and professionals, including athletic trainers,
personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, nutritionists, and registered dietitians
(RDs). Evolution Nutrition provides professionally guided nutrition design and planning for
clientele or patients, incorporating advanced physiology-based principles and practices.
Evolution Nutrition features and benefits:
 100% control over tracking, interpreting information, and providing meal plans for clients
 Systemized nutrition analysis and planning to dramatically improve work efficiency
 Nutrition planning based on the most advanced science in the market
 Tracking and analysis for a broad range of individualized data, from medical lab values to
detailed nutritional breakdowns
Cost: $59 per month for one RD and up to 5 clients ($708 per year); $4.40 per month for each
additional client, with discounts available for multiple RDs and clients signed up under the
same account (30-day free trial available)
Additional pricing details: http://www.evolutionnutrition.com/signup/full_signup
Nutrihand Pro
http://www.nutrihand-inc.com/
Nutrihand Pro can analyze menus and recipes, create meal and fitness plans in minutes, and
generate detailed reports on nutrition, physical activity, and medical information. You can
communicate securely with your clients and work with them over the Internet. This analysis
software is 100% HIPAA compliant and updated daily.
Nutrihand Pro features and benefits:
 Meal and fitness analysis and planners, with more than 1000 customizable meal-plan
templates, including nine caloric levels, six cuisines, and nine health conditions
 Recipe analysis and label creation with sharing capabilities
 Online and offline capabilities for your clients, including goal setting, progress monitoring,
and follow-up
 Secure communication in real time with your clients
 Software to enter and customize foods and exercises
 Database containing more than 150,000 foods, exercises, and plans
 Access to macronutrient and micronutrient reports, comparison analysis, medical reports, and
health assessments to create check points and measure progress
 Calculators for basal metabolic rate, body mass index (BMI), and caloric burnout, and manual
entry for measured resting metabolic rate (RMR)
 Ability to control macronutrients and micronutrients
 Plans customizable with your name and contact information
 Free customer support for you and your clients
 Database updated daily, including new information about the US Dept of Agriculture
(USDA), manufactured products, fast-food restaurants, recipes, ethnic foods, exercises, fitness
routines, and meal plans
 Algorithms for nutritional, fitness, and medical analysis
 Process and technology to connect consumers with professionals
 Cobranded infrastructure to give partners flexibility in choosing the right solution
 Security algorithms and procedures to protect data and minimize liability








Single sign-on technology to easily integrate with partners through existing infrastructure
Real-time reports and interfaces to use with third-party packages
Ability to upgrade/downgrade services transparently
Customization availability with partners
Ability to combine tools and Web services to quickly build unique applications
Support for wellness programs
Tutorials to make it easier to learn the software features
Technical support available
Cost: $95.40 per year
Nutritionist Pro™
http://www.nutritionistpro.com/
Nutritionist Pro Diet Analysis
Nutritionist Pro provides thorough nutrient analysis of diets, menus, and recipes. The new
intuitive design and powerful functionality of Nutritionist Pro will assist nutrition professionals
in any health care delivery, food service, or educational setting.
Nutritionist Pro features and benefits:
 Extensive database: Accurate, up-to-date food and nutrient data for complete analysis on more
than 35,000 foods and ingredients, including brand names, fast foods, ethnic foods, and
enteral products; Knowledge Database of more than 500 brands from more than 500 food
manufacturers, plus the ability to add an unlimited number of your own foods and recipes
 Client management: Customizable detailed information on an unlimited number of clients
 Diet analysis: Evaluation of diet recalls or food frequencies against specific nutrient
requirements
 Recipe analysis: Analysis of an unlimited number of recipes automatically, taking into
account nutrient losses and gains from cooking; database of more than 750 quantity and
consumer recipes from USDA, Communicating Food for Health newsletter, and Good
Housekeeping
 Menu analysis: Menu plans by meal, single day, or range of days, with comparison to nutrient
goals
 Reports: Numerous professional reports for clients, diets, menus, and recipes in various
formats, including CSV, PDF, RTF, etc
 Search: Available by name, category, nutrient value, food source, or any combination of
these, or by your preferred nutrient values for foods
 Preview nutrients: Nutrient values available while adding foods and ingredients to diets,
menus, and recipes
Cost: $595 plus $476 for each additional license; 15% discount available if purchased with
Food Labeling Module
Nutritionist Pro Food Labeling
The software database has up-to-date food and nutrient data for complete analysis on more than
35,000 foods and ingredients, including brand names, fast foods, ethnic foods, and specialty
ingredients.
Nutritionist Pro Food Labeling features and benefits:
 Custom label formats: 17 Nutrition Fact label formats meet US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) requirements, including options for bilingual Spanish and French
labels
 Formula/recipe analysis: Analysis of unlimited recipes while automatically taking into
account nutrient losses and gains from cooking, plus the ability to add an unlimited number
of new foods and modify existing foods
 Complete Nutrition Facts label information: Step-by-step guides for creating labels, allowing
you to add voluntary nutrients and the FDA standard reference weights
 Nutrient content claims: Automatically calculated FDA-defined nutrient content claims for
foods or recipes
 HACCP: Addition of HACCP into a recipe or formulation
 Ingredient declaration: Weight-ordered ingredient lists generated automatically
 Print or export labels: Available in a variety of industry-standard formats, including BMP,
EPS, GIF, PCX, TIF, JPG, and PDF
Cost: $595, plus $476 for each additional license; 15% discount available if purchased with
Food Labeling Module
Nutritionist Pro Knowledge Base
The Nutrition Knowledge Base is a subset of the proven knowledge base that is behind the
Nutritionist Pro nutrition analysis software. The Nutritionist Pro staff of RDs works
continuously on the food database to provide the most accurate nutrition information in the
industry. The flexible structure of the database allows for easy integration into any custom
software application.
Nutritionist Pro can help create custom student applications to bundle with various textbooks.
It also is used to build consumer Web sites that provide up-to-date nutrition data on more than
35,000 foods, as well as internal food service applications for recipe analysis and food label
creation. Large pharmaceutical companies, consumer diets and Web sites, publishing houses
for custom applications and textbooks, and exercise- and fitness-driven organizations use the
Nutritionist Pro Knowledge Base.
Nutrition Pro Knowledge Base features and benefits:
 Database of more than 35,000 foods, recipes, and ingredients
 Exclusive Asian Indian database, in addition to USDA, Canadian Nutrient File (CNF), and
others
 Preparation yields and nutrient retention factors that enable accurate recipe analysis
 Foods assigned diabetic exchanges using proprietary algorithms
 Each food item and recipe placed into a specific food category to ease food search (examples
of categories include Baked Product/Cookie, Meat/Beef, Poultry/Chicken, and Combination
Food/Dish/Poultry)
“Typical” portion and gram weight for each food, as well as a cup gram weight for volume
conversion
 More than 90 nutrients for each food, with calculations based on typical portions
 Eighty-nine standard sets of nutrient goals for a variety of ages and genders, including the
Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) and Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs)
 Daily Value (DV) goals as seen on Nutrition Facts labels, with each goal containing a set of
90 nutrient values for diet comparison or recipe analysis

NutriBase
http://www.nutribase.com/
NutriBase, released with the latest USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Release—version
SR23, is used to track and graph body fat percentages, as well as body weight. You also can
import recipes, physical fitness indexes, meals, and meal plans.
NutriBase features and benefits:
 Prelicensed, royalty-free client intake module CDs (created by you), which allows your clients
to install software on their computers, record their own intakes, and e-mail their results to you
 A powerful and flexible formatted report generator that allows you to control many aspects of
quality reports for your clients
 Harris-Benedict, Mifflin-St Jeor, estimated energy requirements (EER), or direct entry of
RMR from an indirect calorimeter to calculate or enter calorie expenditures for your clients
 Ability to compose your own food intakes and/or recipes
 Tracking of body chemistry data, personal information, and measurements for each client
 No annual subscription fees for continued technical support and updates beyond the 1st year
 Installation of NutriBase on up to three computers, as long as you are the sole user of the
software
Cost: $795–995, depending on features
PapayaHead
www.papayahead.com
PapayaHead is a recipe and meal planning software, particularly for dinner. Affiliate and
publisher opportunities are available for dietitians.
DINE Healthy 7
http://www.dinesystems.com/products.php
DINE Healthy 7 is a comprehensive dietary and exercise analysis software program designed to
help you plan your diet, improve your nutrition, lose or maintain weight, and achieve energy
balance. This comprehensive nutrition-analysis software program features advanced features for
home users and health professionals.
The underlying research conducted for DINE Healthy was extensively funded by the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute of
Digestive Disorders and Kidney Disease. DINE Healthy is endorsed by the American
Association for Health Education.
DINE Healthy 7 features and benefits:
 Exporting to PDF and Microsoft Excel
 Concept-based food search
 A quick, efficient food and activity look-up system
 A user expandable database of foods with generic, fast food, and brand names, including
USDA Standard Release 23
 Analyzes for 122 nutrients and food components, including fats, plant and animal protein,
added sugar, dietary fiber, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and more
 Analysis of more than 500 sports, leisure, and recreational activities, with calculations of the
calories burned
 Evaluation of food choices using the patented DINE® Scoring System with the USDA, Dietary
Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), or renal diet recommendations or your own
customized recommendations
 Weight tracker and energy tracker charts for weight loss management
 Creation of meal and diet plans with Food Explorer
 Storage of favorite foods by users, managed in folders according to use
 Food label entry for expanding the user food database
 Analysis and record of user recipes
 Ability to share user foods and recipes with the import feature
 Recommendations for healthy eating and exercise
 Context sensitive, searchable help system with optional pop-up help balloons
Cost: $65 flat fee, with additional products available (licenses, curriculum guide)
Nutritional Computing Concepts—professional recipe analysis
http://www.ncconcepts.com/
The Professional Recipe Analysis program is used in many cookbooks, including those
published by the American Diabetes Association, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly
the American Dietetic Association), American Heart Association, American Cancer Society,
and private companies.
Nutritional Computing Concepts features and benefits:
 Recipes organized in My Favorite Recipes, with ability to choose the cookbook name and
create an unlimited number of cookbooks
 Recipe Data Editor to enter all the information about a recipe
 Ingredients from the 30,000 foods in the food database



Ability to add your own foods to the database
Easy determination of the nutritional content of a serving of recipe
Automatic computation of the best exchange lists for meal planning for one serving of the
recipe
 Review of the nutritional content of the recipe ingredients and one serving of the recipe,
selecting the nutrients from the 145 included in the food database Recipe Nutritional Analysis
 Print the recipe in the format you need
 Create a word processor version file for your computer
Cost: $99.95 flat fee
The Nutrition Company—FoodWorks
http://www.nutritionco.com/FoodWorks.htm
FoodWorks contains more than 39,000 food references, including USDA Standard Reference
23, the Food and Nutrition Database for Dietary Studies, and the Canadian Nutrient File, plus
direct data from seven fast-food restaurants.
FoodWorks features and benefits:
 Database of foods, recipes, and ingredients, and ability to add your own
 113 nutrients and food components, with ability to use any or all nutrients in your analysis
 Unlimited database expansion, so you can add and manage as many new foods as you require
 Nutrient analysis of meals, recalls, recipes, menu cycles, and individual food items: Analysis
by day, meal, average of multiple days, average of meals on multiple days, and time of intake;
multiple-day nutrient averaging for up to 30 days in a single food list; and nutrient trend
tracking for up to 30 days in a single food list
 Four dietary standards: DRI (RDAs and Adequate Intakes), DVs, Canadian Recommended
Nutrient Intakes (RNI), and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World
Health Organization (FAO/WHO)
 Custom dietary standards: An unlimited number of customized dietary standards for clients
with special dietary or clinical needs
 Optional use of the adequate macronutrient distribution range values of the DRI
 Five basal metabolism formulas, including basal energy expenditure (BEE), Mifflin-St Jeor,
body surface area (BSA), FAO/WHO, and DRI energy values
 Comprehensive on-screen instructions, user manual, and context-sensitive help, including
detailed walk-throughs of FoodWorks’ functions and tasks
 Energy expenditure analysis for single or multiple days, including calories expended per
activity and percentage breakdown of total energy expenditure
 Weight management and BMI calculator
 Analysis quick reference: Continuously updated analysis results for seven nutrients of your
choosing
 On-screen display of all analysis results. including nutrients in each food, bar graph
comparing results with recommended nutrient intake, calorie distribution and fat breakdown
pie charts, carbohydrate counts, and much more
 QuickData: Instant nutrient values for any selected food item














FoodMate: A free companion program to FoodWorks, allowing your clients to create diet
recalls and then submit them to you for analysis
Internet-style, multiword food search with exclusion feature
Nutrient screen function to locate foods containing a specified level of a nutrient
Ability to share data for your added foods with colleagues who also use FoodWorks by simply
e-mailing them a FoodWorks project file
Nutrition Facts label maker (vertical and horizontal formats), including trans-fatty acids
Ability to import food/nutrient data from spreadsheets into the FoodWorks database
Ability to export user-added foods for use in spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel;
analysis results for use with word processors, spreadsheet software, and presentation software;
and Nutrition Facts labels, graphics, and menus to documents and presentations
Recipes: Recipes saved as food items in the database, so that you can use them in other
analyses and cycles; automatic adjustment of recipe analysis to reflect nutrient content of one
serving; calculation of recipe yield from approximate weight of a single serving; recipe
scaling to increase or decrease servings and/or portion size; ability to apply waste factors to
recipes to account for production loss; meal and recipe cost estimate calculator; ready to cutand-paste recipes created with FoodWorks for use in any word processor; utility to design and
use nutrient retention and shrinkage factors in recipe analysis; and serving size converter for
easy conversion from one household serving to another
Printouts: Large selection of attractive, colorful, easy-to-understand printouts, including
shopping list information and analysis critique printouts, where you can modify the printout to
include custom messages that say whatever you want in any language you want to help clients
improve intake and compliance with diet recommendations
Cycle menu management
Up to 15 meal tags for traditional meals, as well as nontraditional eating patterns, such as
athletes in training
Premature birth date adjustment calculator
Projects and client data saved in files for easy recall and sharing
Analysis tracking notepad: Storage of client notes, clinical data, tray card information, recipe
instructions, HACCP data, and other useful information
Cost: $199.95 for a single license; $49.95 for upgrades from previous versions
MenuCalc®—nutrition analysis for restaurants
http://www.menucalc.com/
MenuCalc is a fully online Web-based nutrition analysis software application that allows you to
easily and accurately calculate the nutrition content of your menu items. Simply create an
account and start creating your recipes to receive your nutrition results. The software is
designed and streamlined specifically for restaurants.
MenuCalc features and benefits:
 Web-based system, with no cumbersome software to install
 Instant nutritional results
 Ability to export your nutrition results




Recipe and analysis storage
Searchable ingredient database
Duplicate recipe feature
Nutrient comparison tool
Cost: $540 to $2500 per year, depending on number of new recipes per month
Free nutrition and fitness tracking, journal, and analysis services
NutritionData
http://nutritiondata.self.com/
Since its launch in 2003, NutritionData has grown into one of the most authoritative and useful
sources of nutritional analysis on the Web. In July 2006, NutritionData was acquired by
CondéNet, a digital publisher under the Condé Nast Publications umbrella dedicated to editorial
excellence. The continuing goal of NutritionData is to provide the most accurate and
comprehensive nutrition analysis available, and to make it accessible and understandable to all.
The information in the NutritionData database comes from the USDA’s National Nutrient
Database for Standard Reference and is supplemented by listings provided by restaurants and
food manufacturers. The source for each individual food item is listed in the footnotes of that
food’s Nutrition Facts page. In addition to food composition data, NutritionData also provides a
variety of proprietary tools to analyze and interpret that data. These interpretations represent
NutritionData’s opinion and are based on calculations derived from Daily Reference Values
(DRVs), Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs), published research, and recommendations of the
FDA.
While NutritionData cannot guarantee the absolute accuracy of every listing, every attempt
possible is made to ensure the quality of the data.
NutritionData features and benefits:
 BMI
 Food tracking
 Recipe analysis
 Food input
 Foods by nutrient
 Food comparisons
 Custom entry tool
 Nutrient search tool
 Caloric ratio search
 Nutritional target map
 Daily needs calculator
 Google toolbar
 Firefox plug-in and widgets
Additional information: http://nutritiondata.self.com/help/about#ixzz1a2EwM1Gh
FitDay™
http://www.fitday.com/
FitDay offers a free online diet journal to track foods, exercises, weight loss, and goals. More
than 5.1 million FitDay members use the site to take control of their diet and lose weight.
FitDay features and benefits:
 Completely free
 Tracking for foods, exercises, weight, and goals
 Calories, nutrition, weight loss information, and more
LIVESTRONGSM.COM
http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/
LIVESTRONG.com contains more than 625,000 foods and 1500 fitness items, allowing visitors
to track their caloric intake and burn, and achieve their goals. LIVESTRONG.COM is a diet
coach, nutritionist, and food planner at your fingertips.
LIVESTRONG.COM features and benefits:
 Calorie breakdown
 Calories over time
 Exercise breakdown
 Your own diary
 Real-time food tracking map
 Demo of new MyPlate features
Additional information: Gold option available for $45 per year (includes daily nutrition chart,
week at a glance, and set custom nutrition goals)
US Dept of Agriculture
MyPlate
www.ChooseMyPlate.gov
USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Assess Your Food Intake
Online dietary assessment provides information on diet quality, related nutrition messages, and
links to nutrient information. After providing a day’s worth of dietary information, users receive
an overall evaluation by comparing the amounts of food eaten to current nutritional guidance.
To better understanding diet over time, visitors can track what they eat for up to 1 year.
Assess Your Physical Activity
This physical activity assessment evaluates physical activity status and provides related energy
expenditure information and educational messages. After providing a day’s worth of physical
activity information, users receive an overall score for their physical activities, which looks at
the types and duration of each physical activity performed and then compares this score to the
physical activity recommendation for health. Scores are for several days or up to 1 year.
Nutrition Analysis Tool (NAT)
http://www.myfoodrecord.com/mainnat.html
NAT was provided as a public service by the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at
the University of Illinois. The tool is intended to empower individuals to select a nutrient-dense
diet. It is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or health professional.
The database used by NAT is composed of the USDA Handbook #8 and information from food
companies. Users should not take the data as an exact representation of the nutrient content of
their diet. The numbers used for analysis are averages, with great variance in nutrient content
for each food item in the database. The nutrient information also is not complete for every food
listed in NAT because of the still existing gaps in our knowledge of food composition.
Information compiled October 2011
Contributed by Jason Machowsky, MS, RD, CDN, CSCS
Review Date 12/11
G-1759