Use what you're paying for!

Yeah Uncle Sam is a little intense I know. I want to let my friends know about the wonderful tool we have available from the government. This is the USDA database at: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/.

This is a great tool that I use all the time. You can put in a food (ex. oatmeal) and choose from the list given. Then you select the portion and you get a very complete list of what's in the food (vitamin, fat, fiber...). No every food you can buy isn't listed but many foods are. I use this to help me decide what ingredients I want to use (ex. is there a big difference between stone rolled organic oats and old fashioned steel rolled oats).

And you can use it to search for foods rich in a certain nutrient (iron, calcium...). Did you know that clams are the food most nutrient dense in iron? This is a great resource, most nutrition analysis programs use this database. Your tax dollars pay for it might as well use it!