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I understand that ‘real’ food sides have nutritional information for each and every thing they post. I’m here to state, formally and for the record, this ain’t that kinda site… Now, if I did this full time, and the readers wanted or demanded it, I’d do it, but so far, it ain’t happenin’.

Truth be told, we, nor the vast majority of folks we know, calculate the nutritional value of every meal. In fact, we do it very rarely. I understand that more folks are getting interested in the concept, and that’s good. Personally, I advocate recipe analysis more for taste and enjoyment than anything else… That said, we do pay strict attention to what we grow, buy, use and enjoy and so should you; that is why this blog is here!

Now, if your health or predilection lead you to the need for in depth nutritional analysis of everything you eat, you should without fail do so! In that light, there are recipes and ingredients in here that might not be the best thing for you. Our savvy members will email, post an IM, etc, and ask about alternatives to something posted, or request a custom recipe excluding the things they don’t want / can’t have, and we’re always happy to fill those requests, but what about the silent majority?

Fear not, we gotcha covered… First off, I researched nutritional calculators for the iphone, hoping for a useful, portable app, but alas, I found mostly crap and much that falls short of the goal. I did, however, find an worthwhile online version that seems to work well. You’ll now find a link to Calorie Count’s recipe nutrition analyzer herein. I chose this because it works well, is simple and fast, and gives accurate results, (As best I can tell.)

The coolest attribute of the site is that you can copy and paste recipes from here right into the calculator, and then with minimal editing, get useful results. If and when it does not recognize something, it will note such and offer interpretations that seem to be spot on. For example, I tested the Southwest Pepper Steak recipe, and found that it did not understand Hatch chiles as I’d written it, but offered a drop down to clarify, from which I chose fresh hatch chiles and off we went.

You can quickly, (and endlessly) edit/tweak the recipe once its analyzed, to see what substitutions will do for you, etc. It is, I must say, very handy for sniffing out where bad stuff like saturated fat, cholesterol, etc lie within a recipe, (Which is not always as obvious as we might think!) It’s actually kinda fun to play with!

Give it a try yourself and let us know what you think. And if you know of, use, or find something better, let us know about that, too!