Why it's important
The USDA uses a standard 100-gram portion size for calculating nutrition to ensure consistency and ease of comparison across different foods. Since foods come in varying sizes and serving portions, this universal baseline allows consumers, dietitians, and researchers to accurately compare nutrient content, such as calories, vitamins, and minerals. It simplifies nutrition labeling and helps identify nutrient-dense or low-nutrient foods more effectively. This standardization promotes informed dietary choices and aids in meeting daily nutritional needs
How to use it
It all begins with the product packaging information of the ingredients. Each ingredient must include Pack Size details so reciProfity understands how it is purchased. Since the USDA standardizes nutrient data into 100-gram portions, the ingredient must provide weight in the Pack Size or at least one volume-to-weight conversion. The weight information does not need to be specified in grams because reciProfity will calculate the nutrient data in grams based on the ingredient's volume-to-weight conversion.
This article, we will focus on pre-made sandwiches. The sandwich has a label with nutrition information. You must enter the nutritional information in reciProfity's Custom Nutrition section (click the Main Menu/ Optimizer/ Custom Nutrition)
The data must be entered in 100-gram portions, as a custom nutrition code.
How to convert the nutrition facts to 100-grams portions.
** The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate how to convert nutrition facts into 100-gram portions and to ensure that the output of the serving recipe can be trusted.
** In the example below, I created an ingredient called "BLT Sandwich." I utilized the nutrition facts from the packaging to calculate the 100-gram portions in a custom nutrition code in reciProfity.
** Subsequently, I created a serving recipe that included only the BLT Sandwich as the ingredient and the nutrient facts label matched the original input, confirming that the calculations are correct.
The left panel of the image below shows the nutrition information from the BLT Sandwich wrapping, which provides details for 140-gram serving. Since reciProfity requires the information to be in a 100-gram portion, we will perform some basic calculations to convert the 140-gram serving into a 100-gram portion.
This is a simple mathematical calculation such as Calories, 447, divided by the serving size, 140g, which returns the calories per 1g, then multiplied by 100. Now, let's put that into practice.
Let's begin with the calories: 447 calories / 140 g * 100 = 319.28 calories.
For sodium: 1108 mg / 140 g * 100 = 791.43 mg.
For carbohydrates: 27 g / 140 g * 100 = 19.28 g, and so on.
The middle panel of the image below displays the completed 100-gram Custom Nutrition data created in reciProfity, while the right panel is the nutrition label from reciProfity's serving recipe for a BLT Sandwich using the Custom Nutrition code. The output from reciProfity's serving recipe matches the data shown on the Nutrition Facts of the packaging label, confirming the calculations are correct.
Open the BLT Sandwich ingredient in Edit mode, then scroll to the Nutrient Codes field in the left sidebar. Start typing the name of the Custom Nutrition code, such as "BLT Sandwich."
The custom nutrient codes are identified with a green banner, while the USDA codes are marked with an orange banner.