Training & Nutrition - Meal Plans

I've tried to get into the whole nutrition thing, but I'm horribly inept. I know I need vitamins and carbohydrates and protien and stuff, but the grocery store doesn't sell that. They sell spaghetti and chicken and milk and stuff. Some of the nutrition books have "meal plans" and recipes, and THIS I can handle. Does anybody know where I can find these?

The mealsforyou.com site (no affiliation, just looks interesting) has recipes broken down by nutritional information. That looks nifty too. Anyone else have good resources for meal plan sort of info? I heard somewhere about an "online dietician" who would email you your grocery lists and meals for the week. That would be nifty...might not be as good as a personal dietician but much cheaper, and the poor dietician can do it from her chair.


(Sorry Koffee...I'm not registered this semester so I can't ask UT's dietician.)

Oh, one more thing -- is it naive to expect to be able to add up all the nutritional values for all the precooked ingredients and expect to get the same result after cooking? Flour, eggs, butter, etc.? (Are the elements of this set closed under the operation "add fire"?)

Oh, one more thing -- is it naive to expect to be able to add up all the nutritional values for all the precooked ingredients and expect to get the same result after cooking? Flour, eggs, butter, etc.? (Are the elements of this set closed under the operation "add fire"?)

Most nutritional databases will have separate entries for cooked and raw foods. Some nutrient values will change in the process, the addition of heat breaks stuff down and the addition of water carries it away, etc. The USDA nutrient database is at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/, or you can use the free log at fitday.com which references that database.

You sound like the kind of analytical person that might enjoy learning how all this nutrition stuff works together and what the real nitty-gritty of "healthy" food is. If so, I highly recommend Eating Well for Optimal Health by Dr. Andrew Weil. As a bonus, he has several recipes, and huge lists of sample balanced meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack, both home prepared and examples of things you can find at restaurants.

Awesome! I'm headed to the bookstore today, so I'll check on the book. Thanks for the pointer to the database too. Apparently meals.com does a reasonable nutrition breakdown for their stuff and lets you generate a shopping list. Now if I can just get it to quit putting "tea" in my list (it's run by Nestle, so it's all about some nestea...)