I have finally got around to downloading cron-o-meter.

My first entry was 250gms of cantaloupe melon - very nice. But i see that it has 1% saturated fat - now I always assumed that saturated fats were of animal origin or coconut.

Could some one shed some light on this for me please.

Also do you find cron-o-meter a useful tool? It seems quite straight forward which for me and computers is good and I like that you can set the target you want say - 80/10/10 (since that is somewhat topical at the moment )

Yeah there is a tiny amount of saturated fat in fruits and veg, nothing to be concerned about, just 0.1g in those 250g of cantaloupe. Plant saturated fats are fine, I think in some ways they're actually healthier, something like they can't be oxidized or something? I think even animal saturated fats have been a bit of a scapegoat for meat over the years when it's actually probably animal protein which is its main problem (China Study). (not to mention injected hormones, antibiotics, bioaccumulated pesticides, and who knows whatever else junk is in meat nowadays).

I think cronometer is invaluable for anyone first starting any new type of diet or way of eating. At least if they care about what nutrients they might not be getting. I used it for a few weeks to get a feel for 80/10/10 which was invaluable, but after a week or two you kinda get the hang of things and can stop using it. All that needs to be learned really is what the tolerable daily amounts of various overt fats look like. Overt fat = nuts, seeds, avo, coconut, durian, olives, oils (although oils are not recommended). Everything else is basically free game to eat as much as we care for. I don't care about protein at all, it takes care of itself, and so do carbs once we keep the fat in range.

The true number-crunchers might find cronometer fun to use constantly as sort of a food diary to look back on in the future, but I find that too much work to be worth it. I do still find myself referring to it fairly often to look stuff up, I find it handier than logging into a website.

I like how you can highlight multiple things at once and see the data for that set, for instance to examine one meal. And you can right-click that group and create a recipe out of it to be able to quickly add it all later, that's kind of cool. You can also add custom items to the database, something I'm not sure the online sites allow.

In addition to cals, protein, fat, and vita-minerals, a person can check out their amino acid intakes if they want to, or their ratios of omegas.

And it could be useful in trying to lose weight, in counting those cals to shoot for about a 500 calorie deficit each day, leading to a nice sustainable 1lb/week of fat loss. But I feel like calorie counting should never apply to 80/10/10 though. When eating a natural diet our weight naturally drifts towards perfect, the body becomes very good at letting us know exactly how much food it needs when it's not being starved for nutrients and confused with engineered crap like HFCS, aspartame, trans fats, MSG etc etc.

The only downside of these nutrient trackers is certain DRI's can be a little goofy which might confuse or obsess people. For instance I believe calcium and zinc recommendations are inflated to account for meat and wheat eaters respectively, sodium is way off (I believe 500mg of natural sodium from plants esp. celery and greens is about all we need), and Vitamin D and B12 we can go ahead and turn off tracking, they're just not gonna come from our diet according to cronometer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2009 09:57AM by rawpreston.

Thank you very much for that comprehensive answer. I believe you are right in your comments regarding saturated fats and meat - i have the China Study and found it a fascinating read.

Yes I will probably only use cron-o-meter for a while - it's fun to see that one fruit has more or less fat in it, when you would imagine it the otherway round i.e bananas and raspberries