Nutrition data available from Whisk
The following nutritional data is available within the Whisk system:
- Nutritional summary (top nutritional scores and daily value percentages
- Nutritional detail (full list of macro- and micro-nutrients and daily value percentages)
- Glycemic index and Glycemic load (The Glycemic Index (GI) measures how carbohydrates affect your blood glucose levels)
- Health Score (Proprietary score calculated on a 1-10 scale based on nutrient density and USDA recommendations for a healthy diet. A higher Health Score means healthier food. The value is based on the impact of macronutrients and micronutrients in the recipe)
How do we calculate nutrition?
To calculate nutrition for recipes Whisk first normalizes ingredient quantities to grams. For example:
- 1 apple = 182g (source USDA)
- 1 cup of flour = 125 g (we calculate this by defining the volume of a cup and the density of the specific ingredient)
- mustard = we normalize ingredients without quantities with default value depending on ingredient - in this case, it’s 1 tbsp (which has a gram equivalent in our system)
- custom measures such as pack, sachet, etc are normalized with the average weight of products available in supermarkets.
After normalization, we calculate the nutrition of a recipe by multiplying the quantity of ingredients with predefined nutrition values (per 100 g).
All calculations are based on precooked nutrition values of raw materials. We don’t currently calculate the loss of nutrients based on cooking techniques because it's difficult to predict what cooking technique the user will use and how exactly the meal will be prepared. In cases when ingredients are already prepared (for example canned products), we use nutrition values defined for heat-treated ingredients.
Our ontology and nutrition data
Our food ontology contains tens of thousands of ingredients with nutrition data linked from the following primary sources:
- USDA
- Danish food composition
- Finelli
- EFSA
The list of macronutrients and micronutrients that we are calculate for every recipe are as follows:
Energy, Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat, Monounsaturated Fat, Polyunsaturated Fat, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Sugars, Proteins, Cholesterol, Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Iron, Zinc, Phosphorus, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Thiamin (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), Vitamin B6, Folic Acid (B9), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin K.
Do you have additional questions? Feel free to contact us. We're happy to help.