Today's interest, running at about ten hours, is how well my diet meets the US RDA guidelines for essential nutrients. Since I'm flat broke at the moment and not eating as well as I might otherwise be (fresh vegetables? What are those?), I'm a little worried that I'm not getting everything I need.

I've heard time and time again that the average American really doesn't have any nutritional deficiencies that need to be addressed in pill form, and I've spent enough time on Wikipedia to know that too much of a given nutrient is often as bad as too little. As such, I decided this morning that the best thing to do would be to keep track of what I eat and compare my nutrient intake with the recommendations. This conveniently allows me to indulge one of my ongoing passions, Useless Spreadsheets, and to put my passion to slightly better use than calculating how many days remain until I overtake my rival in Cafe World. Did I mention that I'm incredibly boring? Oh yes.

Anywhoo, I actually don't seem to be doing too badly, based upon one whole day of data. Out of 11 minerals and 13 vitamins, I only came in under 90% of the RDA on 9. Not great, but nowhere near as terrible as I was expecting. I was also only 8.7% over my recommended 2053 kcal (*way* better than I was expecting!) and way under the daily max on cholesterol and sodium. My mum will be thrilled to learn that I got a whopping 209.75% of the recommended 400 µg of folate, something I've considered supplementing in the past due to its importance in preventing neural tube defects in fetuses. Not that I'm trying to get pregnant, but it's most important in the first few weeks of pregnancy, and I'd rather keep my intake where it should be in case of an accident than find out too late, yennow?

Ideally, I'll keep track of everything for a week, then average the daily results. Laziness has a way of creeping in, though, so we shall see.

Interactive DRI calculator (used to determine RDA by age/gender/weight/level of activity):
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/interactiveDRI/

Online National Nutrient Database (used to determine nutritional content of foods):
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/