I like to know the nutritional information for the food I eat (unless it’s cake, in which case I tend to prefer to live in blissful ignorance!). This helps me to make healthy food choices and to try and ensure that my recipes aren’t too high in calories, fat, salt and sugar.
For all of the recipes on Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen I aim to include the estimated nutritional information. It’s important to note that whilst I make every effort to ensure this is as accurate as possible, the nutritional information may vary in the dish that you cook at home due to variations in the exact ingredients or quantities used.
What information is included
The information provided for each recipe can be broken down into three parts
- Nutritional information
- Percentage of daily reference value
- Contribution towards your five-a-day fruit and vegetables
Nutritional Information
Each recipe includes the following information
- Calories (kcal)
- Fat (g)
- Saturated Fat (g)
- Carbohydrates (g)
- Sugar (g)
- Fibre (g)
- Protein (g)
- Salt (g)
Percentage of daily reference value
Daily reference values (DRVs) are similar to the guideline daily amount which is a term you may be more familiar with. DRVs are often used by food manufacturers so they can simply display how the nutritional information for the food they sell contributes to the amount an average person should consume in a day. In reality, the amount that should be consumed each day varies by gender and age, as well as other factors such as weight, so these should only be used as a rough guide.
The daily reference values for an average adult are
- Calories – 2000 kcal
- Fat – 70g
- Saturated Fat – 20g
- Carbohydrates – 260g
- Sugar – 90g
- Fibre – 24g
- Protein – 50g
- Salt – 6g
Source – The Food and Drink Federation
How the Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information is calculated
I calculate the nutrition per serving by simply adding the nutritional information for each ingredient included in the recipe and dividing by the number of servings.
Similarly, for the five-a-day fruit and vegetables, I add the number of portions in each ingredient and divide by the number of servings. In order to ensure that the fruit and veg content is not overstated I alway round down which means that in many cases you’ll be getting even more fruit and vegetables than expected.
Where does the nutritional information for each ingredient come from?
Whenever possible, I use the actual nutritional information supplied on the packet for the ingredients I use. However, this isn’t alway possible (for example, fresh fruit and vegetables, alcohol, and herbs and spices). Where the information I need isn’t available on the packaging, I use one of two data sources..
- Tesco groceries – Nutritional information is often listed for each item on sale
- Wikipedia
Where I cannot find the data available in one of these two sources I will use any alternative source (I try and check it against more the one source if possible).
The contribution of each fruit and vegetable to your five-a-day is sourced from the NHS.
I keep a record of the source of all of my nutritional information data and how it is calculated for each recipe, If you require more information for a particular recipe then please contact me or let me know in the comments.
