January 8, 2009 - 4:11pm
Nutritional Facts Question
Can a home baker work up their own Nutritonal Fact Sheet for a given bread formula by taking the information available on the ' Nutrition Facts ' panel that is included with each ingredient? Or does this information change with fermentation and baking.
It would be great to consider this info as part of the larger picture when deciding whether enriching a loaf with something like Soy Flour or Powdered Milk, etc is a good choice. Especially when such additions may effect the enjoyment of the Bread.
thx! Dave
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I've done that with lots of recipes, not just bread but cakes and cookies and pastries. It's a bit tedious, but it can be done.
There's probably a small loss of some nutritional components, but not much. The method you suggest (adding the nutritional content of the ingredients) is essentially what the pros do, especially pros who can't afford independent lab testing.
At one point in my past, I was a programmer for a company that made nutritional analysis software for the health care industry. The software allowed hospital dieticians work up custom meal plans for patients to meet their specific nutritional needs. It computed nutrient information exactly as above. Only instead of using the "nutrition facts" panel on each ingredient, it used the equivalent information from the USDA tables, which usually have more information.
I was hoping that was the case ... that a little bit of crunching numbers would get me close enough. An independent Lab test was just not on my list. :) Thx Paddy and blaisepascal.
Dave
The calculator is pretty amazing. The nutritional info is much more indepth then the panels on the flour bags. It will make the math a whole lot easier as well. Thx for the link gaaarp!
Dave
Dave, there are numerous sites online where you can enter the ingredients and the number of servings, and it will give you the nutrition information. Here's one I just found by Googling: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp. I did a simple recipe, and it seemed to work well.