I have received several requests for nutritional content of my recipes. For over 2 years I searched for a gluten free recipe calculator online, but couldn’t find one. I would love to do nothing more than provide them for each of my recipes, but between recipe development, consulting, website design and blogging, I just cannot seem to find the time. I do, however, have a solution for all of you. Below I provide a way to find your own nutritional values for any recipe and how make your own nutritional labels in label or image form. I hope this is a good substitute for everyone.
A few months ago I stumbled upon a website, Spark People. They have a recipe calculator in which you may add your own ingredients to recipes you add to your own personal recipe box. You have the option to share with others if it is your own recipe, or you may save it and keep in hidden from others. Registration is required. You may sign up here.
They have a database that contains ingredients and nutritional information which others have uploaded, but you may add your own. I have added a few ingredients such as xanthan gum, potato starch, tapioca starch, etc. I used Bob’s Red Mill brand for most of the ingredients that I added to their database.
I hope this helps those that like to keep track of their daily intakes of carbs, fat, sodium, etc.
How to Create An Electronic Nutritional Facts Image
If you’re a small manufacturer, gluten-free blogger, or even a vegan or vegetarian blogger, you may also find this useful, as we often use ingredients that often not included in most nutritional calculators. Below I provide instructions on how to create images for your websites.
- Either create a table in MS Word or email me requesting the MS Word document template that I have created.
- Once you have used the SparksPeople nutrition calculator for a recipe, edit the label to fit your recipe.
- Take a screenshot of the MS Word document. Make sure your cursor is well below the label. All computers are different on how to take screenshots. I have a Dell Vostro 1510. What I do is to hold down the Function (Fn) key and F11 (Prnt Scrn).
- Open a new Word document.
- Under Layout, set your paper size to Legal and Landscape.
- Paste your screenshot into that document.
- Crop the image. In MS Word 2007, you so by clicking on the image. Above the toolbar, at the top of the program, a Picture Tools tab will appear. Under it, click on Format. Then on the top right, click on Crop. Then drag one of the top corners down to crop your photo; and then one of the bottom corners to finalize the cropping.
- Save the document as a Web Page (not a Single Web Page). A folder with 4 files will be created. One of the files will be a .jpg file “image0002″. Another will a .png file, “image0001″.
- Resize the image if necessary. I use Photoshop Elements for this task. Upload it your website or use it as you see fit.
If you desire to add them to a packages, there is no need to do the above. All you have to do is copy the original Word document content into a label document within Word and print.
