About Calorie-Count.com
Part of About.com and The New York Times Company, Calorie-Count.com (as the name implies) offers calorie and nutritional information for common foods. These include a variety of categories, including:
- Fruits and Vegetables
- Meats and Proteins
- Snacks
- Cereals, Pasta, and Baked Goods
- Fast Foods
- Entrees and meals
- Beverages and Condiments
- Specific Name Brand Products
You can either browse the headings or use the calorie count search tool to find the food or beverage you're looking for.
Activity Browser
The Activity Browser, often referred to as a calorie counter, on the site provides a list of common activities and how many calories each activity burns per hour, including necessary daily activities, recreation, and occupational tasks. These cover a wide range, from bathing, carrying groceries upstairs, and cleaning carpets to painting, standing in church, or playing the cello.
Of course, the activities which are often thought of first when burning calories are included as well. The calories burned from exercise and highly active categories such as the following are also shown:
- Sports
- Running
- Bicycling
- Walking
- Swimming
- Aerobics
Recipes
Another feature of Calorie-count.com is their recipe collection. The member-submitted recipes are grouped according to type of food, listed by popularity, or available via the recipe search feature. Each recipe provides nutritional information, including the number of calories per serving.Each recipe also features a nutritional analysis that gives the recipe a "grade" and points out the pros and cons, such as low in fat or high in sugar. If you want to know the caloric content and nutritional values of a recipe without submitting it to the site, Calorie-Count.com also offers an innovative recipe analysis tool that provides this information for several homemade recipes and dishes.
For those who love doing their own cooking and baking, the recipe center and recipe analysis tools are extremely helpful.
Additional Resources
Along with the calories counts for various foods and beverages, the activity calorie burning charts, and the recipe sections, Calorie-Count.com also offers other weight loss resources. These include forums, a library of health, diet, and weight loss articles, links to additional health sites on About.com, and a substantial FAQs page.
Although the resources are free, they ask you to complete a free registration. You can view the calorie counters and other resources without registering, but you cannot post to the forums or submit recipes.
Navigating the Site
The site is easy to navigate for the most part, including pertinent headings and recent and popular searches. They also include an interactive demo that shows you how to incorporate Calorie-Count.com into your weight loss program.
Improving the Site
A fairly new site, Calorie-count.com offers its audience a chance to improve the growing site by submitting features they think would be beneficial or would like to use themselves. The ideas that are already planned or in the process of being integrated into the site are tagged under a "To-do" list, while others remain on the suggestion list.
While Calorie-Count.com does appear to offer a number of good resources, it's important to note that the information on the forums can be posted by anyone, and therefore should not be taken as the last word on weight loss. Nor are there any bylines or experts associated with the articles on the site's Library. And, while it is assumed that the site is authored by professionals, this may be of a concern to those interested in obtaining accurate and trustworthy weight loss information.
