Food Explorer In-Depth

Explorer View

Food Diary’s Food Explorer gives you many options in creating your meals.  In the Explorer View tab you will see many different categories.  At the right of the food categories you will see a tree structure that you can select foods from for your meal.  When items are selected from the meal tree the fields populate in the Food Item Selected tab.  When you select the measure amount and then change the Serving value the proper fields will be recalculated.

 Sorted – Searchable View

Food Diary also has a Sorted – Searchable tab to help you find foods.  When this tab is selected you can manually search for the foods you want, by selecting a category on the left, and then finding the food item on the right.  You can also use the Search Foods option just below the category list.  Enter the words of a food you want to search for in the search text field.  You can have Food Diary search anywhere in the food text string or the words the food might begin with.  This can come in handy for those items you want to find, but can’t remember the name or the category it is associated with.  Once you find the item you are searching for, select it and the Food Item Selected tab fields will populate.  You can change the measure amount as well as the serving size of your meal.  When you change these amounts the associated fields will recalculate. 

Clicking on the Add New Custom Food button brings up the dialog to the left, except all the fields will be blank.  If you are highlighting a Custom food and click on this button you will get the populated dialog you see to the left.  This dialog allows you to add or edit custom foods that you don’t find in the lists already provided in the Food Diary database.  All you have to do to edit in this dialog is to click in a field and change the numbers or text. 

To create a new food item you place the cursor in each field and insert the proper values.  These values can be found on most package labels.  After clicking on Apply, Food Diary will take this information and place it in the food database.

Clicking on the Show Complete Nutrients button will bring up the dialog to the bottom.  This shows an expanded list of values from the numbers you have entered above.  You may edit any of the numbers in this list by double clicking on that number.  Clicking on Hide Complete Nutrients will close the expanded list.

Back at the Explorer View, Searchable View you can press on the Show Entire Meals’ Values button.  This will show you the complete nutrients for the meal you have selected.  Food Diary calculates these values for you.  With this information you can see specific areas where you might want to adjust your diet.  Maybe you are in taking to much Calcium, or maybe not enough.  By seeing the values here you can make changes as needed in your meals.

The Close button will close this display. 

Pressing the Print button will print this information to your Windows default printer.  It will be printed in the same format you see it on the screen.  You will first see the Print Preview screen to the left, letting you view what is going to print, and then you can hit the printer icon button to print the document.  You may also zoom and scroll the print preview to make sure everything will print correct.  The Close button will close the dialog without printing.

Selecting the Graph Daily Values option will take your meal and graph it for you.  You will be able to visualize the numbers you are seeing.  In this screen you can manipulate the graph in several different ways with the tools at the top.  The options at the top perform the following:

Those options are:

• Normal – This will take you back to normal view of the graph if you have changed it.

• Rotate – You can click on and drag the graph with the mouse to rotate the graph.

• Move – This lets you move the graph to a different position.

• Zoom – This will let you zoom in closer or out depending on the direction you drag the mouse.  You might think of this as re-sizing.

• Depth – You can drag to shrink or broaden the depth of the chart.

• 3D – Lets you toggle between 3D and 2D.

• Edit – You can edit several aspects of the graph design.

• Print – You can print the graph using your Windows default printer definition.

• Copy – Copy the graph to the clipboard so you can insert it into another program.

• Save – This option lets you save the graph to a file to be imported into another program.

• Close  button – Will close the Daily Graph screen.

The last editing option you have in the Add Foods To Your Meal tab is Delete Foods/Measures button.  When you click on this button the dialog to the left will open.  Un-checking any item in the list, and then clicking on the Close button, will remove them from the meal database list.  If you have deleted items from this list, and want to put them back in the list, you can check the option Show Deleted Foods.  This will show deleted items un-checked and you can check the box and click on Close.  This will add them back to the meal database list.

If you un-check the item for Show only custom foods the screen to the left will appear.  You will now see a list of all the food items in the food database list.  Un-checking any item in the list and then clicking on Close will remove items from the food database list.  You may want to pair down the list of foods you have to choose from.  This is how you can do this.  Remember that you can go back into this screen and add food items you might have deleted, and want to add back to your list.

 Manage Entire Meal 

After you have created meals for the day you can edit them, and see how they are working for you.  Above we went through the Add foods to Your Meal tab.  Now we will go through the Manage Entire Meal tab.  This screen helps you analyze your meal and make sure it is what you want to eat.

The first thing you will notice on this tab is a graph of your Proteins, Fats, and Carbohydrates.  This graph display will depend on the Chart Type you have selected.  If you select the Entire Meal radio button the pie chart will display your whole meal percentages.  If you select the Food Selection radio button you will see the values for the food item you have selected.   With this radio button selected you can also use the mouse to select each food item.  Food Diary will change the pie chart view dynamically.  Note: if you don’t select a food item in the list, the pie chart won’t be able to display anything. 

Using the Copy Recent Foods button allows you to create, and edit a meal from items you have used in the past.  We all know we are creatures of habit, and eat the same food items we like often for our meals.  We also like to use those foods that work for our body type and makeup.  All you need to do is select a food item and click on the Copy button.  When Copy is pressed the item or items selected will be added in the Meal tab. 

You can select multiple items by clicking and dragging down or up with the mouse.  You can also use the Shift or Ctrl keys to use the Windows standard options for selecting multiple items.  You are also able to choose from meals of other users you may have set up.  This can come in handy if someone tells you that a meal they had was really good and you should try it.  Select that user and you will see their meals.

Back at the Manage Entire Meal tab there is a button for Save As Recipe.  Clicking on this button brings up the dialog to the left.  Type the name you want for this Recipe and click on Save Recipe.  You will receive a message telling you the recipe was saved and you will be taken back to the Manage Entire Meal tab.

You can also delete recipes from this screen.  Select the item from the list, and click on the Delete Recipe button.  You will get a confirmation message requiring a Yes or No response.  Yes will remove the item, and No will cancel the operation.

The Load Recipe button will allow you to create meals from your saved recipes.  Click on the button and the dialog to the left will load.  You can select a recipe from the list, and click on the Load Recipe button.  This will add your saved recipe to your meal in the Manage Entire Meal tab.  Close will close this screen without adding a recipe to your meal.  You can create your meals really fast using saved recipes.