I’ve had a lot of people contact me over the last week. Old readers. New readers. People trying to lose weight. People that have lost weight. Media. Advertisers. Business owners. Oprah (no, not really).
One business owner in particular was Dean of PapayaHead.com. Dean started PapayaHead late last year to help those trying to eat healthy (or those with allergies). With the site you can create recipes from scratch, save and share those recipes with others (or yourself), and even compose printable shopping lists on the fly to take with you to the grocery store.
PapayaHead really shines with the information that it provides about food. I signed up for free and briefly filled out a profile — I listed what foods I like and dislike. If I were allergic to a food, I would list it here and the program would warn me if I added a recipe that contained such an item.
Once my profile was created, I added a recipe to calculate the calories that I consumed last night with my homemade enchiladas — PapayaHead was right on the money. Not only did it tell me about the calories, protein, carbs, and fat I consumed, but it also gave me a myriad of information like if the enchiladas were heart healthy, high in fiber, low in sugar, low in sodium, etc.
It provides tons of information in a quick, easy to read summary:
(My enchiladas were heart healthy and free of sugar)
The nutrition meter you see on the right is a fast, numerical way to see whether or not what I’m eating is generally healthy. The higher the number, the better, with meals ranked over 75 considered “healthy.”
I’ve been asked a lot recently if I pay attention to other items on a nutritional label — the answer is yes. While counting calories are the key to losing weight, I still watch the amount of sodium, sugar, fiber, and protein I consume on a daily basis. In my uneducated, humble opinion, here are the cliff notes why:
Sodium — leads directly to high blood pressure
Sugar — gives me that temporary energy, then crash
Fiber — a lack of fiber provides less than favorable experiences
Protein — building blocks of big, strong muscles
There are a lot of tools and services out there to help track this information. While that might be the case, we also didn’t help mold them. Dean, the CEO of PapayaHead, Inc. has agreed to read (and respond) to your suggestions and criticisms below. Try PapayaHead (it’s free, doesn’t cost a dime) and then let him know what you like, what you don’t like, and what will keep you using it.
Oh, and by the way — tomorrow is weigh-in number 51. This might be too much information, but an excess of fiber leads to good numbers on the scale.
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
David likes!! It would be nice to see a list of members and maybe their respective recipes. It could also show how many recipes each member submitted on the list and you could see maybe stats about their profil such as age, location (state), amount of recipes submitted, average prep time, likes, dislikes, etc.
GREAT SITE!!!
I like it too. I’m starting to add sponsors to the site and they are one of my first (only out of a few) — it’s a great service that I can definitely support.
David – great ideas. I want to be a little bit careful, not everyone wants their info displayed, but we could make it optional….
Definetly on our list of things to work on.
Thanks!
I like this to, I was a little confused about how to make an account but I see where to do it now.
Yeah, it took me a few seconds to find it as well, but once I saw it I went “OH!”
Website design is freakin hard! But it’s fun too..
Glad you found it. We’ll have to think about what we can do to make it easier.
Thanks!
This seems really great, once I get some recipes in I can start creating weekly meal plans.
It would be awesome to be able to click Vegan in the profile section to automatically eliminate dairy, meat, eggs, and seafood. In addition, I would like to be able to check off Milk and Butter Alternatives, like Soy or Almond Milk and Vegan Margarine in the sections of food that I like.
I definitely agree — that’d make it much more convenient. Good suggestions, Tom.
Adding those items to the Profile is pretty easy. We’ll do it! We are working now to redesign the Profile section so you can set it up for all household members. We’ll roll your ideas into that release (hopefully coming soon!)
I tried to put my zip code in but since i’m in Canada it won’t accept it :(
sorry about that…we should be able to make that change today.
Thanks!
This is updated now. Thanks for the feedback.
I am so impressed by your story. I lost over 100 lbs 7 years ago and have struggled with so many of the issue that you have talked about. This year I made a serious commitment to get rid of the rest and tone up. Your blog is going to be helpful. Thanks and GREAT JOB!
Hi Amy! I wish you well — good luck on your commitment. I hope you keep commenting, I love the feedback. Keep me updated with your progress.
Hey Tyler,
What do you mean Oprah didnt call you? Surely her people are slacking, some one could loose their job for this you know! (hahah)
Your calorie calculator reminded me of Lance Armstrong’s http://www.livestrong.com, Daily Plate. Using his website you can enter what you ate and it too will calculate calories and nutrition for you. Additionally, you can enter what Physical Activity you conducted and it will subtract your lost calories from your consumed calories. You can also join challenges and Dares. (to run a marathon, to stop smoking etc).
My point is, between papayahead, Lance, and countless others, there are too many resources to help people be healthier. People, there is no excuse anymore.
Absolutely — no excuses with all the FREE tools, services, and information out there.
And I think Oprah lost my number.
I like the look of this. I’ll give it a go.
Wow! Thank you Tyler for the kind comments. It is great to participate in this community, with people who recognize that “Eating Well” can be enjoyable and fun. I look forward to hearing more of your feedback and ideas – I’ll respond to every single one.
Glad to see you here, Dean!
Papayas are gross. What a shame, the only fruit I hate.
We almost went with MangoHead….bummer you don’t lke Papayas. I hope that doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the site!
Look really promising! Cooking can be a pain in the butt for the calorie conscious (so many ingredients, so many numbers!) but this website makes it easy. The UI is a little hard to navigate, but good things come to those who wait.
Anything in particular you found hard? We are constantly tweaking to try to make it as easy as possible…
I LOVE your blog. I love your comments on my blog, too. Great before and after pictures as well, but I think I’ve already told you that :)
How do you imput foods not found in the search engine?
right now, we put them in so we can ensure the accuracy of the nutrition data. What do you want? Send it to me and we’ll get it entered.
admin@papayahead.com
Thanks!
the recommended daily value of fiber is around 25g per day if i’m not mistaken. what are you averaging? also, how “regular” are you… have you become more regular since the weight loss?
I’ve actually had a deficiency in fiber and it’s made for a few uncomfortable weeks at time. I’m eating Raisin Bran right now for breakfast a lot of mornings (with like 35% of your daily fiber in a single cup), so it’s getting better.
Looks like a useful site! First suggestion would be a reference for what you define as “not active”, “moderately active”, and “active” on the profile page. What I consider moderately active, another might consider active. This has a huge impact on calorie requirements.
I’ll post anything else I think of as I play around more!
OK. That’s easy, we’ll ad that info tomorrow (Wednesday). I’d do it now, but I’m not a developer – so I’ll have to wait for them to wake up. Good idea!
Thanks
FYI – these definitions are in place now. Thanks for the suggestion!
Definitely gonna check it out! Seems like a great resource!
Congrats to Dean for coming up with such a great site. It’s actually very easy to navigate, so I found it odd some people were making comments stating they had some difficulty. I joined last night and it seems I’m making some awesome food. No wonder I’m rocking this weight loss. P.S. You know if you’re not active, moderately active, or active. Great job, Dean!
Wow! Thanks!
Cool Site – would love to be able to cut and paste entire recipes from my digital collection.
also – “what’s this” link is dead next to “make this a batch recipe.
It would be cool…there are a few problems though. Copyright is one. We resepect peoples IP and want to honor the full intent of the law here. We only want to include recipes where we have explicit permisiion.
The other issue is accuracy of nutirition data. We take this seriously and many recipes on the internet are displayed with very inaccurate data. Any time you see “salt to taste…or substitute margarine” and then a detailed printout of nutirtion facts you have to question the data. So we are erring on the side of caution and excercising some caution on recipes that get entered and approved for public display.
You are right – that link is broken. Dang! It’ll be fixed Friday. Thanks for spotting it.
Dean
Excellent music list! Thank you!
Carey