Why track nutrients and not just calories?

Two days can hit the same calorie total and be wildly different days for your body. One covers your protein, fills your calcium and potassium, and delivers the B12 your nerves and blood cells need; the other is the same energy in refined carbohydrate with almost nothing else attached. A calorie counter cannot tell those days apart — a nutrient tracker can.

In my clinic, the deficiencies I see most are rarely about eating too little. They are about eating narrowly: plenty of energy, not enough of the forty-odd things the energy is supposed to come packaged with. Potassium and calcium are chronically short in the typical Western diet; B12 is a real concern for anyone eating mostly plants; vitamin A surprises people in both directions.

Why your targets are personal

The reference values behind the bars above change with age, differ by sex, and shift substantially in pregnancy and breastfeeding — a pregnant woman needs half again as much folate and considerably more iron, while her calcium target doesn't change at all. That is why this page asks who you are before it scores your day, using the NIH Dietary Reference Intakes rather than one-size-fits-all label percentages.

If you want the full picture — every vitamin, every mineral, all nine essential amino acids, tracked over weeks rather than a single day — that is exactly what VitalFill is for. This page is the free taste; the app is the meal.

What the terms and abbreviations mean

Nutrition science has its own shorthand, and it is rarely explained to the people it is written for. Here is all of it in plain language. On a computer you can also hover over any term on this page for the same explanation.

Goal vs. limit
Most nutrients here are goals — aim to reach 100%. Two, saturated fat and total sugars, are limits — aim to stay under 100%. The colours reflect this: for a goal, filling up turns the figure green; for a limit, exceeding it turns the figure amber then red.
RDA — Recommended Dietary Allowance
The daily amount expected to meet the needs of roughly 97% of healthy people of your age and sex. It is deliberately set high enough to cover almost everyone, so it is a comfortable target rather than a minimum you must hit every single day. Example: vitamin B12 at 2.4 µg a day for most adults.
AI — Adequate Intake
Used when the evidence is not strong enough to establish a formal RDA. It reflects the average intake of healthy people who show no signs of deficiency. Treat it as a sensible aim rather than a precise requirement. Example: potassium and fibre both use AI values.
DRI — Dietary Reference Intakes
The umbrella term for the whole family of reference values — RDAs, AIs, and upper limits — published by the National Academies. Every target on this page comes from these tables.
AMDR — Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range
Rather than a fixed number of grams, this expresses a nutrient as a share of your total calories. Fat, for instance, is recommended at 20–35% of daily energy; this page uses the midpoint, about 30%.
Mifflin-St Jeor equation
The published formula used to estimate your calorie target from your height, weight, age and sex. It is preferred over the older Harris-Benedict equation, which tends to overestimate energy needs in people carrying extra weight.
RAE — Retinol Activity Equivalents
The unit for vitamin A. It exists because the body converts plant carotenoids, such as the beta-carotene in carrots, into usable vitamin A far less efficiently than it uses retinol from animal foods. RAE accounts for that difference so the two are comparable.
kcal, g, mg, µg
A kcal (kilocalorie) is what food labels simply call a calorie. A gram (g) is used for the macronutrients; a milligram (mg) is a thousandth of a gram, used for minerals like calcium and potassium; a microgram (µg) is a thousandth of a milligram, used for vitamins needed in tiny amounts such as B12 and vitamin A.
"Full data" badge
Appears next to foods for which at least 25 of the tracked nutrients have actually been measured in the laboratory. Foods without it are not worse foods — they simply have a less complete analysis on file, so some nutrients will read as zero when the true value is just unknown.
Per 100 g
Nutrient values in the USDA database are stored per 100 grams of food and then scaled to whatever serving you choose. This is why an unusual serving size still produces sensible numbers.

References

Every target on this page comes from a published reference standard rather than a rule of thumb. These are the sources, and what each one determines.

  1. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2005. doi:10.17226/10490 Sets the protein RDA (0.8 g/kg body weight in adults), the carbohydrate RDA, the fibre adequate intake, and the acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges used for the fat targets.
  2. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2019. doi:10.17226/25353 Source of the potassium adequate intake values, which differ by age, sex, pregnancy and lactation, and of the 2,300 mg sodium chronic disease risk reduction intake.
  3. Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2011. doi:10.17226/13050 Source of the calcium targets, including the higher requirement in adolescence and after age 50 in women and 70 in men.
  4. Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium, and Zinc. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2001. doi:10.17226/10026 Source of the vitamin A targets, expressed as micrograms of retinol activity equivalents.
  5. Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 1998. doi:10.17226/6015 Source of the vitamin B12 targets, including the increased requirement in pregnancy and breastfeeding.
  6. National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. Nutrient Recommendations and Databases: Dietary Reference Intakes summary tables. Bethesda, MD. ods.od.nih.gov/HealthInformation/nutrientrecommendations.aspx The consolidated summary tables from which the age, sex, pregnancy and lactation bands used by this page are drawn.
  7. Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51(2):241–247. doi:10.1093/ajcn/51.2.241 The equation behind your calorie target. Preferred here over the older Harris-Benedict equation, which overestimates resting energy expenditure in people who are overweight or obese.
  8. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central. Beltsville, MD. fdc.nal.usda.gov Every food, serving size, and nutrient value searched on this page. Includes Foundation Foods, SR Legacy, the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies, and branded products.
  9. U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030. 10th ed. Washington, DC; January 2026. dietaryguidelines.gov Basis for treating added sugars and saturated fat as limits rather than goals, each capped at under 10% of daily energy.
  10. World Health Organization. Guideline: Sugars Intake for Adults and Children. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2015. who.int/publications/i/item/9789241549028 Supports the same 10%-of-energy ceiling for free sugars, with a conditional recommendation for a further reduction to 5%.

A note on interpretation: reference intakes are population standards designed to cover the needs of nearly all healthy people. They are not personal prescriptions, and individual requirements vary with medical conditions, medications, absorption, and pregnancy. Anyone with a diagnosed deficiency, chronic kidney disease, or a condition affecting nutrient absorption should follow their own clinician's advice rather than these figures.