# Nutrients

The following nutritional data is available within the Whisk system:

* **Nutritional summary**: top nutritional scores and daily value percentages.
* **Nutritional detail**: full list of macro- and micro-nutrients and daily value percentages.
* **Glycemic index and Glycemic load**: The Glycemic Index (GI) measures how carbohydrates affect your blood glucose levels.
* **Health Score**: Proprietary score calculated on a 1-10 scale based on nutrient density and USDA recommendations for a healthy diet. A higher Health Score means healthier food. The value is based on the impact of macronutrients and micronutrients in the recipe.

## How do we calculate nutrition?

To calculate nutrition for recipes Whisk first normalizes ingredient quantities to grams. For example:

* 1 apple = 182g (source USDA)
* 1 cup of flour = 125 g (we calculate this by defining the volume of a cup and the density of the specific ingredient).
* mustard = we normalize ingredients without quantities with default value depending on ingredient - in this case, it’s 1 tbsp (which has a gram equivalent in our system).
* custom measures such as pack, sachet, etc. are normalized with the average weight of products available in supermarkets.

After normalization, we calculate the nutrition of a recipe by multiplying the quantity of ingredients with predefined nutrition values (per 100 g).

All calculations are based on precooked nutrition values of raw materials. We don’t currently calculate the loss of nutrients based on cooking techniques because it's difficult to predict what cooking technique the user will use and how exactly the meal will be prepared. In cases when ingredients are already prepared (for example canned products), we use nutrition values defined for heat-treated ingredients. 

## Our ontology and nutrition data

Our [food ontology](/readme.md#whisks-food-genome) contains tens of thousands of ingredients with nutrition data linked from the following primary sources:

* USDA
* Danish food composition
* Finelli
* EFSA

### Supported Nutrients

Here is the list of macronutrients and micronutrients that we calculate for every recipe:

| Nutrient            | Code                        |
| ------------------- | --------------------------- |
| Energy              | `NUTRITION_CODE_ENERC_KCAL` |
| Total Fat           | `NUTRITION_CODE_FAT`        |
| Saturated Fat       | `NUTRITION_CODE_FASAT`      |
| Carbohydrate Total  | `NUTRITION_CODE_CHOCDF`     |
| Sugars              | `NUTRITION_CODE_SUGAR`      |
| Protein             | `NUTRITION_CODE_PROCNT`     |
| Sodium              | `NUTRITION_CODE_NA`         |
| Fiber               | `NUTRITION_CODE_FIBTG`      |
| Trans Fat           | `NUTRITION_CODE_FATRN`      |
| Monounsaturated Fat | `NUTRITION_CODE_FAMS`       |
| Polyunsaturated Fat | `NUTRITION_CODE_FAPU`       |
| Unsaturated Fat     | `NUTRITION_CODE_FAT_UNSAT`  |
| Cholesterol         | `NUTRITION_CODE_CHOLE`      |
| Calcium             | `NUTRITION_CODE_CA`         |
| Magnesium           | `NUTRITION_CODE_MG`         |
| Potassium           | `NUTRITION_CODE_K`          |
| Iron                | `NUTRITION_CODE_FE`         |
| Zinc                | `NUTRITION_CODE_ZN`         |
| Phosphorus          | `NUTRITION_CODE_P`          |
| Vitamin A           | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITA_RAE`   |
| Vitamin C           | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITC`       |
| Thiamin B1          | `NUTRITION_CODE_THIA`       |
| Riboflavin B2       | `NUTRITION_CODE_RIBF`       |
| Niacin B3           | `NUTRITION_CODE_NIA`        |
| Vitamin B6          | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITB6A`     |
| Folic Acid B9       | `NUTRITION_CODE_FOL`        |
| Vitamin B12         | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITB12`     |
| Vitamin D           | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITD`       |
| Vitamin E           | `NUTRITION_CODE_TOCPHA`     |
| Vitamin K           | `NUTRITION_CODE_VITK1`      |

### Supported Nutrient Unit Measurement Values

We support for following unit measurements for each supported nutrient:

| Measurement Unit | Code                    |
| ---------------- | ----------------------- |
| Gram             | `NUTRITION_UNIT_G`
 |
| Milligram        | `NUTRITION_UNIT_MG`     |
| Microgram        | `NUTRITION_UNIT_MKG`    |
| Kilocalorie      | `NUTRITION_UNIT_KCAL`   |


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.whisk.com/resources/nutrients.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.