The study was performed to develop the educational nutrient-analysis software program for food and nutrition major in higher educational institutions. The compiler used for the program was Microsoft Basic Compiler 7.2 and was based on the MS-DOS 6.22....
The study was performed to develop the educational nutrient-analysis software program for food and nutrition major in higher educational institutions. The compiler used for the program was Microsoft Basic Compiler 7.2 and was based on the MS-DOS 6.22. To construct the data base for nutrient anaysis, food composition tables published by Rural Nutrition Institute in Korea was used and kinds of nutrients analyzed were; energy, moisture, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, ash(Ca, P, Fe, Na, K) and vitamins(retinol, β-carotene, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, ascorbic acid). To operate the program developed, first, users should input the personal information like age, gender, weight, height and then the types and amounts of food eaten for whatever the meal was. All the data can be saved and retrieved by line graph whenever users would like to know the tendency of energy intakes for a certain period of time. Nutrients analyzed for the meal are expressed immediately in the table with the RDAs for Koreans and also shown by bar graph. One of the key features of this software is the function enabling the users controlling the nutrient intakes by way of increasing(+ key) or decreasing (- key) the amounts of foods eaten. Average time required to complete the program running was less than 5 min. To achieve successfully its educational purpose, this program was made focusing on enhancing the user-friendliness. Also this program requires only limited amount of installation efforts.
In conclusion, the program is expected to be successfully applied for educating the food and nutrition majors as part of courseworks for nutrient analysis, menu planning, nutrition evaluation and counseling. However, the program will be upgraded continually to gain popularity by substituting MS-DOS mode with windows 95 and by constructing the powerful data base tool.