Forum Discussion
Recipe nutrition database/pivot table
Im not new to excel but very new to tables, databases, and pivot tables. My knowledge base is very limited on what Ive done so far. I am trying to develop a way that I can choose certain recipes which contain the ingredients, and their nutritional values. I'd like to pick the recipes, or maybe just the one food like yogurt, or a banana for breakfast. A recipe for lunch, and dinner. Then have excel give me the total of all the nutrients for that day. This would help me track my intake to help lower cholesterol, and my blood pressure. I read how to create a database which was just inputting the data then creating a table. That was easy enough, but I do not know how to use this table to perform the functions I want.
You'd help us help you by posting a copy of the workbook you have created, with the database on recipes and associated nutritional variables.Use the drop and drag at the bottom of the full text edit boxes here in this forum,
or, if that doesn't work, post a copy on OneDrive or GoogleDrive and paste a link here that grants access.
Or if you enjoy the challenge of figuring it out with just a pointer or two--since you are familiar with Excel--let me point you to what I suspect are the functions that would yield the results you desire.
- FIrst, a relatively recent function in Excel is the FILTER function, described here and demonstrated here.
- That could be used to extract data regarding the specific things you'd consumed on any given day or period.
- The results of that FILTER could be further analyzed by nesting the FILTER within SUM (and I'm sure you're familiar with that), to give a total of calories or other variables that FILTER has isolated.
- Doesn't need to be complete.....just complete enough (say ten rows and a fairly representative set of columns of the various nutritional dimensions--calories, vitamins, carb counts, whatever--that you'd want to track per serving)
