EUGENIZATION.

While I extoll the benefits of keeping a food journal and believe that good ol’ pen and paper are sufficient, it’s a pain for most people.

Interestingly enough, keeping an online food journal seems less so. Most of the food journals I look over are quickly “scribbled” emails from clients (Blackberry syndrome) or Microsoft Word documents. However, a larger proportion of friends and clients are keeping their food journals online, using Google’s spreadsheet software. My wife found it easiest to keep a food journal blog (private, not public, of course).

Since there seems to be a demand for this sort of thing, here are two great sites that offer an easy way to keep an online food journal (bonus: They’re both free):

1) Fitday.com - The OG of online food journals, and in my opinion, still the best. While the site interface is ugly as sin, the site is super comprehensive. You get a breakdown of macronutrients (protein:carbs:fat), total daily calories, and (the best part for all you medical savants out there) micronutrient breakdown. Ever wonder if you’re deficient in Vitamin K? Well, fitday.com might point you in the right direction.

Did I mention it was F-R-E-E?

Edit (6/7/08): Scott and Mark are down with fitday.com.  How ’bout you?

2) thedailyplate.com - An excellent food journal (thanks Galit) with a “pretty” interface. With thedailyplate.com, you trade some functionality (there’s a membership fee to view micronutrient breakdown, for example) for an easier, more convenient journal. It has more entries than fitday.com, so rather than have to head over to the Chipotle website and manually enter in the values for a beef burrito with guacamole, you simply search for it in their database and click on it - no muss, no fuss. It’s got a “most recent foods” option as well, so you don’t have to search for that veggie omelet you eat every morning; just click.

So mostly free. You just miss out on the micronutrient breakdowns and some neat features, like tracking time of day trends (i.e., do I blow it at dinnertime everyday?).

These two sites are the ones that I recommend to my clients. Give these two a whirl and see if journaling sheds some light on your diet. Anyone got any stories or anecdotes about using an online food journal? Post to comments.