Weights & Measures

Grams (g) measure weight. A gram tells you how much actual food is there — the fat, sugar, protein, salt, and everything else.

Millilitres (ml) measure volume. They tell you how much space a liquid takes up. One millilitre of water happens to weigh one gram, but most foods are not water.

That is why a cup of honey weighs far more than a cup of puffed rice. They both fill the same space, but one is dense and heavy, the other is light and airy. Nutrient Math always works back to grams so the comparison is fair.

Nutrition labels almost always list a serving size. We read that serving and try to derive a cup weight from it. Here is the order we follow:

1. You type the cup weight directly. If your package says something like “1 cup (128 g)”, enter that number and we use it exactly.
2. We work it out from the serving size. If the package says “1 tablespoon (7 g)”, we know 1 tablespoon is about 15 ml and 1 cup is about 250 ml. So:
   7 g ÷ 15 ml = density
   density × 250 ml = about 117 g per cup
3. We fall back to a safe estimate. If the package only gives a weight like “15 g” with no household measure, we use an average food density of about 0.45 g per ml to keep the cup columns from going blank.

The estimate is just a placeholder. For the most accurate results, enter the cup weight if you have it, or type the serving exactly as printed so we can derive the right density.

A 2,000 calorie diet has higher daily targets than a 1,500 calorie diet, so the same amount of sodium or sugar looks like a smaller percentage of the day. The food itself has not changed — only the reference point has.

We use the standard Health Canada and American Heart Association daily values for each calorie level, then multiply every nutrient by the same scaling factor so the math stays consistent across 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 1 cup, and the whole package.

Most people eat three meals a day. If a single meal used up more than a third of your daily value for something, the other two meals would push you over. So we treat 33.33% (100% ÷ 3) as the ceiling for one sitting.

For Fat, Sugar, Salt, and Carbs we start at 1 cup and work downward through common portions:

The first portion whose percentage lands at or below 33.33% becomes the Best Choice. That means you always get the largest serving that still fits inside one meal's share — not the smallest one that happens to be safe.

If even 1/8 cup goes over the line, we say so plainly rather than suggesting a portion that would not help. And because the ceiling is a percentage of your daily target, switching between the 1,500 and 2,000 calorie settings can change the recommendation.

These are guides based on the numbers you typed in, not medical advice. Naturally occurring sugars and unsaturated fats are not the same as added sugars and saturated fats, so use judgement alongside the math.