Track the vitamins and minerals, not just the calories

What it does

Every food you log carries whatever vitamin and mineral values its source record contains. NutrientOS totals those across the day, compares them to your targets, and shows which foods contributed the most to each nutrient.

It also tracks how complete the day actually is. A day assembled entirely from branded packaged foods will have far fewer measured micronutrients than a day of whole foods from a laboratory-analysed database, and the app tells you that rather than quietly reporting a low total.

Who it is useful for

• •People eating in a calorie deficit where less total food mechanically means less of everything, and nutrient gaps open up without any change in food choice.
• •People on restricted diets vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, low-FODMAP, or elimination diets, where specific nutrients are predictably harder to reach.
• •Anyone who has been told a specific number is low and wants to see what their ordinary eating actually supplies, in a format they can bring to a professional.

What NutrientOS shows you

• •Daily totals for the vitamins and minerals present in your logged foods, against your targets.
• •Coverage — how much of the day is backed by measured values rather than blanks.
• •Which specific foods contributed most to a given nutrient, so a gap has an obvious fix.
• •Nutrients that are consistently unmeasured in your food choices, which is a data problem rather than a diet problem.

How missing data is handled

When a nutrient is not present in the underlying record, NutrientOS shows it as unknown rather than as a zero. A blank is honest; a zero would read as "this food contains none of it", which is a different and usually false claim.

This matters more for micronutrients than anywhere else in the app. Branded and restaurant records typically carry only the nutrients required on a label — calories, fat, carbohydrate, protein, sodium, and a handful of others. Everything else is absent, not zero. An app that sums those absences as zeroes will confidently tell you that you ate no magnesium all week, which is almost never true.

Known limitations

• •Database values are representative, not your food. Soil, variety, season, storage, and cooking all move real micronutrient content. A database value is a reasonable central estimate, not a measurement of the item on your plate.
• •Cooking losses are not modelled. Water-soluble vitamins in particular degrade with heat, time, and boiling. Logged values reflect the food as described in the source record.
• •Absorption is not intake. How much of a nutrient your body takes up depends on the food matrix, what it was eaten with, and individual factors. NutrientOS reports what you ate.
• •Targets are general reference intakes. They are population-level starting points, not a personal prescription.

Micronutrient totals are informational. They are not a diagnosis, not a deficiency test, and not a substitute for blood work or advice from a qualified professional. If you think a nutrient is a problem, that is a conversation to have with a clinician.

How it connects to the rest of NutrientOS

Micronutrient coverage is one of the inputs behind Food Grade, so foods that carry real nutrient density are visible as you log rather than only in an end-of-day summary. The same totals appear in daily views, weekly trends, and exported reports.

Common questions

Why does a nutrient show as blank instead of zero?

Because the source record does not contain a measured value for it. Blank means unmeasured; zero would mean the food genuinely contains none. Reporting an unmeasured nutrient as zero would make your daily totals look worse than reality.

How many micronutrients does NutrientOS track?

It tracks whatever vitamins and minerals the underlying food records provide, which varies by source. Laboratory-analysed whole-food records carry the widest set; branded packaged records usually carry only label-required nutrients.

Can NutrientOS tell me if I am deficient in something?

No. It reports what your logged food contained. Deficiency is a clinical determination that requires testing and a qualified professional. Treat consistently low intake as a prompt for that conversation, not as a result.