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How to Use Google to Count Calories in Everyday Foods
There are many websites out there that can tell you how many calories are in almost every type of food imaginable. However, the problem with many of these sites is that they’ve become too complex. With complexity comes difficulty — it’s hard to find the information that you want.
There is actually a very easy way to find out how many calories are in certain foods just by doing a Google search. In order for this to work though, you must have a Google account and be signed in.
In order to start counting calories with Google, just go to the Google homepage and click on the Preferences link to the right of the search box, as shown below.
You will then be taken to the Google’s Preferences page. You will need to scroll down to the last section on the page which is entitled Subscribed Links. If your page doesn’t look like the one in the screen shot below, be sure you are signed in. On a side note, all of Google’s preferences are stored as a cookie on your computer. However, Google doesn’t use a cookie to track the subscribed links, they use your account — hence the requirement that you be signed in.
Once your screen looks like the image above, click on the Subscribe button at the far left of the first entry which is provided by CalorieLab. The Subscribe button will then change to an Unsubscribe button, as shown below, indicating that you are now subscribed.
Be sure to click on the Save Preferences button at the bottom right. If you don’t do this, Google will not complete your subscription for CalorieLab, and you won’t be able to see the nutritional information in the Google search results.
After clicking on the Save Preferences button and clicking OK in the resulting box, Google will forward you to the main Google homepage. You can now enter the name of a food and click on the Search button. You should see results similar to the ones below for the particular foods I entered.
Searching for potato chips
Searching for turkey breast
After performing a few searches, I began wondering why the nutrition facts that I was seeking were showing up so far down in the search results. Although Google doesn’t state why, they do state the following on their Subscribed Links FAQ page:
Your Subscribed Links will appear in the fourth search result position. You can identify your Subscribed Link by the link that appears next to this result that reads “Manage my Subscribed Links.”
Good to know. The information will always appear fourth. Perhaps it is a magic number… any ideas?
Google also has many other useful subscribed links in their Subscribed Links Directory. Have fun!
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