Exchanges

HI, I am a group leader and we just started our group. I have a diet program on my computer that calculates calories etc and is very easy to use. I am having trouble using the ADA exchange program. I cook homemade soup and other recipes and use some more nutrious cereals that do not have the ADA exchanges on the package.HOw can I calculate the exchanges for myself. If it was just me I would use my Diet Power software and forget the exchanges. Can you help me?Margaret Brown

Maggie's answer to Margaret:

Hi Margaret,
I think it’s always more accurate to use nutritional software to calculate what you eat, but we realize that most of our readers do not have this. We may be able to have something eventually on our website to do this. But in the beginning we hope that you would just estimate how many cups of vegetables, for instance, that you eat, so if you have a soup with ¼ cup of cooked vegetables that would be half a serving. Many small portions or garnishes can add up to large totals at the end of the day. Some nutrition software does calculate exchange totals as well… I hope this helps!
-Maggie