Nutrient lists have two purposes: first, they allow you to select which nutrients appear in nuts reports; and second, they allow you to compare your nutrient intake to certain goals.

If you're keeping track of your food intake, you'll probably want to know how your nutrient intake compares against certain goals you've set for yourself. For instance, you might decide you want to take in 65 grams of fat every day, or 2800 calories a day. You can tell Pantry what your goals are and it will help you compare certain foods, or all your food intake if you wish, against those goals.

In addition, the master file in Pantry has dozens of nutrients. Some of them, such as Calories or Vitamin A, are quite familiar. Others, such as 18:0, probably don't interest you unless you're a scientist. Using nutrient lists, you decide which nutrients appear in your nuts reports, and the order in which they appear.

As the name suggests, a nutrient list includes multiple nutrients, in a specific order. Each nutrient is specified using both its name and its units: for example, Protein and g, or Calories and kcal. When Pantry prints a nuts report, it prints only the nutrients included in the nutrient list.

In addition, each nutrient in the nutrient list optionally has a goal associated with it. For exaample, if you wish to consume 2800 calories a day, you can set the goal for calories to 2800. If you do not specify a goal, but you include a nutrient in a nutrient list, pantry will still print the nutrient in nuts reports. If you don't want a nutrient shown in your nuts reports, then do not include the nutrient in your nutrient list. We are getting ahead of ourselves a bit, though. Later we will discuss how you can define your own nutrient lists. For now, though, you are stuck with the nutrient lists that are included with Pantry:

As you've seen, the nuts report has four columns. The first two columns show the nutrient name and the amount of the nutrient, respectively. The third column shows the nutrient's percentage of the any goal that has been set for this nutrient in the nutrient list. The fourth column shows this nutrient's percentage of the total amount of this nutrient for the buffer.

By default, Pantry uses the facts nutrient list. Therefore, in the next example, we see that 100 grams of bananas has 89 calories. The facts nutrient list has a goal of 2000 calories, the same amount used for the "Nutrition Facts" labels. Therefore, the report shows four percent in the third column. Other nutrients show similar results, except for Sugars. This shows NG, for No Goal. This is because although the "Nutrition Facts" panel shows Sugars, there is no FDA Daily Value for this nutrient. Accordingly, the facts nutrient list has no goal for this nutrient either.

Because there is only one food in the buffer, every value except one in the last column is 100 percent. The value for Cholesterol is NA because the buffer has no cholesterol.

$ pantry --name "Bananas, raw" --print traits-nuts master
Bananas, raw
Group: Fruits and Fruit Juices
Refuse: 36 percent Skin
100 g (100g)
Nutrient                  Amount         %G     %TOT  
-------------------------------------------------------
Calories                  89   kcal       4      100   
Total Fat                 0    g          1      100   
Saturated Fat             0    g          1      100   
Cholesterol               0    mg         0      0     
Sodium                    1    mg         0      100   
Total Carbohydrate        23   g          8      100   
Dietary Fiber             3    g          10     100   
Sugars                    12   g          NA     100   
Protein                   1    g          2      100   
Vitamin A                 64   IU         1      100   
Vitamin C                 9    mg         14     100   
Calcium                   5    mg         0      100   
Iron                      0    mg         1      100   

By default, Pantry uses the facts nutrient list when printing reports. You may specify a different nutrient list with the --nutrient-list option. In the next example, the third column always shows NG because the short nutrient list includes no goals.

$ pantry --name "Bananas, raw" --print traits-nuts --nutrient- \
> list short master
Bananas, raw
Group: Fruits and Fruit Juices
Refuse: 36 percent Skin
100 g (100g)
Nutrient                  Amount         %G     %TOT  
-------------------------------------------------------
Calories                  89   kcal       NA     100   
Total Fat                 0    g          NA     100   
Total Carbohydrate        23   g          NA     100   
Protein                   1    g          NA     100