| History of NAT - The Nutrition Analysis Tool When Dr. Jim Painter was an undergrad in the mid 1970s at Southern Illinois University he became intrigued with the nutrient data that was being assembled by the USDA. New nutrient data sections were being added to Handbook #8 every few years. Nutrition students and health professionals who were interested in analyzing the nutrient content of foods had to look up food in tables, copy the nutrient data to a sheet of paper, and physically add up the amounts of each nutrient. This was tedious and sometimes inaccurate. By the early 1980s crude computerized nutrient analysis software was available to those who had a personal computer. In the early 1980s he started a company called Nutrition Analysis Inc. It was ahead of its time and it received very little use. In 1996 Chris Hewes and Dr. Painter developed the Nutrition Analysis Tool (NAT). Chris was the sole programmer on version 1 of NAT. By April of 1999 Nat was receiving close to 1,000,000 hits per month, representing interest from over 90 countries. By October 2001, NAT was receiving over 2,000,000 hits per month. In 1998 a team of developers (listed below) began working on version 2 which was launced on-line in July of 1999. Version 2 includes more information on fast foods and specific brand name foods.
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Technical Information: NAT uses tables extensively. NAT can be used with most browsers that do not support tables, but the visual results may not be what were intended. Database Credits:
Credits:
NAT Disclaimer.
NAT Permissions Statement: Funding:
The Nutritional Analysis Tool (NAT) and The Energy Calculator software were created at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Dr James Painter. Awards: 
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