The USDA weight panel will allow you to locate almost 1000 items that have been converted to a variable weight system. This is perfect for providing exact ingredients in recipes.
Why is this important?
Say you want to create a salad recipe that contains lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese and pieces of chicken. It is almost impossible to measure leaf-type products unless by weight, and the other vegetables will vary in size. In some cases you can use volume measurements, but these will vary depending on the size of cuts you make on the items. The best way is by weight.
This database and a small inexpensive scale, will yield the most accurate ingredient system you can own.
Locating a USDA Entry
Simply use the vertical scroll bar to locate the correct entry and select it with the stylus.
You can also use the search field, located in the upper left hand corner of the panel.
When you type characters into this field the panel will attempt to locate an item in the database starting with those characters. If the panel cannot locate an item in the database the field will be displayed in red.
Once you locate an item you can copy it to the clipboard or place the item on the shopping list by holding the stylus down on the entry.
Changing the Weight of the Ingredient
You can quickly change the actual weight of the ingredient you are measuring by using the weight bar.
The scroll bar allows you to quickly scroll to a value by dragging
the handle 
.
You can fine tune your entry by clicking the arrows. The left and right arrows will change the value by one unit. The up and down arrows will change the values by 1/10.
You can change from Ounces to Grams by clicking on the weight display field.
When you make changes to the weight bar the nutrition values will be updated automatically.
