SparkRecipes Enhancements: Better Search, Serving Sizes, Photos and More

Monday, April 25, 2011

Have you visited www.SparkRecipes.com lately? If so, you've likely noticed several helpful changes to our free healthy recipes website. Here are some of the enhancements we've recently launched—many of these were suggested by our very own members!

Better Search Options
Our advanced recipe search has just gotten better! You can now search for recipes that meet specific nutrient guidelines including calories, fiber, protein, fat and carbs, in addition to searching based on dietary needs, keywords, cuisine and more! We hope this will make it even easier to find the recipes that meet your needs and taste preferences!

More Search Results
Previously, only 200 recipes came up when you did a recipe search. Now, the top 1,000 results show up (50 per page), and you can also see more member Cookbook results, too. In addition, when viewing a recipe, you'll see five more "related" recipes on the right side of the page, making it easier to find recipes that meet your needs.

Now Required: Serving Sizes
Although all of our recipes have always said how many servings they contain (2, 4, 8, etc), members often complained that a serving SIZE was not listed. To help clarify, all NEW shared recipes are required to list an estimated serving size (such as 1 cup).

Upload a Photo of Any Recipe
Now, anyone can upload a photo of any recipes they make on SparkRecipes! Previously, you had to be the "owner" (submitter) of a recipe to do so. We'd love your helping adding photos to our recipes to help other users of the website know what to expect when considering a recipe. So if you're a foodie who loves to photograph the food you make, please consider uploading photos of the recipes you make. Simply click the "Upload a Photo" link at the top right of any recipe.


We hope you will benefit from these upgrades to SparkRecipes.com. As always thank you for sharing your feedback and ideas for making our websites even better!

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New Free iPad App from SparkPeople

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Over 300,000 recipes at your fingertips!

Looking to lose weight and save money? Cooking at home is one of the easiest ways SparkPeople members do both! Our new Healthy Recipes application for iPad is your perfect kitchen companion, allowing you to browse and search more than 300,000 recipes. You can browse by course, ethnicity, preparation time, dietary needs, and more. We also provide calories, carbs, and 10 other key nutrients for each recipe.

In addition to searching and browsing recipes, you can also see recipe and cooking technique videos from our resident healthy cooking expert, Chef Meg. These videos will show you how to cook some of SparkRecipes.com's most popular healthy recipes. Set your iPad on the counter and let Chef Meg guide you every step of the way.

You can download this application from the iTunes App Store for FREE.

Click here to learn more and download from iTunes now. We hope you'll use our newest Healthy Recipes app to make healthy eating and cooking even easier! If you know someone else with an iPad who might be interested in this app, please share this link to help Spread the Spark!

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1,000 Day Fitness Streak

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Hi all!

I'm starting an experiment. I will try to do a 1,000-day streak of 10+ fitness minutes. I once did a 700-day streak that directly led to the creation of SparkPeople. Today is day 1 with a bike ride around the neighborhood. Hit like if you'll do at least some of the days with me! If enough people consistently do 10+ minutes most days (not the 1,000-day streak part), it will change the world!

More details to come...

-- SparkGuy

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New Perfect Produce iPhone App from SparkPeople

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Learn to Select, Store and Cook Hundreds of Fruits and Vegetables Before You Buy

Do you know how to pick the best cantaloupe, prepare an artichoke, or properly store garlic before you use it? When you're trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, it can be difficult to know how to chose, store, and cook with all the different varieties you see. That's why SparkPeople created the Perfect Produce, a premium iPhone application.

Perfect Produce provides:

• Tips to select, store, and prepare more than 100 different fruits and vegetables found in most supermarkets
  
• Calorie and nutritional information for each fruit or vegetable
  
• The ability to search for foods that are high in fiber, calcium, vitamin C, and other nutrients
  
• Thousands of healthy recipes featuring the fruits and vegetables as a main ingredient. Find dozens of recipes for any ingredient while you shop!

You can download this premium application from iTunes for $1.99. Note that we plan to keep our other SparkPeople applications (Diet & Fitness Tracker and Healthy Recipes) completely free of charge.

Learn more and download from iTunes now!

We hope you'll use our newest Perfect Produce app to make healthy eating and cooking even easier!

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New Navigation, Updated Pages, and More SparkPoints Trophies!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Good afternoon SparkPeople!

Today we launched some minor changes to the site. We think these changes will make it even easier for our members to find all of our features. Here's a quick rundown on what you may notice.

Navigation Changes and Redesigned Pages

• The "My Tools" tab has been renamed as "My Trackers," since this is where all your tracking tools can be found.
  
• The "Your Health" tab has been renamed as "Health Conditions," since more of our medical and disease-management information can be found here.
  
• The main "home" pages under the Healthy Lifestyle, Health Conditions and Community have all received facelifts! Now you'll find quick links to ALL of our popular features within each of these sections!
  
• The main SparkTeams page has also undergone a redesign. Now, all of YOUR SparkTeams appear at the very top of this page, to make them easier to access, and the "browse teams" functionality will appear below them for you to use when you're looking for new Teams to join.

More SparkPoints Levels and Trophies
In addition to the changes above, you now can earn even more Trophies by accumulating SparkPoints! We know how much our members love earning SparkPoints, so today we added more levels where you can earn new SparkTrophies. You can see the new levels here.. And start racking up those Points each day by visiting your SparkPoints page!

We hope these changes make it even easier—and more fun—for you to use SparkPeople to reach your goals!

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