As obesity, heart trouble, diabetes and other lifestyle-related diseases spread, we're all being asked to be aware of what's in the food we eat.

But try finding a calorie counter that includes Spam musubi, or a nutritional guide that includes saimin, loco moco, adobo or chap chae.

You can start today. The University of Hawai'i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i officially launch today the Hawai'i Foods Web site, a place for nutritional breakdowns of familiar Island foods and dishes, recipes (often lightened-up versions of local favorites), a library of publications and an interactive segment, MyDiet, where you can plug in your intake for a meal or a day full of meals, and learn just how much you ate of fat, sugar, protein, sodium, calories and nutrients — and how your diet stacks up in comparison to the federal government's recommended daily allowances.

And every listed food or dish is pictured — useful for newcomers and visitors, who may not know what jackfruit looks like, or what that strange green stew was they tasted at a lu'au.

"This has been a felt need for quite some time because we in Hawai'i have such a variety of foods and cultural groups and recipes that are different from the rest of the country and the databases and resources available to us at the national level just simply don't meet our needs for research or for dietary guidance in healthcare settings or just for consumer information," said Rachel Novotny, a professor of nutrition at UH, director of the Center for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente in Hawai'i and a leader of the Hawai'i Foods Web site project.

"I think it's a good addition to using food labels," said Suzanne Murphy, UH professor of nutrition and director of the Nutrition Shared Support Resource at the cancer center, Novotny's partner in the Hawai'i Foods effort. "We encourage people always to read labels but that doesn't integrate all the ingredients in a dish together, nor does it tell you what your whole diet looks like."

Retired dietitian Sandy Nagareda, president of the Hawai'i Dietetics Association and another collaborator in the Hawai'i Foods project, points out that the site will be of use to Mainland researchers and dietitians, too, because many communities are seeing an influx of Asian immigrants (as the Islands have done for four generations) and are unfamiliar with these group's staple foods and dishes.

The site features just 150 foods and a handful of recipes now, but data entry continues and the goal is to build to more than 3,000 foods, said project coordinator Cyndy Kahalewale, a UH lecturer in medical nutrition therapy.

Much of this information has long been available in some form, but not a convenient one. Kahalewale said the first analysis of Island foods began 60 years ago with the Islands' premier nutrition researcher, Carey D. Miller, but that data was packed away in boxes, or contained in out-of-print books or bulletins.

Novotny and Murphy caution that the MyDiet calculator gives only a broad, general overview. Special conditions (such as being diabetic or pregnant or taking certain medications) can alter a person's nutritional needs. But, after much debate, the dietitians and researchers decided that it was important to give people general information as a jumping-off point.

"Everything has to be customized. It makes sense that if I'm looking at a 100-pound woman who's 4-feet-8, I'm not going to tell her she has to have the same number or size of servings as a large man," said Nagareda. "But this is a place to start to see how you're doing. We're trying to have people become more accountable for their own health." The site doesn't take into account stature, but it does ask your age.

Kahalewale said a challenge for nutritionists is that few people know much about what's in the food they eat; they may not even know a protein from a carbohydrate and they certainly aren't fully aware of where fat, salt and sugar lurk, much less where they can get adequate potassium or calcium or some other nutrient that might be recommended due to a health condition.

This writer did a test run of the Web site, randomly inputting foods and recipe names, and entering a day's menu in the MyDiet segment. The site was well-designed, attractive and easy to understand after a few minutes of "play." The MyDiet results confirmed my personal nutritionist's assessment of my eating pattern's strengths and weaknesses (too much fat, too few vegetables, adequate protein and nutrients). And the little emoticons (smiley faces and frowny faces) that accompany the nutritional analysis are both cute and motivating.

"I think this is an important step — getting this information into electronic form and having it up there (on the Web)," said Novoty. "It will get a lot of people's minds going and provide a nice venue for collaborative discussion about what more we can do."

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.