Reflections
Metabolic diseases
Volume 196 - Issue 3

Healthy eating app

Author:  Ruth M Armstrong

Med J Aust 2012; 196 (3): 207. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10203
Published online: 20 February 2012
Despite having spent many a rapturous hour staring at the back of cereal packets, I tried not to take it personally when I heard Professor Bruce Neal from the George Institute saying, on ABC Radio, that anyone who reads and understands an Australian nutritional panel is a weirdo....
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FoodSwitch
Bupa Australia Health Pty Ltd and the George Institute for International Health. © The George Institute, licensed to Bupa Australia Pty Ltd. Free App available from iTunes for iPhone. Released January 2012.

DESPITE having spent many a rapturous hour staring at the back of cereal packets, I tried not to take it personally when I heard Professor Bruce Neal from the George Institute saying, on ABC Radio, that anyone who reads and understands an Australian nutritional panel is a weirdo.

He made the comment in launching the new Food-Switch app for iPhone.

Anyone familiar with the concept of traffic light labelling will understand where FoodSwitch is coming from. The app uses the phone’s camera to scan a product’s barcode and displays key nutritional information on its screen. A large green, amber or red dot accompanies the information for fats, sugars and sodium. Red indicates levels that should be avoided or indulged in infrequently, amber means the amounts are OK but there might be a healthier choice, and green gives the all-clear for consumption.

Added features include the ability to create a shopping list and to look up previously scanned items.

The George Institute collated data on more than 20 000 products for the app, and there’s a nifty feedback process through which unlisted items can be photographed and sent back to the developers so that they can be added to the database.

As a nutrition enthusiast, I’m enthralled, as were my family when we spent a happy afternoon scanning the contents of the pantry together. My only reservations relate to the traffic light system in general. How will average consumers decide about products with a mixture of lights? What about other nutritional factors, such as micronutrients, and why isn’t there an indicator for energy density?

These and other issues have been debated at length by our best nutritional minds, whose recommendation to government that traffic light labelling be mandated on all our packaged foods has recently been rejected.

While it might suffer a bit from preaching to the converted, I think FoodSwitch will have a wider appeal to people who have a specific need or desire to avoid or limit sugar, fat or sodium, and have lacked the knowledge to make good choices. For the rest of the population, I’m not so sure.

Author

  • Ruth M Armstrong1
  • 1. The Medical Journal of Australia
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