Eating healthier with your smartphone

By Rebecca Quilliam - New Zealand Herald  Friday Aug 9, 2013

 

Dr Helen Eyles of the National Institute for Health Innovations shows the food package scanning iPhone app Foodswitch.Photo / Chris Gorman

 

A new smartphone application, designed to help consumers choose healthy food options, has been given the thumbs up by health experts and consumers.

Foodswitch, which was launched yesterday, allows users to scan the barcode of packaged foods using their Smartphone camera, and they should then receive immediate nutritional advice on the product.
The app also offers users healthier choices of the same type of food.
The free app was originally developed in Australia by The George Institute for Global Health and tailored for New Zealand shoppers by The National Institute for Health Innovation (NIHI) at Auckland University.
The app has nutritional information of more than 8000 packaged food products found in supermarkets here.

Institute researcher and nutritionist Helen Eyles said if a product was not available on the app, consumers could take a photo of it and send it to NIHI to have it included on the database.
Heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other diseases - largely caused by poor diets - were the biggest killers in New Zealand, she said.
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