Ever cared to know the exact amount of potassium in a carrot? Ever wondered if buttermilk is good for your coronary disease? If so this pocket food encyclopedia might be the application for you.
Let me quickly make a disclosure: I am writing this review while I chow down on a piece of pizza and am drinking a beer. I have an average body weight but I am by no means a health junky. I mention this because I have no idea how a carbohydrate exchange unit works nor do I understand the kjoule potential of lettuce. Others might but I do not so take this into account when you read this review.
Dietician was developed by a nutrition scientist. The developer wanted to make a reference guide for seasoned experts but also make it accessible to the amateur dietician. The program features over 1000 food items. You will find the food list to be incredibly extensive.
The list is indexed much like your contacts list so it is very easy to quickly move from letter to letter in the list. The application has a wide breadth of foods. In fact it can be kind of interesting because a lot of the food items on the list are definitely not traditional American foods. Mutton Brain anyone?
Please be aware that the food items are the raw materials for your meal. You will not be able to look up macaroni and cheese or pizza. This application focuses on giving you vast amounts of data on the ingredients that sit on your plate. This can be very useful to dieticians or calorie counters but may turn some casual users off.
After you select your food item the application will tell you the nutritional value in incredible detail. The detail featured is so expansive the average user (myself included) will have absolutely no use for some of it. That said I am glad (and I assume the pros are too) that the developer included it.
The application will also give you a thumbs up or down for various health issues. If you suffer from obesity, diabetes, gout, or coronary disease you can easily discover whether the food you are consuming is going to hurt or help your condition. Mutton brain is apparently good for obesity and diabetes but is bad for coronary disease and gout.
What we liked:
+ Extensive list of food items.
+ Ability to adjust the amount of the selected food.
+ Quick reference guide to common health conditions
What we disliked:
– No tracking ability
– No ability to search food items.
– Would like to see other health areas such as cancer fighting foods
Final Verdict:
If you are looking for a pocket guide to the nutritional content of food this application fits the bill. The developer could improve the application by including the ability to search the items and a way to record and calculate your nutritional intake. Experts will relish the detail provided in this application. If you suffer from one of the listed diseases you will also find the application useful. Otherwise, if you have no interest in monitoring the nutritional value of your food beyond the FDA label this application may not be for you.
Interesting app and good to see a non-game review. I’m guilty of focusing the bulk of my App Store purchases on games. So much so that I get the feeling that I am missing out on some useful apps. I can see this being especially useful for people with special dietary requirements. Shame it doesn’t have a search and a tracking feature.
same as Mr. Charley, im really not into counting the stuff in the food i eat. I want to enjoy what i eat and not worry about it. i think im fine right now, but if you’re into this, it seems really nice.
This looks like a pretty cool app. I’ve come across a couple of similar apps in the past, but nothing that I really liked and nothing that seems that extensive. This could be very helpful and it looks like it has a decent interface.
I guess this could be useful to people who are trying to watch their weight or know more about food and stuff.
Me personally, I just like to eat, and don’t want/need to think about the actual food…that just takes the enjoyment out!
Tastes good is good, tastes bad is not good.