THE NEW CALORIES ASSISTANT-A READY RECKONER MOBILE APP!

These are the days of mobile telephony and with each passing day hundreds of apps are emerging for different users of mobile phones.  The communication distances are shrinking at a rate unprecedented in human history. It was not long ago consumers were excited about the inter phase potential of mobile phones with super market shelves to glean out information about every product on the isles. Traceability is another important issue and the world is moving towards a regime where the consumer can trace out the origin of the product and its ingredients, offering a choice that may be useful to those swearing by local foods and their advantages. To add to these existing apps, here comes another one considered very relevant to those consumers desperately trying to cut down on consumption of carbohydrates in their daily diets. According to medical community this app helps the doctors to educate and control food intake by their patients who are on a diet regime recommended for weight reduction or for control of diabetes. Here is a take on this new development.    

"One of the many uses of mobile technology is its unique ability to capture, store and access data whenever and wherever. For diabetics and those trying to lose weight, one of the best ways to manage this is using a calorie counter to track food intake. As physicians, we often times assume patients have a basic understanding of foods that are carb rich and those that are not.  Educating patients on carbs takes time, and even then, it's clear patients can't remember exactly what we tell them during our visit — completely understandable.  There are great apps in the Health section of the App Store that help reinforce this type of teaching and learning, and we'll be covering them over the next few weeks at iMedicalApps. We're start with Low Carb Diet Assistance.  Low Carb Diet Assistant is a carb counter with easy-to-use features and a large database of foods, including restaurant menu items. One of the key absent features is the lack of a barcode scanner for obtaining nutritional information from bar codes. Despite this the app tracks weight, water intake, BMI, and contains a limited exercise logging capacity".

Though the app seems to be a novel means for dietary control, how it can count the calories in various foods is not clear. Of course by keying in data for carbohydrates in hundreds of standard foods it may be possible to find out the calories contributed by it in the food that is consumed but it may be a dud when it comes to many foods on which data have not been keyed in. Probably in a country like the US where most food products and restaurant preparations are well standardized this app may be of some help. What is not clear is why the calorie count is restricted to only carbohydrates and with a little more data logging it could have been extended to fats also, considered the biggest culprit in weight gain and health disorders.  Diabetes management may be easier as carbohydrates, especially starchy components in the diet, contribute most of the calories and glucose, detrimental in diabetes control regime. Probably one can understand the limitations of handheld devices, especially when they are connected to internet, to store vast volumes of information. It may be a question of time before better and more efficient apps are developed in future, useful to all sections of consumers watching the quality of the foods they consume every day.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com