General

The app is meant to answer important questions such as how much salt(sodium), sugar, trans fat, or caffeine, for example, is in comparable foods so you can choose healthier foods; even small improvements over time can yield great positive results! Our displays reflect some of the latest food concerns such as vitamin D types, fat types, carb types, and more. Sugar values reflect natural and added sugar.

Device Info

The app displays best in landscape mode on iphones, and for tablets either portrait or landscape are great; the landscape views are ideal for the newer, larger iphone's longer sizes in landscape; for smaller iphones in portrait mode the chart must be scrolled to the right to see all the columns. There also is a MAC version in the MAC app store.

Units

Units for nutrient amounts are in grams(g) for all items except: Calories (kcal), Sodium (mg), Caffeine (mg), and Vitamin D (ug).

Usage and Tapping

The MAC version uses the regular keybord and mouse instead of touch gestures. To use the app tap the FG button to choose the Food Group (FG) first, and then a profile button if desired. A 100gm portion measure for basic nutrients is charted first; then you can choose up to 7 more profiles: Household measures - basic nutrients (H H), detailed carb data (HCarb), detailed fat data (HFat), Vitamin D info (H D); 100gm portion measure - basic nutrient (C100), detailed carb data (CCarb), detailed fat data (CFat), Vitamin D info (C D). C100 data is loaded when you first load via the FG button.

You can sort high/low values by tapping on the nutrient heading. The 100gm displays are to allow an equal comparison among foods (e.g. for shopping) and at times may not reflect daily usage e.g. 100gm of oil or butter is not practical unless cooking in large organizations. Use the "Household Measures" profiles to reflect actual usage or the 100gm profiles to compare and find optimum food nutrients for your situation. The TOP button in the lower right corner returns the view to the top if you have scrolled far down the chart.

You can filter/search foods within a food group and the selection persists as you select other groups or profiles. This allows you to see different dimensions of the foods or food group e.g. is there a lot of fat, starch, protein, etc. in them. It can be a great learning tool to discover characteristics of food(s) or food groups. If you examine the food descriptions, many natural comparisons are possible: cooked vs. raw, salted vs. no salt, fat vs. nofat, and many more. A counter at the top of the listing shows how many food entries are selected.

A unique filter/search feature is that you can tap a word in the food description in order to filter/search with it: Tap and holding a word highlights your selected word with the standard Apple "Copy, Look Up, Share" menu; tap the selected word again once and it transfers to the search box filtering the list of foods for it; if you tap again anywhere in the food description (leftmost) column, then the full listing of foods for the food group is reset. If you tap the "Look Up" popup and you are connected to the Internet, then a search is done for the word on the web (Wikipedia and Dictionary articles are shown often); look up unfamiliar foods, measures, nutrient definitions. e.g. protein, fiber, etc. This can be a great learning or research tool for everyone. The "Copy" option can be used to copy and paste selections; the "Share" has limited functionality at this time. Tapping the right most columns resets the "Copy, Lookup, Share" popup menu. A printed Chart is planned for the future (there is a bug in Apple which prevents it now).

To change the search field: tap on the word and type over it; deleting the search term returns the full display of the food group. You can use multiple words out of order in the search if typed in, but only one if tapped in.

Dark/Light Mode

You can now use an easy on the eyes "Dark Mode" which is the latest color scheme for reading online material and maintaining better focus for many. If you prefer the old "Light" theme, its available via the toggle switch at the top of this Welcome help page. Dark Mode works well with Apple's "Smart Invert" color scheme in IOS (Settings - Accessibility - Display Accomodations). Smart Invert can bring an easier view to all apps on your device e.g. when you use the "Look Up" feature in this app.

Data Source

We use the latest USDA data from their Standard Reference Legacy DataBase April, 2018 with over 7000 foods. No internet connection is necessary (unless you want to do a web look up per above) after the app is loaded as all data is self-contained in the app; we will refresh the app when new data becomes available. Column cells with no value were not populated by the USDA; a nutrient value may or may not exist.

Not all food items contain all the nutrients/components included in USDA data. However, the lack of a value for a particular nutrient in a given food or food product does not indicate that the value is zero; it means that no vallue for that nutrient in that food or food product is available in the USDA data we received.

NOTES: Caffeine is shown under Carbs even though it is not a carb since it seemed a good place to show it. Also fat components do not equal Total Fat due to residual fat items not shown per USDA.

We will soon also have a similar app available for vitamins and minerals.