One of the biggest prejudices about social media is that people share what they eat and drink. Not that interesting for everyone, but bunches of food lovers share recipes, ingredients and cooking tips. People love food, but nobody can eat without consequences. Depending on your eating habits and health, obesity, vitamin deficiency, diabetes and (food) allergies can become a big problem. Strange, knowing that there are so many people suffering from starvation, while Western cultures can’t control their eating habits. Your cell phone seems to be the solution. Applications tell you where you can eat, can help you track what you eat and make you aware of your eating habits. At SXSW, the annual music, film, and interactive conference in Austin, food spotting got its own area, where food was the central topic: with information on edibility, photos, menus or hotspots to eat, it was the place you could find all the food enthusiasts. The Next Web posted the 12 best food applications on a nice blog. It’s not only fun, it looks like your cell phone will be the new diet guru.
Since the creation of location based applications, there’s been a new way of discovering great food places and restaurant reviews. Foursquare is the new Lonely Planet, with people from all over the world telling you whether you should eat somewhere, what’s the best place to go or when you should skip the spot altogether. It also opened the doors to food awareness and sharing habits online. Instagram and Flickr have hundreds of groups of people sharing what they eat. You can ask for real time recipe information on Twitter and there are even apps that show you what you eat and calculate the calories in it. It looks like your cell phone is starting to decide what you eat, where you eat and what changes you should make in your eating habits. Marjolijn Kamphuis and Johan Voets, founders of Foodzy, share their vision on food and technology.
Cell phone and food: the new diet guru?
Future food
Does this mean we will be sitting in restaurants, registering location, food and calories, and forget to eat? This is one step closer to awareness, and that’s what is missing the most. If you’re not on a diet and don’t like to cook, why should you worry about food? ‘We love Italian food, barbecues and having dinner in fancy restaurants. It’s no problem to enjoy all the food you like one day, but mind what you eat a bit better the next day. By sharing your eating habits, you’ll have a lot of supporters helping you reach your personal goals, and I think that’s the future of food. Still enjoying it together, but also helping each other eat responsibly. Technology is only making it easier to share and watch.’
Marjolijn Kamphuis and Johan Voets, founders of Foodzy.
It looks like your cell phone will be the new diet guru.
Insight in eating habits
Marjolijn: ‘I’m a real food addict, but not blessed with the ability to eat without gaining extra weight. Since I was in college, I’ve tried different diets, but no diet ever worked long-term, except one: eat healthy, vary your food and be aware of what enters your mouth. It took a lot of calculating calories, food diaries and disappointments before I realized this. Since I’m really into cell phones, I discovered a couple of applications that helped me keep track of what I eat. I think if you can make it easier for people to keep track of what they eat, for example through your cell phone, you can make eating healthy and dieting way more fun. We can eat everything we like, because it’s available. But we don’t have any clue what we eat in one day. When I started keeping track, I was shocked the first days. I wasn’t aware of the effect a couple of sweets could have.’
It looks like your cell phone is starting to decide what you eat, where you eat and what changes you should make in your eating habits.
Dieting as a game
Diets are no fun. Because you change your eating habits almost completely, you get grumpy – and we all know about the horrible ‘jo-jo’ effect when you turn back to your ‘normal’ diet. We all know it’s not only about changing our eating habits, but also about sports and exercise, but there’s just not enough hours in a day. You can keep track of your movements with Runkeeper or Fitbit, for example. Combining this with your daily food intake could help you with your diet. When you register every burnt calorie on your phone for example, it becomes more real. You see the result, and it’s easier to see it digitally when you lost a few pounds, before you actually feel your pants loosening. Gadgets like YouW8 and WiScale already made it more accessible to weigh yourself and update regularly.
Foodzy
Available applications like Mealsnap and Foodspotting are still missing a fun factor, they only share photos or count calories, there’s no interaction. Foodzy, now available as a mobile website but an application is coming soon, is like Foursquare for food. You register everything you eat, by adding products from the database. Every product has bits, based on its calories. Based on your gender, length and weight, you’re advised a maximum amount of bits. This can help you control your weight or lose weight. Foodzy’s main goal is not to be the next digital Montignac Method, but to create awareness. The fun factor in Foodzy is in the rewards; badges for eating healthy food and for eating varied food. If you like, you can share your food list with friends, so you can inspire others with your healthy food habits or be inspired. In the future, Foodzy’s ambition is to create food groups and share your recipes. Foodzy also has the ambition to advise you if your diet lacks certain products or if you eat too much unhealthy stuff. Marjolijn: ‘We are working on the cell phone application, connections with uWeight/WiScale and other applications like Runkeeper so you can add the burning bits feature. We’d like to bring the fun back to dieting.’
