Read Before You Eat: Smart Dietary Choices
Over the past years, the worldwide food environment has been transformed. With an increase in the working population and busy day-to-day lives, processed and ultra-processed foods are now a staple in our diets. They’re easy to find, have long shelf lives, and are quick to prepare. The following graph shows how sales for processed and ultra-processed food have grown since 2018.
Projected worldwide revenue and volume consumption of processed food in 2023 and 2029, by region, are shown below, indicating that all regions will continue to see growth in processed food consumption. However, Asia will remain the leading market due to their high population, development, and demand for processed foods.
But processed and ultra-processed foods can cause diet-related health issues because of the high amounts of sodium, sugar, and saturated fats. As a result, people are focusing on picking better food choices that can fit their lifestyle. But the difficulty is determining what products will meet those needs. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be one of the solutions to help make healthy food choices. AI-enabled technology, such as digital health apps, is one of the most deployed technologies around the world. This technology is allowing new platforms for personalized nutrition.
Application software using AI that scans food labels, identifies ingredients within pre-packaged items and offers evidence-based advice about the nutritional value of foods has the potential to better inform consumers about what they eat. Nutritional information provided by these applications could be used alongside users’ dietary needs, activity levels and health goals to evaluate the nutritional value of processed food products and create tailored advice that users can apply. A few applications have been created for this function. ‘Yuka’, which was created in France in 2017, allows users to scan products’ barcodes and rate food based on their nutritional ratings, additives used and ingredient list.
The app also suggests healthier alternatives to products, which the users may commonly purchase. ‘FoodSwitch’ was created in Australia in 2012. The app allows users to scan barcodes on pre-packaged food products and receive information about the nutritional content of their food in an easily understandable format. Healthier alternative products are displayed for users to compare with the original item. Other applications such as ‘MyFitnessPal’, ‘Lifesum ‘, and ‘HealthifyMe’ combine barcode scanning and meal logging with estimated calorie intakes and nutrition coaching to aid with weight loss.
In addition to informing healthier food decisions at the point of purchase, nutrition-based applications can bridge information gaps between producers and consumers. By providing meaningful, personalised, easy-to-understand information about the food we consume, these applications have the potential to nudge consumers towards purchasing healthier options and increase dietary literacy. With continued use, healthier food choices may become habitual and can lead to long-term changes to dietary behaviour.
(Authored by Prof. Ritu Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, SBM NMIMS, Mumbai Dr. Ashu Sharma, Professor (Operations and Data Sciences), Program Chair-MBA Business Analytics. SBM NMIMS University, Mumbai )