Great Website And Iphone App!

[Shashi]

I just found a cool website. It's called Shopwell.com. You can create a profile based on your nutritional needs and preferences, and then look up food items to see how they fit your profile. There's also a free iPhone app that goes along with it where you can scan a bar code and it tells you how that item rates for your needs, and if there's anything in it that you shouldn't have (gluten, lactose, fat, sugar, etc.) It will give you both the ingredients in the item and the nutritional value as well.

I just spent the last half hour scanning everything in my refrigerator/pantry, and was surprised at how many things have gluten in them (caramel food coloring!) I did find two errors - it said that my Cinnamon Chex cereal had gluten in it, but when it showed me the ingredients, they weren't the same ones that were on the box. (Maybe they've been changed recently to make the cereal gluten free, as it says on the label?) The only items it couldn't find were the store brands that I've bought.

Anyway, just thought I'd share this, since it seems like a very helpful app/web site to use.

[Skylark]

In the US carmel food coloring is made from corn. If it is wheat derived it must say so on the label.

It sounds like this app has some issues with their database. It is always better to use programs like that as suggestions and check the label every single time on processed foods.

[AngieH]

Sounds like a great tool for identifying gluten. I love it when we can use technology to speed the process up, instead of having to always look through lists on the labels. I will have to look into getting this app for myself. Thanks for the info!

Angie.