Bon'App, a free application and online nutrition management tool that launched last May, has reached 160,000 regular users and is beginning to focus its efforts on expansion to college campuses like Tufts.
According to Director of Research and Data Analytics at Bon'App Taylor Salinardi (N '12), the app aims to provide users nutrition information in a language they can understand.
"We realized that people are confused about what's really in their food," Salinardi, a Tufts alumna, said. "We provide information but we keep it very simple. It's not a nutrition facts label, and we provide a visual of what this means."
The company plans to work with college dining halls to have their menus uploaded to the application's system, which is free, according to Salinardi.
Bon'App has already collaborated with Harvard University Dining Services and is beginning to work with the dining services departments of other Boston colleges as well, Bon'App Student Ambassador to Tufts Emily Peck said.
"At Harvard we took the food menus for all their meals and put it into the system so you could easily pull up your food," Peck, a sophomore, said. "You could search "Harvard roasted chicken" and it'd come up. You don't have to type in the recipe."
Peck feels that the app is particularly useful to college students eating in dining halls where meal options are unlimited.
"I think a lot of us just kind of eat to eat, and eat what tastes good," Peck said. "We walk in there on an unlimited meal plan and there's pizza and all these yummy desserts. It's Sundae Sunday, Sundae Thursday all the time. Bon'App helps you [think], 'Am I really eating healthy?'"
Visualization of nutrition information is what really distinguishes Bon'App from other nutrition apps, according to Salinardi.
"We provide these 'batteries' that go from green to yellow to red as you journal your food throughout the day, and when you exceed your goals that battery turns black, Salinardi said. "These goals are customizable."
Even those students who are aware of their nutrition oftentimes are not eating as well as they think, Peck explained.
"When I started using Bon'App, for example, I thought I was eating really healthy," Peck said. "But I found that by lunch time my sugar battery was black - my sugars were way used up because I was eating so much fruit that I thought was so good for me. My blood sugar levels were spiking ... and as soon as I started to manage that I felt better."
Bon'App also does not crowd source its food data, making it more reliable and user-friendly, Salinardi explained.
"A lot of these apps out there allow users to submit nutrition information on items, but then when users search, there might be 20 submissions of the same food item with different information," she said. "We have a quality controlled database over 95 percent of branded fresh foods in the U.S."
The Cambridge-based company is currently looking for interns and encourages Tufts students to apply.
