FREEDOM FOODS
DIGITAL ARTEFACT CONTEXTUAL STATEMENT
Freedom foods is an interactive health platform designed to aid poly food avoidant individuals in navigating their dietary and allergy requirements. It accomplishes this through a range of features including recipes, tips, a barcode scanner, and an ingredient substitution function. The user is able to create their profile and select multiple dietary and allergy filters to apply including, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free, gluten-free, egg-free, fish-free, anti-inflammatory, diabetes, heart health, hormonal balance, gut health, vegan, vegetarian, keto and pescetarian. The app then takes this information applied and curates thousands of recipes organised according to meal that the individual can then safely consume. Freedom Foods varies from other pre-existing apps as it caters for poly-avoiders of food meaning being allergic or intolerant to more than one food category. Whereas other platforms typically cater for singular restrictions, for example, only lactose-free, only gluten-free. All the information in the app itself has been certified by Accredited Practising Dieticians, the Apple App stores ethical board and the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand Health information legislation.
In developing this project there was extensive research involved in understanding the need and potential economic contributions of its creation. The need for this platform was quickly understood as government health statistics demonstrated the scale of our target demographic. According to the NSW Government, “25% of the population report themselves as having one or more food intolerances” (NSW Government 2022). Furthermore, in 2016 The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation reported that 20% of Australians avoid one food category, whilst 12% and increasing are poly avoiders (Noone 2016). We can assume these numbers have steadily increased in recent years. Further research showed that Freedom Food contributes to the shared economy as the app features an assembly of capital assets that are meant to be viewed conjointly and primarily benefit the consumers and users. Additionally, the app contributes to the convergence in the field of media and communications by corresponding with consumers to make navigating their restrictive diet and food tolerances further manageable.
The aim of Freedom Foods is to bridge the dietary divide of normal functioning individuals to those suffering with multiple dietary restrictions; by providing a single platform that encompasses everything regarding nutrition and diet specifically for deficiencies. In brainstorming for this platform, it was evident that being a poly food avoider meant that making meals per recipes was extremely difficult; as the overwhelming multitude of resources provide direction and advice on curating food based on a singular intolerance, rather than a collective restriction. It became the goal to develop an app that would allow you to input several dietary and allergy restrictions that recipes and ingredients would then adhere to. Therefore, making the exclusion of the poly-avoiders demographic a much smaller bridge to gap. In conclusion, we succeeded in the creation of such a resource and hope that it makes adhering to restrictive diets significantly easier.
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LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/vxxPSJ5W6Vc
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REFERENCES
Written Statement:
NSW Government Food Authority. 2022. Allergy and intolerance. [online] Available at: https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/consumer/life-events-and-food/allergy-and-intolerance#:~:text=Food%20allergy%20now%20affects%201,they%20have%20a%20food%20intolerance [Accessed 26 May 2022].
Noone, Y., 2016. One-in-three Australians avoid gluten, dairy, or meat: CSIRO. [online] SBS. Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/health/article/2016/09/26/one-three-australians-avoid-gluten-dairy-or-meat-csiro [Accessed 26 May 2022].
DA Video:
Youtube.com. 2019. Upbeat and Happy Pop Background Music for Videos. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-TADy-oN0 [Accessed 26 May 2022].
Jotform.com. 2022. [online] Available at: https://www.jotform.com/myapps/utm_source=app&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=powered-by-jotform-removelabel&utm_appID=221371078420852&action=createWizardhttps://www.jotform.com/myapps/utm_source=app&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=powered-by-jotform-remove-label&utm_appID=221371078420852&action=createWizard [Accessed 23 May 2022].
