As an aspiring chef, one of the things I find myself doing a lot is, visiting many different restaurants of course. I try to taste different and interesting flavors, look out for marriages of different taste profiles, and push myself at learning more about techniques, flavor, and plating when I head out to eat.
That said, in my own time I try to eat as healthily as I can because I care about health and nutrition very much. It can be said to be a marriage of Heaven and Hell really, a constant tussle between the two very different natures of my diet.
So when I chanced upon The Eatery app when Jenn Im of clothesencounters shared it, I immediately downloaded it from the Apple app store.
So what you do is you snap a picture of your food...
And then you rate it on the FAT-FIT scale of 10-100. Other users get to rate your food as well.
This is a week's snapshot of meals, for example (pictures are taken off The Eatery website).
Being passionate about nutrition, I do think this is a wonderful way of getting people to just be more conscious and aware of what they are putting into their bodies, and also if it is necessarily the most healthy thing to be having. Having to look back on a week's worth of food also sets things in perspective about the ratio of healthy vs indulgent foods that I've been having. However, on one night out I had sweet wine, soju, a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail and an Old Fashioned in the span of 2 hours, and people seemed to rate it >65-70 on the fit scale. That surprised me. If one doesn't have the accurate knowledge backing them up, the support that builds up from a social media community may send some wrong signals about the actual benefits of your food.
That said, I think this is better for people who are starting out on a weight loss journey, or people who don't take this more than a mere way of logging their food and taking responsibility for what they eat. I once had to rate an entry that stated "I ate so much I don't even want to talk about it". The thing is, anyone who has ever tried to be health conscious knows that health isn't just an objective measure of "a salad is good, a packet of fries is bad". While objectively you could actually justify that, we all know how much the mental game is involved when it comes to a lifelong, healthy lifestyle. The food choices we do to rejuvenate our minds are just as important as what we do for our physicality. While I'm not discounting the merits of The Eatery, I do hope that the app will one day include room for spiritual and mental support/wellness, and look at diet/healthy lifestyles as a holistic endeavor!
Overall, The Eatery is a great, passionate move by the people at Massive Health, so props to that!