NutrientCheck App

NutrientCheck is a Shiny web application to help you visualize the nutrient content of food.

Aim: Check the nutritional content of one or more food ingredients.

Data Source: package NutrientData contains data from the composition of foods (USDA National Nutrient Database).

1. Data Processing

Data ('ABBREV') was manipulated to select just some variables (nutrients) as an example. A calculation for the nutrient content of household portions was added as well as for the quantity inputed by the user.

1. UI/Server

UI has 4 input 'fields' and 1 action button, to update information as the input changes. Server defines how the plot and the table are presented, with conditions to filter observations or calculate new data, dependent on the user input.

1. App Interface

Allows the user to choose between visualizing nutrient content of 1 or more foods, for standard portion sizes or for household portion size or even for a self input, that I called dynamic portion size.

1. The app starts with two examples of ingredients, you can erase it and write down your own search.

Click on 'Update View' button to activate new display.

2: Select your food ingredient (one or more)

3: Select one nutrient

4: Choose how you want to see the information in the plot, selecting one of the 3 options of 'Choose a portion size':

• 'Standard': 100g for each ingredient.
• 'Household': This measure is different for each food ingredient and depends on the purpose of use for the ingredient. Be aware that you will be comparing food for different portion sizes.
• 'Dynamic': select the quantity you want but, on the opposite of the 'Household' option, this will define the same quantity for all the selected food ingredients.

Be aware that the ideal is to have a selection of a specific quantity for each food ingredient. In this case it is recommended to use the 'Dynamic' option considering that the selected quantity will not be realistic for every type of food.

Find out more about this app on the link below:

https://github.com/agrou/agrou.github.io/tree/master/NutrientCheck