Super Eco

Photo credit: iLoveButter, flickr

For all the struggle consumers go through to get accurate, complete nutritional product labeling, sometimes detailed labels still leave us in the dark. Who can make heads or tails out of that chemical soup? "I speak English, and some Spanish, but I could not pronounce half the words on food labels and quickly realized that the ingredients on food labels tell us very little," confesses Dwayne Ratleff.

So the sole owner/employee of a San Francisco housekeeping service decided to clean things up himself, researching and creating a $1.99 iPhone/iPod app that provides details on more than 1,500 food additives. Don't Eat That cuts through what Ratleff calls the "eastern urban elite Martian dialect" of labeling language to offer food product definitions, safety standards and research information from the United States and other countries. The data resides on your device, so there's no need for an internet connection while you puzzle things out in the grocery store aisle.

Ratliff's sources include the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), Codex Alimetarius, the American Cancer Society, the International Agency For Research On Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and web sites including Celiac.com. Empowering consumers to make their own decisions about the ingredients they eat is the point. "Err in your favor," urges Ratleff. "If you do not feel comfortable with the science backing the safety of an additive, avoid it, especially if there are alternative sources."