Diets
This project aims to see if it's possible for OpenFoodFacts to support diets in the most generic way.
Exploring how Open Food Facts can support any dietary requirement
Introduction
The idea for diets started with the question how vegetarian products are supported by Open Food Facts. It is clear however that these idea's can be extended to any dietary requirement. Other examples of diets are Hallal or Kosher, but also Organic can be seen as a diet.
Diet definition
What is a diet exactly? Wikipedia defines it as In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. This does not help us much. The Wikipedia entry on diets shows more than 50 different diets (I stopped counting). There are many different reasons and approaches, which are not relevant here. As a working defition I will use: A Open Food Fact diet is a subselection of products in the Open Food Fact database. This implies that a person who follows a certain diet is only willing to eat specific products.
Diet Listings
Wikipedia has a very large listing of Diets. I am not sure whether they are all relevant for this discussion. Examples of diets are (I just copied some):
- Buddhist diet
- Edenic diet:
- Hindu and Jain diets:
- Islamic dietary laws
- I-tal
- Kosher diet
- Word of Wisdom
- Fruitarian diet
- [[Lacto vegetarianism]
- Lacto-ovo vegetarianism
- Vegan diet
- Flexitarian diet
- Kangatarian
- Pescetarian diet
- Plant-based diet
We have to analyse these diets to see how they are defined and whether they are suitable for support by Open Food Facts.
Which diets to support?
We need to set some rules to define which diets Open Food Facts could support:
- Open Diet - the definition of a diet and its corresponding rules should be in the public domain. (I guess this will exclude diets created by diet guru's).
- Diet Society - there should be a society that supports a diet. Such a society should certify products. Ideally their listin
Already supported
Open Food Facts already support some support for diets.
Allergens
Labels
Product support levels
On the official dutch association site for vegetarians, they use a five-level scheme to indicate whether a product is suitable for vegetarians. such a scheme can be adapted to any diet.
- light green - the product has a lable by an official certification organisation, which certifies that the product is suitable for the diet;
- dark green - the product contains no ingredients that seem unsuitable for the diet;
- yellow - the product contains additives that might not be suitable for the diet;
- orange - the product contains additives not suitable for the diet;
- red - the product clearly contains ingredients not suitable for the diet;
Not all diets will support all levels.
Translation Issues
A file is needed with all possible / supported diets.
Diet logo's
Each supported diet requires a logo, similar to the one used for Palm fat. Maybe inspiration can be taken from the official corresponding logo's.