Digital health shopping assistant with React Native: a simple technological solution to a complex health problem

Abstract: Today, more and more people are reporting allergies, which can range from simple reactions close to discomfort to anaphylactic shocks. Other people may not be allergic but avoid certain foods for personal reasons. Daily food shopping of these people is hampered by the fact that unwanted ingredients can be hidden in any food, and it is difficult to find them all. The paper presents a digital health shopping assistant called "Diet Helper", aimed to make life easier for such people by making it easy to determine whether a product is suitable for consumption, according to the specific dietary requirements of both types - existing diet and self-defined. This is achieved by capturing ingredient label, received by the app as an input, which the app analyses, converting the captured label to text, and filters out unwanted ingredients that according to the user should be avoided as either allergens or products to which the consumer is intolerant etc, helping the user decide if the product is suitable for consumption. This should make daily grocery shopping easier by providing the user with more accurate and simplified product selection in seconds, reducing the total time spent in the grocery stores, which is especially relevant in light of COVID-19, although it was and will remain out of it due to the busy schedules and active rhythm of life of modern society. The app is developed using the React Native framework and Google Firebase platform, which makes it easy to develop, use and extend such solutions thereby encouraging to start actively developing solutions that could improve wellbeing.