The New App Making Food Shopping Easier for People with Allergies & Sensitivities

Grocery shopping is hard for a lot of families, because not only do you have to just buy A LOT of stuff, but you have to keep everyone’s allergies in mind. This is why we’re so grateful for a new platform called the Sage Project, where food shopping is made easy.

The Sage Project is a website created by designers, dietitians, and technologists to easily make nutritional information and food labels accessible to the average person–thus, saving you time to figure out what to buy. Sam Slover, Sage Project’s co-founder and chief executive, recently told The Mighty:

“We created the Sage Project out of our own personal frustration with food data and food labeling. All too often, we find food data to be a black hole: it’s confusing, generic, and people are not really empowered to make better decisions based on it.”

So, how does it work? The web-based platform takes into account your personal lifestyle, allergies, and dietary preferences–which can be used on your phone or laptop. Slover added:

“The entire platform is based around the concept of personalization. We get to know a bit about you, and then help you find products that are right for you–and avoid products that are not right for you.”

Basically, the only items you’ll be able to view are ones free of the allergens your body can’t process. Even better, if you look at a product that contains items you cannot eat, Sage will flag the item. The platform also includes 16 allergens, as opposed to the eight the FDA mandates be marked on labels.

Besides that, Sage tells you how much exercise it takes to burn off a serving size, where your food was shipped from, and explanations of the ingredients in your food (like that long 27 syllable word).