Everyday Yogini

Look, I don’t like chain restaurants. Thank god I don’t have to deal with that here in Italy. But recently, we stopped at the military installation in Naples to pick up some items on base, and resigned ourselves to eating at Applebee’s. Truly, it was horrible. I don’t eat there stateside, and it’s shocking and offensive to eat there when you can eat delicious, fresh, Italian food. It reminded me of all the things that are very, very wrong with our food production and preparation in the United States…

But I digress. Sometimes, you can’t get to a local, fresh restaurant. I know. Our little family has moved across many states and struggled to make good food choices in very remote places. It can be tough. Enter Wellternatives, an online service that provides a free healthy eating service that recommends healthy alternatives for your favorite dishes at hundreds of thousands of chain restaurants. It is designed so that anyone can use their cell phone to receive suggested ‘Wellternatives’ along with calorie and nutrition information for free. It’s quick, fun and easy to use, and works from any cell phone (in the United States)!

So starting today, anyone with Internet access or a mobile phone can get nutrition information for their favorite chain restaurant’s menu items, and even a recommendation for a healthier alternative – for free. One of the keys to making this helpful for people is that the recommendation algorithm not only considers key nutritional factors, but also takes into account taste preference profiles, portion sizes and types of food. That way people can find healthier alternatives from the same restaurant that they will find just as satisfying and delicious as what they usually eat.

Wellsphere is a health site that I have recently been asked to contribute to. I am slowly learning more about their vast mission and I am honored to be part of the team! Check it out and see what you think! And, the next time you eat out? Give Wellternatives a try!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 1:22 am and is filed under Nourishing our Bodies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.