The Food We Eat: An Evaluation of Food Items Input into an Electronic Food Monitoring Application

We present a formative study that examines what and how participants in a chronic kidney disease (stage 5) population input food items into an electronic intake monitoring application. Participants scanned food item barcodes or voice recorded food items they consumed during a three week period. The results indicated that a learning curve was associated with barcode scanning and participants with low literacy skills had difficulty describing food items in voice recordings. Participants thought this electronic self monitoring application would be helpful for chronically ill populations in their first year of dialysis treatment.