Spoonful: Food Scanner 4+

Spoonful is a great help in going Low FODMAP

I had been researching all the vast areas related to understanding FODMAP, what it was, what it wasn’t, how to understand the role it needs to play in my daily life, how to EVER be able to buy groceries without spending HOURS at the store trying to read all the ingredients on all the items I needed to buy, then have to put those, bad for me items down and find the energy- mentally and physically- to find replacements that were low FODMAP. Yea, I spent over 1 1/2 weeks researching my self into depression because I just haven’t that kind of energy. Then I came across the Spoonful site and learned about their app. Needless to say, I was absolutely excited that one single app does all that work for me! I just use the scanner in the app and scan the grocery store items I want and I find out then and there if I can eat it or not. There are alternatives listed in the app to tell you what to replace that item with. There are items that are not in the Spoonful database of products, which I am more than happy to take pictures of the packages list of ingredients, the front of the package, nutritional section and its barcode and submit it to Spoonful. Spoonful takes action immediately to add the new products and notify you immediately as to that foods rating, let you know it’s been added to the data base and available for every one who scans those foods. I am truly grateful to Spoonful and their app. You can’t go wrong with their help!

Developer Response ,

Erin - we're so glad you're feeling better and that Spoonful was able to help. Wishing you all the best and a happy gut!

My fave list?

I haven't been shopping since I picked this up a few days ago- Where have you been‽ - because I'm immunocompromised. Also my (IBS) gut is absolutely miserable so I don't want to eat or drink more than particular granolas and drink green tea and I'm well stocked on them. Instead, I've been scanning what's around, including OTC meds, etc. Enlightening. (Nary a crash- the woman having crash issues might want to poke around at settings, get rid of location tracking, background refresh, automatic updates, etc when they're not needed and delete apps she's not using. She may want to check her battery use; what's running in the background?) I'm sure you all know it's not as easy as just buying gluten-free because pear juice is in some bread, mannitol is in Bean-o (Bean-zyme to the rescue!) My faves though- why can't I just plop something into it from general lists? Or can I? I don't see how. Please help.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for stopping by! And yes, you can add a product to your favorites from the Discover feed by pulling the right side of the product card to the left. This feature only works though if you are logged into your account.

Frustrated user…lack of kind/understanding support from Spoonful

I have been locked out of my account for 3 months. I have attempted logging in 20+ times now and one of two things happen: I never receive an email with the login link or it takes so long for the email to come that the link expires. When I tried contacting the developer I never saw any responses. Then after sending a frustrated email, I finally saw a response from the CMO who was not very kind in his response (apparently his messages went to my junk mail and since they were from his email my attempts to search for spoonful did not pull his messages up). I explained my position and the CMO has continued to interact with me in an unhelpful, unforgiving way. I sent another response asking for someone else on the team to help me and today I received a message from the CMO stating, “It would be best to part ways. There are lots of great apps out there”. He sent me a link to request a refund, but apple requires a refund request be made within 2 months of purchase, which would have been March when I wasn’t having problems.

Finally, after calling apple rather than going through the automated online refund request and talking with a supervisor I’m going to get a prorated refund for the remainder of the year, so maybe 3 more months of service refunded. I would have rather had some help logging in and getting my full year of service but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

I do not recommend this app.