The project NutriAIDE examines the dietary behavior and the nutrition-related decision-making of middle-class consumers in urban India. Therefore, the project participants develop an appbased solution for transforming their respective food environments. Researchers of Nutrition Science, Geography, Psychology, and Sustainability Science are designing and testing the application software NutriAIDE together with the private software developer Calvry Wellness Solutions Private Ltd. in order to launch it afterwards. The app helps the consumer to reduce the current high demand for processed foods and to change related diets high in sugar, salt, and fat into more diverse diets with high shares of locally produced, artisan food with low carbon footprints. It serves consumers: to measure, assess, and change their personal eating routines in different social settings – e.g. grocery shopping, out-of-home catering – and to collectively transform their socially shared food environments in the sense that healthy diets are promoted, local artisanal food producers are empowered, and environmental protection is fostered.
The Wuppertal Institute supports the app development by providing a database for greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore researchers are ,in the context of the project, examining the linkages between dietary patterns and the food system. To this end, value chains of various products that are considered problematic in terms of human health and the environment, as well as their more sustainable alternatives, will be analyzed on an ecological, social and economic level.