Buddhaplate: An Easy Meal Tracker App for Health Balance
What is Buddhaplate Meal Tracker?
Buddhaplate is a nutrition tracker app. It allows you to log your daily meals and check your overall diet balance based on the Plate Method. A nutritionally balanced meal is achieved by dividing your plate into 1/4 of proteins, 1/4 of whole grains and 1/2 vegetables and fruits.
Using healthy fats, drinking water and reducing the amount of sugary drinks and processed food are also part of a healthy diet. Buddhaplate Meal Tracker helps you to reach your goal of healthy balanced diet.
What is the Plate Method?
The Plate Method is a technique that allows for visual organisation of a nutritionally balanced meal. It consists of dividing your plate into different zones for different food categories. It originated in 1970 in Sweden, under the name of Idaho Plate 1. The Plate Method was since revised and used by many health organisations like the American Diabetes Association2, to help patients easily portion their meals. It was also adapted in countries like the USA3 and Canada4 to serve as a food guide for the general population.
Is Buddhaplate Meal Tracker a weight-loss app?
The Plate Method can be used to help weight management by defining the appropriate portion of each food. However, Buddhaplate doesn’t promote any weight-loss diet. We believe that the most important is to have a balanced, healthy diet as part of a healthy lifestyle, including physical activity and quality sleep. For any weight management concern or health issues, you should ask for a healthcare professional individual and personalised advice.
Who is Buddhaplate Meal Tracker for?
Buddhaplate is designed for anyone who wants to ensure that their meals are balanced without the hassle of calories calculation or servings counting. It is an inclusive tool for all cultures’ foods. Whether you eat your meal from a single dish, in courses, or from multiple small dishes, single plate visualisation still applies.
How does Buddhaplate differ from other nutrition apps?
Buddhaplate’s goal is to offer an easy, enjoyable experience during your nutrition awareness journey.
It’s a visual tool
With the plate representation and the photos taken of your meal, you can check your healthy balance in a glance.
It’s a realistic tool
In addition to the four food categories presented in the plate method (Proteins, Whole grains, Vegetables and Fruits), Buddhaplate introduces a fifth category (Other) that accounts for any food that doesn’t fit into the four recommended categories. You can enjoy an occasional treat without guilt.
It’s a flexible tool
You don’t have to stick exactly to the recommended food categories and proportions for each meal. The Plate method is meant as a guideline. You can compose meals at your convenience through the day and Buddhaplate will aggregate the data into one daily plate.
It’s catalog free
Have you ever tried to log that typical local dish that you eat but didn’t find it in the food database? With Buddhaplate, there is no need for a catalog to know what you are eating. If it’s food, you can name its main components and categorise them within the plate. If not, it’s probably not food.
References
1 – IDaho Plate
2 – The Diabetes Plate Method
3 – My Plate
4 – Canada’s food guide