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Google To Provide Easier Access to Nutrition Information

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Jun 12, 2013 12:46 PM EDT

When people want to search the calorie count or the overall nutritional information of a particular produce, Google used to provide a list of websites that could help people find the answer. This method of research requires people to click through several websites in order to find the nutritional value information they desire. According to Google, this way of attaining information could be time-consuming and ineffective, which is why Google has found a solution. Google announced this past Monday that it has incorporated a new feature that will improve people's searching capabilities in regards to nutritional data.

"We've seen such an increase in queries over time related to health. Everything from questions of how many calories are in a banana, to how much protein is in a steak," commented a Google global-communications and public-affairs representative, Roya Soleimani according to Time. "Unfortunately, until now, there was no easy way to answer that question."

Now, when people search for nutritional data for different types of food, Google will immediately provide accurate and in-depth information. Google was able to accomplish this new search feature by taking data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) nutritional database, which has an extensive review of calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and other nutritional values for a wide range of foods. Not only does this new search aspect provide information, people can use the drop-down box to select options, such as boiled versus fried that could give them a better idea about the nutritional values of the product. Although this new feature is quite an innovation, specialists are still working on how to efficiently calculate the nutritional data for complex meals that use multiple ingredients.

"If I look up calories in an avocado, I will get that information, but I will also get the potassium levels and other nutrient levels. It gives people the answers they are looking for, quickly and accurately. Hopefully it will empower people to make healthy decisions," Soleimani said.

According to Google, one of the first new aspects that it plans on incorporating to this new search capability is a comparison feature that would allow people to look at multiple nutritional values of different foods at a time.

Soleimani adds "This is the beginning of better answers and the future of where search is going."

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