I have not imported all the necessary data from the US Food DB into my PostgreSQL server. However, while I was looking into this, I found a DB called OpenFoodFacts. From my quick search, using OpenFoodFacts as my primary DB has certain benefits and drawbacks:
Pros of Using OpenFoodFacts:
- The information is more user-friendly. It has pictures, barcodes, and names of the food item. This is absent in the US Food DB, and why I wanted to use Nutrionix at the beginning
- The data is easier to handle as it's all in long table
Drawbacks of using OpenFoodFacts:
- The data comes from user contributions, allowing for many more mistakes. In fact a lot of the information is different from the US Food DB.
- Lots of data is missing
With these issues, I don't think I will use OpenFoodFacts as my primary DB. However, I might use it near the end of the workflow if I want to provide the user pictures, barcodes and names of the products.
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