A guy with an iPhone walks into a bar.
If he wanted to see how many calories were in his favorite cocktail, he might use DrinkFit, an application designed for the iPhone by Justin Cooperman '10. The application contains a database of nutritional content for over 1,000 different alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, liquor and cocktails, according to the product's web site.
Cooperman was inspired to create the application after observing his more fitness-conscious friends, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth. While many of them would carefully manage their diets and exercise routines, they seemed less concerned about self-monitoring when it came to drinking at a party, he said.
"I knew they were health-conscious, so I was wondering, Are these people really knowing what they're consuming?'" Cooperman said.
There was not, however, a consistent source of nutritional information for alcoholic beverages, he said. Brewers and manufacturers, Cooperman later discovered, are not legally required to post nutrition facts about their products. Cooperman said that while many manufacturers display this data on their web sites, he wanted to create an application where consumers could research dietary content on the go.
Cooperman said he spent nearly four months compiling data from a variety of producers for the original version of the application, he said. Although some of the information was readily available, he estimated that he had to contact manufacturers or bottlers directly for around 70 percent of the beverages listed.
"Usually they're pretty cooperative, and if they've done these tests, they'll give me the information," he said.
Not all manufacturers have tested the nutritional content of their beverages, however, leading to some gaps in DrinkFit's database, Cooperman said.
At the end of the three-and-a-half month period, Cooperman said, he had data for roughly 800 varieties of alcoholic drinks. He began programming the application in June and DrinkFit was ready for release on July 17.
Since the initial release, users have sent numerous requests asking to expand the database of drinks covered by the application to include favorite types of beer or specific manufacturers, he said. Two updates have already been released in response to user demand, broadening the program's coverage and creating new categories for wine and wine coolers. Future versions will include data on champagne and shooters, he said.
"My goal is to get practically every drink you can think of indexed on here, so that if you go out anywhere to any bar, you'd be able to track what you're drinking, no matter what that would be," Cooperman said.
User feedback has been overwhelmingly positive since the product's release, he said, noting that the application has been one of the top 25 most popular paid applications in Apple's iTunes app store.
Diabetic users have found the program particularly helpful in monitoring their sugar intake, Cooperman said, while others, who track their carbohydrate and nutrient consumption from food, have used DrinkFit as a program to supplement other tracking applications on their smartphones.
Cooperman said his current aim is to develop an "extensive update" for the application, particularly a tracking feature so that users can monitor their consumption during an evening and record daily consumption over the course of a month. He also hopes to let users create their own drinks in the new version by determining the content for a specific brand of alcohol and a mixer and calculating facts for the two together.
The updated version should be released in about six weeks, Cooperman said, at which time he also hopes to make the application available for mobile phones running the Google Android operating system.
Student opinion on the practicality of the application was mixed. Kelly McHenry '11, who uses an iPhone and also trains for sports, said she did not think DrinkFit would be particularly useful in Hanover where people tend to have a limited selection of alcoholic drinks.
"[I] probably wouldn't use it, just because that information is readily available on the Internet," she said. "But outside of Dartmouth, I think it would be useful, and I'd definitely use it."
Cooperman noted, however, that much of the information on the Internet is inaccurate, because it comes from users who provide their own figures for different beverages.
"A lot of people aren't getting incredibly accurate information," he said. "I don't allow anyone to tell me what these values are unless it's straight from the manufacturer."
More accurate information might become readily available if a new federal regulation, proposed by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, is instituted following a public comment period, he said. The rule would require brewers and producers to post nutritional content on their packaging, which some small-scale manufacturers have claimed would be costly and place them at a disadvantage compared to larger producers with fewer specialized beverage varieties.
Cooperman said he supports the regulation, even if it means reduced business for DrinkFit.
"I'm not trying to make a huge profit on this application," he said. "I really wanted to get the information out there to the consumer."
