App for food personalized blacklist/whitelist?

chronicallytoast

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Just in the past month I've possibly bought over 25 different cans of wet food, raw food, and treats for my cat when he stopped eating out of nowhere. He has since started eating again because he no longer has the separation anxiety that caused his little hunger strike. I have almost a dozen cans of wet food and two tubs of raw food just laying around. I've been using them as occasional snacks and whenever he runs out of kibble. I usually have to open up three cans at a time because he will simply refuse to eat certain ones, even if he is starving.

I've gone through so many varieties of wet food, raw food, and treats that I have forgotten all the ones that he hated, and the ones he's loved. It gave me an idea for a simple app app. The app would function like a food blacklist and whitelist, personalized by you for your cat(s). You would be able to have different folders for all of your cats, and a whitelist and blacklist for food.

Under the whitelist, you upload photos (or find photos through an in app search feature) of the snacks and food your cat will (you would be able to pin the ones your cat loves). For the blacklist, you would use the same photo gallery feature as the whitelist, only for foods your cat refuses to eat. Additionally, for both the whitelist and blacklist you can add notes for the listed foods. This would be helpful for documenting any side effects your cat experiences, such as changes in stool, changes in fur, changes in activity, etc....

In high school I had designed (UI was very poor unfortunately) an app that told dog owners what foods were safe and toxic to eat, and provided resources for toxin hotlines and veterinary hotlines. I think I'll be designing this blacklist/whitelist app for my own personal use (since I'm really bad at coding and it wouldn't make sense for such a poorly made app to be publicly available). That being said, if in the future an app like this could be made available, would anybody be interested in using it?
 

Margot Lane

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It’s possible…the one quandary I see with it is cats are so darn fickle. You’d have to stay on top of your black and white list and keep changing it. (Also, since I was just on the NAACP site, you might want to think about black being bad and white being good…I know you here are thinking of ‘blacklisting,’ but even that for some has connotations. …Perhaps red and green? ). Also, throwing it out there, as far as I know there is no cat specific app for finding great hotels to stay in with CATS, which I would definitely use, far more than the one you are describing. Reviews could be added in by cat owners. So many times you get to a hotel and DOGS are OK but not cats.
 

FeebysOwner

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I don't know actually, and partly because of what was said by Margot Lane Margot Lane . I chart what I feed Feeby, who has become very finicky. I use a combination Excel spreadsheet (multiple tabs) and MS Word for a log. All in all, regardless of all that, I have found some foods that she has rejected before to be ones that she has eaten since, and vice-versa. Frankly, this is all 'cat-specific' and in many cases turns out to be a 'crap shoot'.
 
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chronicallytoast

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It’s possible…the one quandary I see with it is cats are so darn fickle. You’d have to stay on top of your black and white list and keep changing it. (Also, since I was just on the NAACP site, you might want to think about black being bad and white being good…I know you here are thinking of ‘blacklisting,’ but even that for some has connotations. …Perhaps red and green? ). Also, throwing it out there, as far as I know there is no cat specific app for finding great hotels to stay in with CATS, which I would definitely use, far more than the one you are describing. Reviews could be added in by cat owners. So many times you get to a hotel and DOGS are OK but not cats.
I was never aware that the phrase blacklist/whitelist had certain racial connotations, I tried checking the NAACP site but couldn't find anything, but found a great explanation for the connotations associated with the origin of the phrase here. Depending on the culture and context, colors have different meanings. Black is generally seen as prosperous, intelligent, and elegant in a lot of traditional American cultures, whereas white is seen as sickly or bad luck. Similarly, in many Eastern cultures, Red is a good color, the color of prosperity, fertility, luck, health, and ambition. Whereas green in those same cultures represents greed, sickness, or undesired wildness.

The key to making diction more inclusive in the future is to consider that symbolism isn't the same in all cultures, but rather universal concepts of action. Rather than a green/red list, perhaps just describing it as dislikes and likes then, and purchase advisory. I'll be sure to change my diction in the future.

I also had no idea that dog friendly hotels are so anti cat. I really appreciate that tidbit of information because I'm planning on moving a few months from now with my cat, having a hotel advisory function for cat friendly hotels sounds great. I guess until then, the only solution is to just carry the cat in a discrete carrier and hope they don't meow.
 

mani

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Mod Note:

Whilst there are issues with the use of these terms, this is probably not the correct forum to discuss it.
We usually put discussions of this type in our In My Opinion forum, but unfortunately one of the 'discussees' does not have the numbers to post there as yet, otherwise we would move them.


Perhaps, to keep everyone happy, we could just use terms such as 'likes' and 'dislikes' as mentioned by chronicallytoast chronicallytoast , 'desirable' and 'undesirable', or even simply 'yes' and 'no' in this thread. ;)
 

noani

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I use a Google sheet for this purpose. I like it because it's accessible anywhere, works good on pc and mobile, and I can use colours, make notes and add comments (e.g. try again in 2 months.. they are finicky eaters and usually go back to eating it later on). I use different colours (reds and greens), and different shades, so light green is likes, darker green is loves, light red is try again, dark red is no no no (because of cats or because of ingredients/other concerns).

I like it because I can also add the price and after writing some formulas into some cells, you can make it automatically calculate some stuff (price per kg, price per month depending how much you buy of what so I also use it to keep track of expenses). I also use it to calculate calories and micronutrients for mixing and matching.
 

Nice Loki

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I use a Google sheet for this purpose. I like it because it's accessible anywhere, works good on pc and mobile, and I can use colours, make notes and add comments (e.g. try again in 2 months.. they are finicky eaters and usually go back to eating it later on). I use different colours (reds and greens), and different shades, so light green is likes, darker green is loves, light red is try again, dark red is no no no (because of cats or because of ingredients/other concerns).

I like it because I can also add the price and after writing some formulas into some cells, you can make it automatically calculate some stuff (price per kg, price per month depending how much you buy of what so I also use it to keep track of expenses). I also use it to calculate calories and micronutrients for mixing and matching.
That sounds amazing.
 

Suee7171

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Just in the past month I've possibly bought over 25 different cans of wet food, raw food, and treats for my cat when he stopped eating out of nowhere. He has since started eating again because he no longer has the separation anxiety that caused his little hunger strike. I have almost a dozen cans of wet food and two tubs of raw food just laying around. I've been using them as occasional snacks and whenever he runs out of kibble. I usually have to open up three cans at a time because he will simply refuse to eat certain ones, even if he is starving.

I've gone through so many varieties of wet food, raw food, and treats that I have forgotten all the ones that he hated, and the ones he's loved. It gave me an idea for a simple app app. The app would function like a food blacklist and whitelist, personalized by you for your cat(s). You would be able to have different folders for all of your cats, and a whitelist and blacklist for food.

Under the whitelist, you upload photos (or find photos through an in app search feature) of the snacks and food your cat will (you would be able to pin the ones your cat loves). For the blacklist, you would use the same photo gallery feature as the whitelist, only for foods your cat refuses to eat. Additionally, for both the whitelist and blacklist you can add notes for the listed foods. This would be helpful for documenting any side effects your cat experiences, such as changes in stool, changes in fur, changes in activity, etc....

In high school I had designed (UI was very poor unfortunately) an app that told dog owners what foods were safe and toxic to eat, and provided resources for toxin hotlines and veterinary hotlines. I think I'll be designing this blacklist/whitelist app for my own personal use (since I'm really bad at coding and it wouldn't make sense for such a poorly made app to be publicly available). That being said, if in the future an app like this could be made available, would anybody be interested in using it?
That sounds awesome 👌
 

Margot Lane

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Hey you sound app savvy! Have you encountered any good apps for people who travel w cats to hotels? There is Bring Fido but it’s too dog oriented.
 

Suee7171

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Actually I haven't traveled with my cat yet, I did see the bring fido app but it seems like you're almost better searching on Google for cat or pet friendly hotels I did see gopetfriendly.com certainly a lack of apps for this purpose
 

mani

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Those apps are almost always dog orientated from what I can see.
Also, we're pretty far removed from raw nutrition. ;)
on topic please small.png
 
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