SLO-tility: A New Philly-Made Crowdsourcing Diet

Imagine this: What if you felt full all the time? Now, you’re probably thinking, “Heck ya, smaller grocery bills and waistlines!” But believe it or not, it’s a real problem for people with a condition called gastroparesis.

Frank Duffy, a registered dietitian at Temple Hospital and certified diabetes educator, helps gastroparesis patients by planning out a diet consisting of foods that don’t sit long in the stomach. Based on this concept, he figured out that people who were trying to eat healthier and lose weight should do the opposite: They should eat foods that last longer in the stomach, ergo they’ll feel fuller longer and eat less. See what he did there?

In order to figure out which foods work best to keep people full, Duffy came up with the concept of SLO-tility.com, an in-development online crowdsourcing diet plan. He’s currently raising funds at Indiegogo to get the site up and running. Duffy has 15 days to raise just under $12,000 to build the site. Everything he doesn’t raise will come out of his pocket. That’s passion for ya.

Here’s the idea behind the site. People will sign up and enter their information, including age, BMI, excercise habits, etc. Then they’ll choose one of 24 natural foods to test out for a month, things like cinnamon, olive oil, vinegar and more, to see if—and how well—they make you feel full. Users will track their progress and results on the site, and software will compare their results with everyone else’s to see what’s working best for the crowd. Hence, a crowdsourced diet.

Duffy’s hope is that hundreds of people will sign up. After all, the more people who test out these foods, the more accurate the crowd sourced data. What do you think about the concept?

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