A new app created by a 16-year-old Georgia resident could make eating at restaurants easier and less stressful for food allergy sufferers.
In the United States, food allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic illness, and it is estimated that over 15 million Americans have food allergies, including 5.9 million children under age 18. Every three minutes, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room.
AllergySafe is a new app that aims to help people who are suffering from food allergies by taking out the frustration and guesswork associated with ordering foods, enabling allergy sufferers to eat at their favorite restaurants.
AllergySafe is the brainchild of 16-year-old founder and CEO Akshat Gautam. As a child, Gautam struggled to find foods at restaurants that were safe for him to eat. One day, at his allergist’s office, Gautam spoke to other patients about their difficulties in ordering safe menu items at restaurants and realized that people suffered the same predicament he does.
Then it hit him; people suffering from food allergies needed a personalized platform for ordering their foods from their favorite restaurants.
Being interested in computer programming from an early age, in the summer before his freshman year in high school, Gautam started brainstorming ideas to solve this problem and came up with the idea of a mobile app which will help people choose foods they can eat at their favorite restaurants. He self-taught himself Java and Android programming and started working on achieving this dream, so he could help other people who faced the same problem.
He decided to participate in the Georgia State Tech Fair, and AllergySafe came first in the mobile application development division.
After getting positive feedback about the app from families who have people suffering from allergies, Gautam published AllergySafe to the App Store, so that other families can benefit.
“As a child, I had severe food allergies, so whenever I went to restaurants, I experienced uncertainty regarding the items that I might safely eat,” Gautam said. To ensure that others could safely order from restaurant menus, I designed and created the AllergySafe application, which allows users to eat safely at their favorite fast food restaurants.”
For more information and to download the app, visit https://www.allergysafeapp.com/
More About Akshat Gautam
Akshat Gautam is the brain behind AllergySafe. Akshat is from Georgia and has been suffering from food allergies since he was born. Growing up with allergies wasn’t a fun experience for Akshat. He had challenges eating at his favorite restaurants, because there was no way to find out if the foods he wanted to eat contained allergens.
At times when Akshat went out with his parents, his parents would ask the restaurant to show the package box in which the food was delivered.
They would go through the ingredient list to find out if Akshat could eat the food. As Akshat grew older, he outgrew some of his food allergies. However, he didn’t relinquish that burning desire to solve the problem, so he created Allergy Safe, an app that helps its users identify foods at their favorite restaurants that are safe for them to eat.
He is also the founder of Be Code Confident, a non-profit computer coding organization with the mission of helping as many kids as possible have an early start to computer programming.
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links.
