[Fsfe-uk] [OT-ish] Government food data

[Graham Seaman]

Hi,

Sorry about the off-topicness, this is more of a data than a software query.

A family member has recently become diabetic. There seems to be 
remarkably little free software available for diabetics (yes, I do know 
there are quite a few projects on sourceforge). In particular, she 
spends a silly amount of time looking up carbohydrate values for food in 
books drawn from the UK government Food Nutrient Databank. Great, I 
thought, I'll start with a simple spreadsheet type app to automate this 
bit. I now find that the data is only available in book form or under a 
commercial license from HMSO. I assume (haven't checked this directly 
with the HMSO contact person yet) that if I were to scan in the data and 
redistribute it with a free program I would be liable to be sued by the 
HMSO. This seems to be absurd, especially as it is data  relevant to 
health, and I will follow up on this aspect.

However, I'm not in a rush to be sued (or to spend hours scanning  
numeric data), and wondered if in the meantime there is another 
alternative. The US government make their equivalent (USDA) freely 
available, but it's not that relevant to a British diet (I never knew 
what a Hershey bar was, and where are the fried mars bars?). But what 
about other European governments? I know there is an EU level project to 
consolidate this data, but it seems to be in the planning stages. What 
about Holland? France? Anyone know?

Thanks
Graha