Web site picks up where box tops leave off Foodfacts.com provides in-depth information about food ingredients BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer EDISON - The scene is all too familiar. Armies of consumers standing shoulder to shoulder in crowded supermarket aisles, squinting helplessly at minuscule type on the back of Twinkie boxes asking themselves: What on Earth is calcium caseinate? Enter: Stan Rak. Rak is the founder of Foodfacts.com, a diet and nutrition Web site that offers nutrition facts for millions of the foods average people eat each day. With equal parts corporate watchdog enterprise, diet support group and facilitator of nutritional warnings, Rak said Foodfacts prides itself on educating the public to what they are truly consuming. "You'd be surprised how many people don't know what they are eating," said Rak, 65. "If you want to make something taste like strawberries, there could be 38 different chemicals in that." Rak began his five-year odyssey into the world of monosodium glutomate and yellow dye No. 5 after wondering what was really in the food his grandchildren were eating. "I started doing a little research on it and realized they were eating some really nasty stuff," Rak said. "Manufacturers are trying to push this on my grandkids." What began as an innocent inquiry, quickly became a hobby, Rak said. It eventually became a program and a full database of nutritional information, utilizing many different medical and scientific resources to give consumers the most accurate possible depiction of what they are eating. Rak's creation offers such services as dietary management aid and alerts for ingredients the user has flagged for either dietary or health reasons. The site offers these services, for a yearly fee, but offers most of its access free of charge. The reason being that Rak wants people to make educated decisions about what they put in their bodies. "Once you know what you're eating you'll live better," Rak said. "You can really set up your own life and get back to basics." He said that his Web site does not dictate to the user what they should and should not eat, it simply gives access to all the information that is not given by the food manufacturers. Each entry in the database comes with full nutritional and ingredient information, similar to what one would find on the back of the packaging. What the packaging does not have is access to information about what each ingredient is and what it does both in the food product and once digested into the body; Foodfacts.com will do that. It is an aspect that Rak claims is unavailable anywhere else. "If you wanted to eliminate yellow No. 5, we're the only ones that can do that," Rak said. Rak said that the information found on the Web site is extensive, but Rak is no stranger to databases such as these. He was the owner of Kar Parts, a local auto parts chain that had once dotted the Edison area. While in the automotive field, Rak developed a program for electronic cataloguing and inventory management that is still used in some form today. That program, Rak said, has become the industry standard for product cataloguing and is used by national car retailers such as Pep Boys and Autozone. The Web site, which has been used by schools, colleges and government institutions for several years, launched only a few weeks ago for use by the general public. The public can utilize all the nutrition facts and information for free. For a low annual fee, they can access diet tips, keep track of what they eat and how to get to their target weight through food selection. They can also receive alerts about foods containing ingredients the user may have flagged for health or personal reasons. Rak said that while most people remain on the program for six months or more, the information remains indefinitely. "We keep track of everything you eat, forever," Rak said. Rak said that he considers his job that of a watchdog, allowing consumers the information to keep tabs on the manufacturers of the products they consume. The movement, of which he is part, is starting to pay off, Rak said. According to Rak, Breyer's Ice Cream has begun to discontinue use of the artificial coloring yellow No. 5, replacing it with natural ingredients. "Breyer's has gotten out of the artificial color business," Rak said. While Rak finds it important for all people to be aware of the foods they consume, his most important objective hearkens back to the impetus for his foray into the world of food products - the children. "I would love to see all of this stuff out of the schools," Rak said.