Unilever Philippines, FNRI-DOST create online salt calculator

Source: Unilever Philippines.

A salt calculator is now online, helping users determine whether their salt intake is within the recommended daily consumption. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults should eat no more than 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day, equivalent to 5g of salt.

Unilever Philippines and the Food and Nutrition Research Institute – Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) signed a memorandum of agreement to develop a Unilever Sodium Intake Level Test, an online tool that aims to broaden consumers’ awareness of the main food sources of sodium in the Filipino diet and eventually convince them to lessen their salt intake.

The result is the Unilever-FNRI-DOST Salt Calculator, which both organisations hope will help consumers understand how much sodium is in their diets. This, too, will help reduce the risk of developing high blood pressure (hypertension) over time. According to the WHO, cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death in the world. In the Philippines, a study conducted by the Department of Health revealed that more than 170,000 die each year from heart diseases; hypertension being one of them.

The web-based app was recently tried at the Nutritionist-Dietitians’ Association of the Philippines Annual Convention held in February in Iloilo City, which is attended by about a thousand nutrition professionals. Feedback from 200 participants indicated that 96% agree that knowing their sodium intake helps them be more mindful of salty foods, and 95% said that they will share the salt calculator to colleagues, patients, and community.

FNRI-DOST has also included the Salt Calculator on their website. 

Interested?

Try out the salt calculator. Foods are customized for the Filipino diet

Bayswater Car Rentals' Fuel & Trip Calculator takes the guesswork out of petrol budgets

Bayswater Car Rentals (BCR) has launched the Fuel & Trip Calculator to help with budgeting petrol cost and travel time. The online calculator is open to anyone, not just BCR's customers.

CEO Arnold Kluck said Bayswater Car Rentals was established to cater to the budget conscious when it comes to hiring a car. “The feedback we get about petrol costs, over and over, when it comes to filling up at the end of the hire period,” he said.

“People often forget to factor this into their travel plans. If you are not watching your dollars, it is easy to get caught out.”

The Fuel & Trip Calculator calculates how much it costs to fill a tank from one point to another.

Arnold said the calculator uses the government rating for fuel efficiency for the cars in the Bayswater Car Rental fleet of Toyotas. “Users can enter the exact amount petrol costs at the time, select from our range of cars and then nominate their starting and finish point – and the calculator works out how much petrol will cost,” he said.

“We offer it to our own customers as a way for them to estimate their fuel costs. But we also offer it to anyone who wants to estimate the fuel cost of a trip; all they need to do is input their own car’s fuel consumption, which is easily found online.”

The Fuel & Trip Calculator also tells the traveller how far it is door-to-door and how long it will take to get there – so users can plan their stops to rest and revive.

Hayley Birtles-Eades, Director of Love Lockets, which creates personalised jewelry, said she used the calculator to plan a recent promotion. “It made organising and budgeting so much easier. Our winner won a LOVEly Day Out and taken by a chauffeur driven car to a number of different venues,” she said.

“We used Bayswater’s Fuel & Trip Calculator to work out how much petrol we needed to budget for and how long it would take to travel to each location – we had organised a massage, make over, lunch and creation of the winner’s own Love Locket. It took the guesswork out of creating the schedule and we knew exactly how much we had to pay for petrol based on the price that weekend.”

Arnold said because petrol prices differ from state to state, the driver can overestimate the price to stay on the safe side of the budget. “From one state to another, even suburb to suburb, there can be a big difference in price. If you use the most expensive price, you will not be surprised,” he said.

For those who are not sure how they want to travel, using the calculator is a handy tool to help compare the cost of different types of travel.

“You can compare flying vs driving vs bus vs train to find the cheapest way to travel,” Arnold said.

With five offices across NSW and Western Australia, the family-owned Bayswater Car Rental has been delighting customers since 1958. Arnold said simplicity is key. “We provide quality service with ‘no birds’* and keep prices low for our customers,” he said.

Interested?

Try out the Fuel & Trip Calculator. Non-Australian destinations can be entered into the calculator, and the fuel cost can be customised.

*Bayswater Car Rental explains its 'no birds' promise