Canberra mother Alison de la Torre had suffered for years with a range of allergies, including food issues that caused inflammations, visits to immunologists, weeks in bed and even sinus surgery.
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Her son Antonio, 4, has a nut allergy, discovered by chance when he was aged two after he ate a small piece of a chocolate.
He ended up in Calvary hospital suffering a swollen mouth and tongue.
Nine months ago, Ms de la Torre cut out all manufactured ingredients from her diet - ''I don't have any preservatives, nothing artificial, no colours'' - and she has noticed far fewer flare-ups. But she hasn't left it at that. For the past three years, she has been working with her husband, John, to develop a website that will provide people more information about the origin and contents of the food they eat and buy for their families.
The result is yummo.com.au, which lists the food facts of more than 12,000 packaged products and nutritional data of 1300 fresh foods.
''I started working on it when I was really sick, and actually got more motivated because it's a tool which is really handy for me and Antonio,'' Ms de la Torre said.
And she hopes it will also become a go-to site for people around Australia.
The ingredients, nutritional information, product origin and allergen warning statements of the packaged foods are outlined so people can build meal planners and shopping lists and see recipes.
A consumer can also create an allergen profile on the website, which alerts them to products and recipes that contain the trigger ingredients.
Users can scan product barcodes in the supermarket with their smartphone to get the information, or use their online account to search and browse products.
Ms de la Torre said one of the site's most powerful capabilities was helping to decipher the various names of ingredients in packaged foods.
''I've got a couple of friends who have kids sensitive to different colours, so you can actually add the name of the colour and find products which do not contain that ingredient or colour,'' she said. ''We've also done research on the alternative names of ingredients. So if you know your child is allergic to brilliant blue, we have matched it up with the numbers and alternative names on the packets.
''A lot of people get confused by all the numbers on the back of packets, and don't really know what's in it. So that's actually quite powerful, knowing the alternate names.''
The website offers various levels of access, depending on whether people are paid members or not.
The de la Torres, who own HomeACT, which includes the Home Loan Centre, have created the website after years of research that started as a labour of love.
"We felt there was a gap in the market for this type of product where consumers could easily access this comprehensive information in the one spot," Ms de la Torre said.
