Portability, low price and an extra-large database make this our choice for our on-the-go scale.
The Salter 1440 Nutri-Weigh and Go is a great little portable nutrition scale. To be clear, it is a bit large to be carried in all but the largest purses, but it fits quite nicely in a backpack. A hard plastic shell folds over the platform, display and buttons when not in use, and the whole unit slips into a fitted cloth bag for extra protection.
To search for a food in the database of the Salter 1440, the name of the food must be spelled out by entering letters on the scale's numeric keypad. To find french fries fried in vegetable oil, for example, the user would start by pressing the [FOOD] key. Then the [3] key would have to be pressed three times to get the
F, followed by pressing the [7] key three times to get the
R and the [3] key twice to get the
E. Once you have entered "FRE", the display will show "FRENCH BEANS." Press the down button eight times and hit [ENTER] to select "FRENCH FRIES FRIED IN VEG OIL." That makes 18 total key presses to get what on another scale would take three key presses. And the search only works from the start of a food name, so there is no searching for all food items that contain "FRIES" in their name.
The database is impressively large, though. At 1400+ items, it is matched only by
the other Salter scale under review. And at about $30, this scale easily provides the most bang for the buck.
