Abstract: Data indicating a user's desired, and/or mandated/prescribed, dietary guidelines and/or restrictions is obtained from one or more sources and then when the user is frequenting a restaurant, fast food establishment, supermarket, or any other establishment for obtaining food, an optical image of printed or visual nutritional information associated with the food item the user is contemplating purchasing/eating is obtained via one or more user computing systems. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology is then used to transform the printed/visual nutritional information contained in the optical image into discrete nutritional information data. The nutritional information data is then analyzed and compared with the data indicating the user's desired, and/or mandated/prescribed, dietary guidelines and/or restrictions and a recommendation is made to the user as to whether the contemplated food item is a good/acceptable purchase for the user, and/or whether the user should eat/purchase the food item.