Pop into The Pantry app for a healthier lifestyle

Being told she only had a few months to live was what spurred Belle Gibson to set up a business to help others in a similar situation.

Five years ago Belle Gibson was told she had a brain tumour  that could kill her within four months. Today the tumour is still there, under often personally challenging treatment, and Gibson has founded and is running a Melbourne-based iPhone/iPad app company with a global audience.

The app, The Whole Pantry, came out of 25-year-old Gibson’s determination not to be crushed by her cancer and to find a way to help people like herself who needed support – with their health and their whole lives. ‘‘I had gone through lots of adversity,’’ Gibson told me while we sat beside an amazing vegetable display in the big Whole Foods Market on 4th Street in San Francisco. It’s just up the road from the Moscone Center, where she was attending Apple’s 2014 World Wide Developer Conference.