Do you want to eat healthier, cleaner, or maybe just learn more about your food and where it comes from? Well, there’s an app for that! There are hundreds of apps for weight loss, nutrition and calorie counting, and even for help eating healthy at restaurants, but if you’re looking for more than that and want to become more educated on your food purchases, these are the top apps for you!
Fooducate. Voted the top Fitness & Health App of 2011, Fooducate is a must-have app for those who need a little help choosing healthier foods for their family. All you have to do is scan a product’s barcode and it analyzes its nutrition panel and ingredient list, and gives it a rating so you can better understand how healthy, or unhealthy, a food product is. For example, Mountain Dew receives a D+ for excessive sugar, ingredient interactions that create carcinogens, as well as controversial artificial food dyes. Fooducate will even help you select healthier alternatives. It doesn’t get much easier than that!
Free – $3.99 depending on how fancy you want to get.
What’s On My Food. With a database of more than 90 foods, What’s On My Food helps you figure out which produce items to avoid, which ones to buy organic, and the best produce from the grocery store by comparing pesticide levels on organic versus conventional crops. It even tells you which items are most likely to be contaminated with toxic pesticides linked to ADHD, autism, certain cancers, and other health problems. Plus, it’s free!
Harvest. This is a great app for newbies in the produce department. If you’re unsure of how to pick the best produce, from cucumbers and avocados to apples and melon, Harvest will take all the guesswork out of it for you. It also provides storage and cooking tips, as well as the Environmental Working Group’s information about pesticide levels. It’s everything all in one! $1.99.
Locavore. Eating locally and seasonally is a great way to ensure that you’re making healthier choices, and Locavore makes it easy to find out which foods are in season in your area, as well as track down the nearest farmer’s markets. Free.
Food Additives 2. This app lets you take a closer look at exactly what’s in your cereal, canned soups, whole wheat crackers, or a number of other food products by giving you access to a 450-strong glossary of additives. Find out if the additive has been linked with health problems, fits in with your vegan diet, and is considered safe (or risky). Recommended by TreeHugger.com. $3.99
