July 7, 2015
Chemical Cuisine is the app for consumers who know chemicals fill ingredient lists across grocery store shelves but don't have a mental inventory of what chemicals are what. The app is put out by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and has a searchable list of 130-plus food additives that also features descriptions and safety ratings for the chemicals.
This is an app that eradicates the struggle that so often comes with shopping for supplements—the perennial question of which products and brands are reliable and a good value for your dollar. The folks behind LabDoor send a unit of every product in their database to an FDA-registered laboratory for chemical analysis. They then plug those results into an algorithm that creates ratings for each product in five categories--label accuracy, product purity, nutritional value, ingredient safety and projected efficacy. The next time shoppers are in the supplements aisle, they can pull out their phone for some educated guidance rather than stress over which label simply looks the most trustworthy.
AnyList helps people organize shopping lists and share them with other users, so family members or roommates can help out with the shopping. Users can also use it to organize recipes, so they're more likely to be prepared to make dinner when they get home and less likely to overbuy and then be stuck with wasted food in the fridge a week later.
Here’s a really visual-oriented app that aims to help consumers make more sense of often-confusing food labels. It's a crowdsourced database that lets users search particular food products and ingredients to better understand their nutritional and health value. There are all kinds of visualizations to help the average consumer make sense of food labels and put the data they contain into context. For example, a chart might say that product X will supply 20 percent of recommended daily calorie needs, or 10 percent of vitamin A requirements, rather than just absolute values, which for many is a meaningless number. The app also groups products into simple categories such as "avoid too much" and "get enough."
A product from the Environmental Working Group, the Dirty Dozen app helps shoppers prioritize which produce items are most important to buy organic. It’s a must-have for people looking to minimize their pesticide intake while also keeping their grocery bills down by buying conventional when it's sensible.
The app for the near-ubiquitous label for verification from the Non-GMO Project. Browse the list of brands and products that have been verified as non-GMO, or search by brand name as well as product type or keyword. The app also has a search function that locates retailers nearby, as well as tips and resources—such as a list of common GMO crops—for avoiding them.
This is one of the most popular healthy eating apps because of the range of tasks it can handle. It's a healthy diet "partner" that allows people to track food intake, calories and exercise but also helps them shop smart: scanning a product barcode reveals its nutritional grade—complete with a list of specific pros and cons—and also helps the user find healthier alternatives. All in all, it's trying to help people focus on the quality, rather than quantity, of calories. It allows customers to identify products with things like corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, GMOs, excessive sugars and other additives and preservatives—so truly natural products can shine a little brighter, a little easier. (You can also customize the app to focus on weight loss, or special diets, or certain health restrictions like low cholesterol, or pregnancy, etc.)
Another app that acts like a personal shopping assistant by organizing a grocery list, GroceryiQ also tallies a shopper's bill as she shops. So it's handy for those looking to save money—consumers can see if they're nearing their budget, maybe find cheaper alternatives for certain products and use the app to find relevant coupons for items on their lists.
An app that consumers can use to buy produce that's local and in-season, based on their location. It lets users locate farms and farmers markets, browse what's in-season and what will be soon, and who is selling what where. People can also share their own photos of local, in-season food.
Like Fooducate, ShopWell helps people shop to meet certain health and nutrition goals. Created by registered dietitians, ShopWell can scan barcodes to determine if a product will match a user's goals, and make alternative suggestions if it doesn't. It also has a mechanism for providing feedback to companies that want to know what customers think—and by providing that feedback, customers can earn rewards that can be turned into gift cards from certain brands.
Like Fooducate, ShopWell helps people shop to meet certain health and nutrition goals. Created by registered dietitians, ShopWell can scan barcodes to determine if a product will match a user's goals, and make alternative suggestions if it doesn't. It also has a mechanism for providing feedback to companies that want to know what customers think—and by providing that feedback, customers can earn rewards that can be turned into gift cards from certain brands.
These days, there's an app for everything, and healthy eating is no exception. Nor is shopping for the groceries to maintain those healthy eating habits. The marketplace for apps may be limitless, but here's a look at some of the most popular—or promising—apps that natural consumers may be turning to for shopping advice.
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