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4 Apps for Healthy Eating

posted by on November 30, 2014 in , Phones and Mobile, Mobile Apps, Android Apps, iPhone/iPad Apps, Health and Home, Health & Fitness, Guides & Reviews :: 9 comments


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The holidays usher in the most challenging time of year for people trying to make healthy food choices. Calorie-laden food and drinks are the star attraction at every holiday gathering. With the advent of sweater season, it’s easy to eat what we’d like and still hide it well until next spring. If you want to avoid the stress of showing skin next summer, though, it’s wise to watch what you eat now.

It’s just plain smart to be mindful of what you’re eating, and there are plenty of apps to help give you a reality check of what you’re putting in your body during all of the merriment. From social networking to scanning barcodes, here’s some fun tools to support your quest to eat healthy over the holidays and beyond.

 

FooducateFooducate

Put the smartphone you’re carrying around to good use the next time you’re at the grocery store. Fooducate leverages your phone’s camera to quickly scan the barcode on food items you’re looking to purchase or eat, and quickly grades the food from A through D, based on the health content of the item.

Additional notes about that food are provided, including alternative healthier choices that you could be buying instead. For instance, my Ghiradelli Dark Dream chocolate bar received a D+; however Fooducate noted that it was also a good source of iron (bonus!) and then recommended alternatives including a banana.

Overall, the clean design of the app makes finding the info you need easy to read, and provides some alternative healthy choices. The app is free and available for both the iPhone and Android platforms with in-app purchases that give you special information for those with allergies and gluten intolerance.

Price: free with additional in-app purchases on iTunes and Google Play

 

Meal SnapMeal Snap

The premise is simple, use your mobile device to take a picture of the food you're eating with Meal Snap, and the app will determine the rough amount of calories for it. Each meal can be tagged when you eat it (lunch, evening snack, etc), along with any notes that you want to post. You can then share out your meal on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare if you so choose.

We recommend scanning pictures of individual items/plates as it can take up to a minute for Meal Snap to determine what it's looking at and calculate a range of calories. While testing the app, we took a picture of a plate of cupcakes and MealSnap had trouble identifying it (perhaps others don’t eat entire plates of cupcakes?), but then snapped a pic of a single cupcake and it returned an appropriate amount of calories. This is an easy to use and clever app that can make you more aware of the calories you consume on a daily basis. Meal Snap is available on Apple devices for $0.99.

Price: $2.99 on iTunes

 

Pic HealthyPic Healthy

MedHelp in conjunction with GE healthyimagination brings you the crowdsourcing equivalent of healthy eating with this purely social app. Take a photo of what you're eating, rate its healthiness, and then share it out for your friends and family to see. They can either support your healthy eating choice, or boo your poor decision by voting on what you ate.

You get points when your friends or family rate your meal as healthy. Or, you can earn honesty points for owning up to eating something “bad” and rating the food appropriately. Similar to Instagram, you can follow and rate other member's food choices or make note of a particular picture of a meal that you like. 

Price: free on iTunes and Google Play

 

Weight Watchers AppWeight Watchers

While often thought of as a dieting site, this app makes understanding your food choices easier by tracking your daily food consumption and assessing how much of the good and the bad that you're eating on a daily basis. There’s a community aspect to the app so you can see how others are doing and feel a sense that you're not tracking your food alone.

For those of you with iPhones updated to iOS 8, the app can draw from the integrated Health app for activity and movement tracking. This replaces you having to manually enter your daily physical activity. For all users, you must be subscribed to Weight Watchers Online to use the app's weight loss tools.

Price: free on iTunes and Google Play

[This post was updated 11/30/2104]

[woman eating with smartphone via Shutterstock]


Discussion loading

what about

From sheri on December 27, 2011 :: 12:06 pm

myfitnesspal.com
completely free tracks food and weight and exercise available on iphone, ipda and droid and I lsot 48 pounds using it!

Reply

I LOVE Fooducate

From Amanda O'Brien on December 27, 2011 :: 12:28 pm

I love fooducate! It is addicting. I have written about it twice; once for my personal blog http://amandapants.com/2011/12/12/fooducate-to-eat-a-bit-better/ and once for Guiding Stars http://guidingstars.com/food-shopping/4-iphone-apps-for-healthier-eating/

I love how it not only rates your food but gives your healthier alternatives. Very cool!

Reply

Free in iTunes

From Susan on December 27, 2011 :: 8:33 pm

For your information, this app, Fooducate is not free as you mentioned it’s free.  Please correct it. Thank you.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fooducate-plus/id460963022?mt=8

Reply

Susan, Fooducate is free. Fooducate

From Lauren on December 27, 2011 :: 9:37 pm

Susan, Fooducate is free. Fooducate Plus is not.

Reply

I get so many sample

From irvinstubblefield on December 28, 2011 :: 3:22 am

I get so many sample stuff for free its awesome. Actually it is not difficult to find them just search online for “Get Official Samples” It is the best way!

Reply

Dietitian in your pocket!

From Wilma on December 28, 2011 :: 1:53 pm

The Zestar app is different than the other apps listed because of its unique algorithm to provide meal recommendations based on your eating habits and activity level. Plus, it gives you a list of meal suggestions when you eat out. I’ve found it’s the only diet app that I’ve been able to stick with!

Reply

Meal Snap is not free

From Patti on December 29, 2011 :: 3:58 pm

Meal Snap is not free on iTunes, it’s $.99

Reply

Thanks, Patti. We fixed it.

From Josh Kirschner on January 02, 2012 :: 11:21 am

Thanks, Patti. We fixed it.

Reply

www.educationalappstore.com

From miriam on October 30, 2012 :: 10:23 am

There is a great website for apps, www.educationalappstore.com, which specialises in educational apps for young kids, parents, students and teachers. You can find a great selection of health and fitness app there too.

Reply

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