In a world where we're told that games like Pokémon Go are encouraging "the millennials" to exercise and engage with nature, what's not to like about technology that's actually a catalyst for good? In fact there's plenty of tech-y stuff helping us be our healthiest selves, like these seven apps that do everything from decoding the back of a snack box to breaking down which produce is worth buying.
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Chemical Cuisine
To help you decipher all the unrecognizable terms on the back of your average snack box ("synthetic orange color" can't be good for you, right?), the good samaritans over at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) created an app to break down harmful chemical ingredients for you. Chemical Cuisine educates consumers about all the extra additives and fillers that go in your average food item.
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Food Tripping
Because sometimes the most available option outside the range of your trusty corner store is a fast-food chain, Food Tripping helps you discover all the food markets, healthy restaurants, artisanal hole-in-the-walls, and vegan nooks for the traveler in a new town who's definitely not eating fast food for dinner.
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Lose It!
Though Lose It! sounds like a straightforward weight-loss app, it helps out with a range of wellness targets, like tracking food and exercise, hydration, and blood pressure. It works with your weight and fitness goals to help you stay on track and keep you accountable.
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Order Healthy
Sometimes it feels like Seamless' best available options are greasy noodles and giant burritos, but for the more discerning eater, Order Healthy helps people single out where all the good stuff is. The *healthy* take-out app helps people choose local restaurants by grading them on a traffic light scale: green for healthiest to red for "triple meat lover's pizza heaven".
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Dirty Dozen
If you're the type to keep track of which non-organic foods to avoid while shopping, scan Dirty Dozen's app before checking out at the grocery store. The app provides a list of the most commonly contaminated produce in the category "The Dirty Dozen" (looking at you strawberries), and catalogs the angel produce known as the "The Clean Fifteen"—knew there was a reason avocado was so expensive.
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Daily Water
Much nagging is necessary in order for us to actually hit our goals of drinking anything close to the recommended eight glasses of water a day, so this app helps you set personalized objectives and stick to them by keeping track of each glass of water chugged per day.
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Fooducate
Yes, it sounds like something straight off a health PSA, but Fooducate is the type of food-cyclopedia you want to keep in your back pocket when you're grocery shopping. The app provides a breakdown of foods (its library includes over 200,000 options) that it assigns a letter grade along with healthy alternatives for all the F-grade products. It has the capacity to act as a food diary, too, if you're singling out a food allergy, or just want to stay on track with a diet plan.
Courtesy Marie Claire
Courtesy Marie Claire
