Fooducate review: Best food rating app for iPhone

"If you want to be more consciously aware of the food you're eating, Fooducate provides an amazing amount of information and user feedback that'll help you do just that."

If you're trying to change your eating habits and eat healthier with less additives and better ingredients, Fooducate contains a wealth of information and user reviews about many of the foods we consume on a daily basis. Eating healthy doesn't always mean counting calories or working out. What we eat can be just as important. Sure, a calorie is a calorie, but if you give your body calories from better quality foods, you get the benefits of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that artificially processed foods with lots of additives, high fructose corn syrup, and other "empty" calories just can't match.

Fooducate aims to help you be more aware of what's actually in what you're eating.

The main premise of Fooducate is to give different types and brands of foods a letter grade. These letter grades are based on information provided by dietitians as well as user feedback. Sometimes looking at a label can lead to you only look at things like calories and fat. When in reality products like high fructose corn syrup can be just as harmful to your body in other ways.

Fooducate provides key information about products like artificial flavorings, colorings, and more. If you want to try a more specific diet like eating just whole grain products or going gluten-free, Fooducate will make the perfect companion as you can compare things you're debating buying with other alternatives that users and dietitians have rated higher in quality and content.

Some of the natural or "low calorie" foods I was eating really weren't as good for me as I thought they were. Thanks to Fooducate I've been able to not only stray away from the foods that aren't so great but pick from healthier alternatives.

When you open Fooducate you can simply start scanning bar codes of items in order to see what their rating is as well as compare them with other alternatives. You can also type key words into search such as "bagels" to see a list view. From there you can choose from popular or recent items under that category. The quick view for an item will show you the overall grade, calories per serving, and the percentage of users who have liked that item.

You can quickly view user comments as well as key facts with just a few taps. If you've found an item that you'd like to purchase you can also add it to your shopping list.

I've become fond of the shopping cart feature as it allows me to view and edit my list as well as replace items quickly with other recommended similar items. Once you're done creating a shopping list you can share it via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. The lists section will also show a complete history of viewed foods as well. You can clear out the history at any time with just a tap.

Another nice feature of Fooducate are the "Healthy Me" checks on the main menu where you can see how you stack up against what other users are eating. It aggregates products you are viewing for the week and all time as well as what products you've liked. It then gives you a letter grade based on what you've liked and shows you a side by side comparison of what others are liking.

If you're the type of person who likes to read about nutrition and food facts, the daily tips section will give you just that. It links into Fooducate's blog that is frequently updated with information on health, wellness, and how they are related to the foods we eat daily. Reading through some of the entries has made me second guess some of the foods I was eating on a pretty regular basis.

The good

• Finding and viewing information on foods couldn't be a more painless process
• The replace feature in the shopping list is a great way to swap out not so great options with better ones in just a few taps
• Healthy Me checks are an easy way to see how you stack up against many other users
• More food items are updated and added regularly

The bad

• The UI could use some work as navigating through menus and back to the main browse foods section is a bit annoying
• Sometimes manually searching for key words yields unrelated results

Conclusion

If you want to be more consciously aware of the contents in the food you're eating, Fooducate provides an amazing amount of information and user feedback that'll help you do just that. While many nutrition apps aim to help you lose weight, Fooducate stresses the importance of also eating foods that are good for your body as a whole.

Fooducate is available for free in the App Store now. You can also purchase the ad free version for $3.99.

Are you currently trying to eliminate certain types of additives from your diet? Share your experiences with us in our Health and Fitness Forums. If you're looking to lose a few pounds, check out all our tops fitness picks are for Mobile Nations Fitness Month.

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