Mobile medical applications #5: Fooducate

Grading your family’s kitchen table.

Navigating ingredients, nutrition labels, health claims and marketing jargon to find the best choices for your family can be a full time job. There are so many things to think about such as an overabundance of sugar, additives and preservatives, controversial ingredients like MSG or food colorings, or confusing serving sizes. Time is a valuable commodity, especially as a parent, and anything that would help save time in the store or offer healthier suggestions would be a welcome addition.

Enter Fooducate, a website and smartphone app that aims to be your personal grocery advisor. Using your phone’s camera, the app is able to scan barcodes of products and give them a letter grade based on an algorithm that rewards minimally processed, nutrient dense foods over processed foods that are poor in nutrients and are fortified to appear healthy. Fooducate is a team of parents, dietitians and techies that claim a database of 200,000+ unique products that can be graded and offers simplified information to help you digest product highlights (and lowlights) as well as compare items and make healthier decisions for you and your family.

Fooducate states that it is NOT funded or influenced by food manufacturers, supplement companies, diets, or any sort of magic pill. Free apps are available for both android and iOS, as well as paid options for ad-free, gluten and allergy, and diabetes versions for iOS.