Not everyone wants to know what they are eating, but for those who do, there is the Food Meter: Good Food or Bad Food iPhone app (99 cents).
The Food Meter app includes a master list of thousands of food items and products, including foods available for purchase at grocery stores, as well as restaurant meals. The list is so comprehensive that I wasn’t able to think up an item that I could not locate on the list.
Foods can be searched by category, such as meats, dairy, etc., or by restaurant. There is also a handy search tool which you can use to type in various food items. For really easy searching, use the app’s bar code scanner.
Once you select a food, the app rates it on a nutrition meter and states whether you can feed good about eating it, or whether you should put it back on the shelf.
I decided to investigate a summer barbecue favorite, Hebrew National hot dogs. The app has nutritional content for the company’s basic hot dogs, salami and sausages. The quarter-pound beef franks, for example, contain 360 calories a piece. They scored a -5 on the health meter, which strongly advised me not to eat the hot dogs.
Similarly, four of my five favorite foods were not recommended for consumption. It was a little dispiriting, but also informative. This app will help you make the best choices about what kind of food you should be putting in your grocery cart, as well as in your body.
