Top Ten FREE Apps for a Healthy Lifestyle

Smartphone apps can support healthy lifestyle choices, from picking produce and selecting seafood to analyzing exercise routines and finding non-toxic personal products. Best of all, many of them are FREE. If you're not already using them, check out these top ten apps.


The Dirty Dozen
When you can't buy organic, the Environmental Working Group helps you find the least toxic produce. This apps lists the Dirty Dozen Plus most contaminated fruits and vegetables and the Clean Fifteen least contaminated ones. You can also view the full list of all 48 foods tested to see how your favorites measure up.
Dirty Dozen app for Android
Dirty Dozen app for iPhone


Seafood Watch
This app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program helps you choose non-toxic and sustainably harvested fish and seafood, whether you're shopping at the market or ordering at a restaurant. This app includes a sushi guide and lets you spread the word about healthy fish and seafood by adding locations where you've found Seafood Watch-approved choices.
Seafood Watch app for Android
Seafood Watch app for iPhone


Locavore
The Locavore app will pinpoint the farms, farmers’ markets, and CSAs closest to you, wherever you are. It also offers recipes to help you serve up your bounty.
Locavore app for iPhone
Locavore app for Android
 

Eat Local
The National Resources Defense Council's Eat Local app also helps you find farmers' markets, lets you know which foods are in season, and offers recipes.
Eat Local app for iPhone


True Food
Up to 70% of packaged foods on supermarket shelves are made with genetically modified (GM) ingredients and they are not labeled despite warnings from doctors and scientists that these foods may not be safe for people or the planet. The Center for Food Safety’s True Food guide gives easy tips for avoiding GM ingredients in any product and allows users to browse foods by category or search for products by brand name or food type. The app also answers frequently asked questions, keeps users up to date on the latest news and action alerts concerning GM foods, and makes it easy to call or email companies who do not avoid GM ingredients in their products to encourage them to do so. 
True Food app for iPhone
True Food app for Android


Non-GMO Product Shopping Guide
This app also gives users tips for avoiding GM foods and offers a searchable database of foods by product type, brand name, product name, and key word.
Non-GMO Product Shopping Guide app for iPhone


Locate Special Diet
The Locate Special Diet app allows you to find grocery stores and restaurants that fit your diet, whether you're vegetarian or vegan, following a paleo or gluten-free diet, looking for local and organic food, or restricting yourself to raw. You can search by the kind of meal you're looking for, be it breakfast or salads or sushi, or the kind of cuisine, like Brazilian, Mediterranean, or Vietnamese. Currently the options are restricted to major US cities, but expanded offerings are in the works.
Locate Special Diet app for iPhone
Locate Special Diet app for Android


Skin Deep
More than 10,000 different ingredients are used to make personal care products and nearly 90% have not been tested for safety. Learn what you’re putting on your skin with this app from the Environmental Working Group. You can find information and online safety assessments for more than 2,500 brands, 9,000 ingredients, and 72,000 personal care products. My favorite feature is the ability to look up products by scanning their bar codes.
Skin Deep app for Android
Skin Deep app for iPhone


Sunscreen Guide
Researchers from the Environmental Working Group found that only 25% of sunscreen products on the market offer adequate UV protection without serious safety concerns. This apps rates more than 1,400 sunscreens, lotions, lip products, and makeups that advertise sun protection.
EWG Sunscreen Guide app for iPhone


My Tracks
This app helps you track your exercise by recording your route, speed, distance and even elevation while you walk, run, bike, or hike.
My Tracks app for iPhone
My Tracks app for Android


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