From shopping to cooking and recipe sharing, meal planning has never been this much fun.There are now apps to help you with all the food related decisions, all the while following youridiosyncratic diet plan, whether it’s vegetarian, low fat, gluten-free or simply low budget. Get allyour family involved as you sync and share with the help of these amazing apps:
Shopping List
Before the cooking actually starts, the shopping needs to be done. With this clever app you can create your list, set quantities, categories and add images of the products you wish to buy. This is especially useful when someone else is doing the shopping. If you share the shopping task with someone remember to synchronize your list with the other person, so that items you purchase
appear on their list. The app comes with a barcode scanner, many customisation options, a backup system and it remembers the items from previous lists so you can reuse them.
Recipe Search
Recipe Search is an app of allthecooks.com community and it is excellent for finding recipes that match the ingredients you have. It contains 150 thousand recipes with reviews which are all easily searched through search filters, by ingredient or food title. Via this app you can also share your own recipes, upload photos and get active on the food forums of the community. You can also bookmark recipes, as well as save and share your shopping lists
DinnerSpinner
This is another useful as well as entertaining recipe app. Recipes can be searched by ingredient, dish or cooking time or you can do a completely random search by shaking your phone. The app is also a scanner and you can scan ingredients and add them permanently to the spinner, or find a recipe that uses it – there is bound to be one among the over forty thousand recipes that the app gives access to- or you can simply add the ingredients to your shopping list.
Fooducate
During the shopping or eating you need to make a lot of good and healthy food decisions. This free app will help with that- it scans the barcode using your phone’s camera and provides you with all the important facts about the product of your interest. The strengths and weaknesses of each item are
listed as well as suitable alternatives if you wish to buy another similar product. With this app you can also learn the truth about facts which the manufacturers might not like to disclose such as food colourings, additives, fats, excessive sugar and other similar aspects.
Diet & Food Tracker
This is a simple and useful app for getting into shape produced by the website SparkPeople.com. It features : Food & calorie tracker with over 2 million foods (and optional meal plans), Fitness tracker with stats on calories burned, weigh-in, detailed weight & calorie reports, SparkPoints motivation & trophy system, daily healthy living articles and a barcode scanner.
Who could have known a few decades ago that mobile phones will be the most treasured of kitchen tools? Still, although the recipes and ideas are at your fingertips, it is up to you to make sure the healthy yet delicious meals end up in your stomachs.
By Mayer Mel who is currently using Sony Ericsson Arc Misty
