When I first went vegetarian in my suburban town, I had to spend hours at the supermarket reading all those labels and trying to make sense of the ingredients.
Of course, this was the era before Smartphones.
Now, there exists an app for just about everything - including helping vegetarians do their grocery shopping.
Apps for Veg Shopping I recently came across an article about free vegetarian apps for your iPhone.
Since I don't have an iPhone (being glued to my laptop is even digitization for me, thank you!), the existence of these vegetarian apps came as a shock to me.
Most of the apps listed in the article were purely for recipes.
However, there are some cool ones which can make vegetarian shopping much easier.
I did a bit of searching and here are the best ones:
Now, people won't have to spend hours in the supermarket reading labels just to see if a product contains gelatin or an animal-sourced dye.
However, I do worry that this may take away one of the benefits of vegetarianism: product awareness.
Because vegetarians have to constantly read the ingredients in manufactured foods before eating them, they tend to be more aware about how unhealthy processed foods are.
This causes them to choose healthier foods which are minimally processed and have fewer additives.
So, hopefully vegetarians won't get too dependent on their apps and will still take the time to read ingredients on what they eat -- even if the app says it is okay!
Of course, this was the era before Smartphones.
Now, there exists an app for just about everything - including helping vegetarians do their grocery shopping.
Apps for Veg Shopping I recently came across an article about free vegetarian apps for your iPhone.
Since I don't have an iPhone (being glued to my laptop is even digitization for me, thank you!), the existence of these vegetarian apps came as a shock to me.
Most of the apps listed in the article were purely for recipes.
However, there are some cool ones which can make vegetarian shopping much easier.
I did a bit of searching and here are the best ones:
- Veg Scan app: This is by far the coolest vegetarian app.
You just hold your phone up to the ingredients and it will scan them, letting you know if the product is vegetarian or vegan. - Vegan Yum Yum app: Has an ingredients checklist, but no product checklist
- Whole Foods Market Recipes app: You can use the app to find vegetarian or vegan products in the Whole Foods store
- Animal Free app: Gives you a searchable list of ingredients and their origins
- Cruelty Free app: This vegetarian app isn't for food, but rather lets you know whether cosmetics, cleaning products, and personal care items are cruelty free.
- VeganXPress app: This app lets you know what is vegan and vegetarian at popular fast food chains and restaurants (costs $1.
99)
Now, people won't have to spend hours in the supermarket reading labels just to see if a product contains gelatin or an animal-sourced dye.
However, I do worry that this may take away one of the benefits of vegetarianism: product awareness.
Because vegetarians have to constantly read the ingredients in manufactured foods before eating them, they tend to be more aware about how unhealthy processed foods are.
This causes them to choose healthier foods which are minimally processed and have fewer additives.
So, hopefully vegetarians won't get too dependent on their apps and will still take the time to read ingredients on what they eat -- even if the app says it is okay!
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