Fooducate: Nutrition Coach

This app works great. It tracks calories of course but it does so much more. It tells you about the food you chose in terms of nutritional value and gives it a grade from A-D. It shows percents of daily intake for major food groups like protein, carbohydrates and fats/saturated fats. Also, major minerals like calcium, sodium etc and major vitamins. It tracks water intake, your weight. There’s a place to put your recipes and meals you eat often so you can just choose that and not input several items. It also automatically calculates your calories allowed as you lose weight so you can continue on your path to your final goal. You will get out what you put in. I’ve spent some time every day inputting everything I can think of including workouts and it has worked flawlessly for me. The only thing I struggle with is sometimes when you scan a barcode with your phone, the item is not entered into the system. If that happens you can choose something similar or enter the item you want yourself. Doing that can be a bit of a challenge and sometimes it doesn’t like the pictures I take of the item so I’ve had to give up a few times and just use something similar for that meal.

I think I found this app before The Most Popular fitness tracker gained so much traction, and tbh this app is still superior. The UI is so easy for me to navigate, it’s affordable, and the database of food has grown so much. I also love the long list of different types of exercise, and even though estimating calories burned is not an exact science, I appreciate any ballpark number of extra calories that I need to eat so I don’t hurt myself. Seriously, I tried these other, more talked about apps, and I just don’t want to quit this one. It’s not freaky and aggressive in its wording about sticking to diets and militant exercise and cult-like branded phrasing, and the orange, yellow, and earth tone colors are more pleasant. I also love that it gives you a flexible target date, so you can also set your goal based on the number of calories you want to eat per day. (I like smaller calorie deficits.) Also, bravo for the warnings about going below 1200 calories! Keep being responsible, please! EDIT: I just deleted a star because I saw below what data they are collecting. Dude, collect my subscription money. Don’t invade my privacy like this. There is no reason to know my contacts, etc. Also, this shouldn’t be an app for ages 4+. Toddlers don’t need to diet. Kids and teens should not be encouraged to diet either given the statistics on the body dysmorphia and eating disorders they develop for life. Thanks!