You probably already use your iPhone to get directions, play music, or look up movie times, but did you know you could use it as a guide to local food?
Iphone applications have quite a bit to offer on the food front. If you’re in St. Louis and you must know where the closest Filipino restaurant is, iWant, Urban Spoon, or Yelp applications can help you in a jiffy. You can also use iPhone apps to find an open table at a nearby restaurant, track calories and ingredients, or calculate your tip.
As more stories emerge about the complexities and risks of the globalizing and highly-processed food supply, more consumers are looking for ways to get information about the food on their plates. In the iPhone app marketplace there are a couple of promising apps to meet this growing demand.
A Guide to Food Safety iPhone Applications: Today’s Featured App: Locavore
Here are Food Safety News’ must-see food safety apps: Breadcrumbs, HarvestMark, Food Watch New York, Locavore, Still Tasty, and Good Guide. We’ll be featuring each one over the coming days.
Locavore: A Pocket Guide to Local Food
Though local food is not necessarily safer–at least we haven’t seen any robust data to prove it–locally sourced food does tend to have a shorter supply chain, which, in theory, means fewer opportunities for contamination.
Of course, there are other benefits to eating locally. You can reduce your carbon footprint, get to know a farmer and support your local economy–plus there are studies that suggest eating what’s in season is better for you.
Whatever your reason for seeking local food, the Locavore app ($2.99) is an invaluable tool. The app uses your GPS location to give you an instant guide to local food in your surrounding area.
The app tells you what produce items are in season and gives you a preview of what will be ripe next. You can also find your closest farmers markets and see what’s in season in other regions.
In case that’s not enough, it also recommends recipes from Epicurious.com.
Photo courtesy of The Huffingtonpost.