Food allergy apps can be particularly helpful if you’re newly diagnosed and unsure of what you can eat, or you’re living with serious food allergies.
This article looks at six apps that provide important services for people with food allergies, what they do, how much they cost, and what types of devices they work on.
Several products include the company’s original ContentChecked app, which scans products’ barcodes and tells you whether the food in question contains the allergens you’ve pre-selected.
The app’s database contains the vast majority of products available in the grocery store. It scans them for many allergens, ranging from the “big eight” food allergens to less common ones, such as celery, mustard, and sulfites.
ContentChecked also makes SugarChecked, which scans for added sugar, artificial sweeteners, and sugar alcohol. Finally, the company offers MigraineChecked, which looks for ingredients, additives and chemical compounds known to trigger migraines.
The apps are available for iPhone and Android devices. ContentChecked costs $2.99.
You enter your family’s list of allergens into the app, and once it scans a bar code, it provides you with an easy-to-read list of ingredients (in a large font, unlike most ingredients lists), plus pop-up allergy warnings.
The app also can tell you whether products include a particular ingredient.
MyFoodFacts is available for iPhone and costs $1.19.
The AllergyEats website was started in 2010 by Paul Antico after he experienced difficulty finding safe restaurants for his three children with food allergies.
AllergyEatsMobile is free and is available for iPhone and Android.
The app shows locations of nearby hospitals on a map, with a bar at the bottom of the screen that reads “The closest ER is __ miles away. Tap here for directions.” It also provides address and phone information that is constantly updated.
If you’re traveling with food allergies, having this knowledge easily accessible in your phone is invaluable.
EMNet FindER is available for iPhone.
For example, it states that peanuts may appear in ingredient lists under nine different names, and provides a list of foods that always or frequently contain peanuts.
iAvoid Food Allergy is free and available for iPhone.
Once you download the app, you can choose which allergens you want to avoid from a list that includes:
Gluten/wheatDairyEggsFishShellfishPeanutsSoyTree nuts
Then, the app provides you with ethnic cuisines to browse for ingredients to avoid.
For example, if you’re allergic to soy and want to eat at a Chinese restaurant, it will spotlight Chinese dishes and ingredients that typically contain soy sauce. If you’re allergic to dairy and you’re planning to dine out at an Italian eatery, it’ll flag ingredients and dishes that contain cheese.
iEatOut Gluten Free and Allergen Free is $2.99 and is available for iPhone and iPad. It also works offline so that you can take it traveling internationally without incurring roaming charges.
