Top 3 Best Healthy Eating Apps

When it comes to healthy eating, my phone is my BFFFFF times infinity. Seriously, who else can break down my daily nutrients, rate my grocery items, and suggest recipes based on my cravings? Thanks to apps, my phone has transformed into my 24/7 healthy eating sidekick! 

1. Fooducate

This app is a savior for those of us who don't want to spend forever trying to decipher ingredients lists and nutrition charts. Fooducate rates food items on a A to D scale. Yes, it literally grades your food. If you're curious about a food product's rating, just use the app's bar code scanner or search it up in the database. It quickly sums up the food's good and bad points so you can instantly find out how healthy (or not) the food is. 

2. MyFitnessPal 

This app works as a daily journal to track your health and fitness. You can use it to log in your meals and exercise. MyFitnessPal is great for those who are starting a healthy lifestyle as it keeps your accountable for your diet and exercise goals. What I love the most about this app is that it breaks down your daily nutrient intake so you can see if you're lacking in a vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs, etc.

*My reservation with MyFitnessPal is that this app can be abused as a calorie tracker. My recommendation is that you don't use this as a calorie tracker but as nutrient tracker. Make sure you meet the daily nutrient requirements. If you're prone to counting and restricting calories, please skip this app as it may trigger those behaviors. 

3. SparkRecipes

With this app, you can browse through hundreds of healthy recipes filtered by ingredients or dietary needs. Got a bunch of asparagus sitting in the fridge that you don't know what to do with? Simply search up asparagus and choose from a wide selection of user-rated recipes. I admit, I often browse through the recipes when I'm bored. It's helped me find ways to use up all sorts of random things in my fridge. You don't have to be a gourmet cook to use this app since most of the recipes are fairly simple!

All of these apps are available on iPhone, Android, and online.

Healthy eating is super easy once you have your phone as an ally. With these apps, you can easily see how you're doing nutrition-wise. 

       Stay beautiful,

Green Living Resource: EWG Database

           One of the main reasons why we decided to choose green toiletries is because of all the hazardous chemicals companies have been dumping into our products. Many of these chemicals have been proven by many studies over the past years to be toxic to our bodies. These products are then directly applied on the skin, the face, or even used in our mouths every day, and what’s scary is that the government does little to protect or inform people about these things.

When we first started to go green, the hardest thing was probably researching the ingredients on the labels of our soaps, lotions, and cosmetics, only to find out more than half contained a good amount of these chemicals. Fortunately, there are resources out there that help to make the transition easier. 

Now, I'm not encouraging you to waste money and toss out commercial products that are still usable (I actually continued to use them until they were gone, and just never bought them again), but it helps knowing what kind of toiletries to buy in the future. One website I find particularly useful is: http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ . 

Basically you search up a product you want to know more about, and it rates how harmful it is and tells you why they gave it that rating. If you sign up for their mailing list, they’ll even send you a little Quick Tips for Safer Cosmetics shopping guide, as shown below, which is quite helpful when you’re out shopping. I've included a printable version of the shopping guide for your own use. EWG also has information about other key environmental issues such as pesticides in groceries or healthy cleaning. If you want to know more about the harmful chemicals in your toiletries, the government websites usually have some interesting studies on them.

Anyway, I hope this post makes your transition a little easier or a little more informed about why we chose to go green. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments at loveleaf.beauty@gmail.com

                                                                                     

                                                                                                - Grace