There Is An App For That!
There are apps for almost everything these days and this is also true for plant-based eating.
If you are new to plant-based eating, or a veteran vegan, then there are no shortage of apps you can download to help you on your journey, and to support and assist you to navigate a world devoid of animal products.
If you had a look on my phone right now you’d find the majority of these apps are already installed. As I’m a veteran vegan, it is rare that I’ll need the apps for my general day-to-day life and shopping, but when I travel these are really essential.
Below I’ll introduce my top vegan and plant-based app recommendations. These are da bomb, free or cheap to download, and super useful. I urge you to start downloading now!
SHOPPING
Is it Vegan?
Over the years I’ve become quite a pro at checking supermarket product ingredient lists. It can be quite an arduous task (especially as my eyesight is getting worse) because there are so many ‘hard to distinguish’ ingredient names that disguise animal-derived ingredients.
This app allows you to scan a barcode and it will then tell you right away if something is not vegan, questionable, vegetarian, or definitely vegan. This app is a great way to find accidentally vegan food too.
Is It Vegan has information on hundreds of thousands of food and beverage products and verifies each of them using a master list containing thousands of pre-classified ingredients. Unfortunately data on products outside the USA is extremely limited at this time, so for best results scan food products from the USA. However, if you enter individual ingredients this App will totally deliver.
Users also have the option to upload products which helps grow the database and will ensure that this app is useful worldwide once enough people add products.
Cruelty-Cutter
Cruelty-Cutter is cruelty-free shopping made simple! This app is similar to Is It Vegan where it allows you to scan barcodes for your household, personal care and beauty products. Any product that is not cruelty-free is marked in red.
Cruelty-Cutter includes every company in the ‘Leaping Bunny’ and PETA lists, plus thousands more. It is the most up-to-date and vigilant cruelty-free list on the market.
This app has been touted an ‘activist app’ as it allows you to share your results with friends on social media and also share your concern or praise with the company itself. ‘Bite Back’ by posting to social media sites of #CruelCompanies. Connect with friends and help build a cruelty-free community! Plus if you share you earn ‘Doggie Dollars’ that you can use to redeem coupons for cruelty-free items!
Cruelty-Cutter lets you register your concern and help collect data to bring to companies that test on animals, to show them that the public is not interested in supporting companies that continue to use animals when it is not needed.
Another reason to download this app and use it, is that any ‘in app’ purchases helps raise funds for Beagle Freedom Project, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to freeing beagles from testing labs. Beagle Freedom Project rescues beagles (and other animals) from labs across the globe, giving them a second chance at life!
Note: if a scanned item come up as cruelty-free this doesn’t automatically mean it is vegan so be sure to do the quick check for milk, honey, beeswax, or eggs which are sometimes found in products, but often clearly labelled.
Bunny Free
This app is similar to Cruelty-Cutter, but it’s worth downloading both as this one has the option of easily searching for a brand name. By simply doing a quick search of a company name you can find out the company’s animal testing policies. Bunny Free uses data from the cruelty-free shopping guide published by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and this information is updated on a regular basis.
New features include a function for finding cruelty-free companies by product type using the ‘Browse’ tab, and also the ability to share company testing information to social media through ‘Share’ button.
Note: if a scanned item come up as cruelty-free this doesn’t automatically mean it is vegan so be sure to do the quick check for milk, honey, beeswax, or eggs which are sometimes found in products, but often clearly labelled.
EATING OUT
Happy Cow
I have been using this app for many years and it was a lifesaver when I travelled China a few years back. It is pretty much the first app I access when I’m in unfamiliar territory as I’m always super keen to try out new vegan haunts. I love that this app gives so much detail about each eatery with search functions, photos, and also reviews (300,000+) to help guide your dining choices.
This is the App Store’s #1 vegan and vegetarian restaurant guide. Covering 180+ countries and online as a free-to-use website since 1999. Search Happy Cow to find a local plant-based restaurant or cafe anywhere in the world. Happy Cow will direct you to a whooping 75,000+ vegan-friendly businesses including vegan bakeries, health food stores, vegetarian catering, farmers’ markets, juice bars, and coffee shops.
You can easily search for vegan eats whilst on the go, and it features an interactive map that uses your location (or a location of your selection) to show you where to find local vegan-friendly places. The app also lists contact information for each of the restaurants.
$5.99 to download (or free-to-use website)
VeganXpress
I’m not going to lie – I do eat at fast food or mainstream restaurants occasionally, so this app is one that caught my eye as it is touted to be super helpful at listing the vegan options each have on offer.
This app is a perfect for those occasions when you a joining non-vegan family, friends or co-workers for a quick bite at a fast food or chain restaurant, and need to find something vegan-friendly to fill your belly. This app lists over 130 very common restaurants and their menu items suitable for the vegan diet. At the current time it is most suited to the North American region but as new listings are added it should become more useful worldwide.
VeganXpress also features a full list of vegan beers, wine, liquor, snacks, candy and foods that you may not have realised were vegan.
Vegman
This app is similar to Happy Cow in that it will help you find vegetarian and vegan-friendly restaurants all around the globe! It also assists with directions so you can easily find them. It’s a great way to scope out some of the vegan-friendly places in your area or your next travel destination. They also have a blog which is worth a read.
The number of listings is constantly growing as more of the Vegman community log new entries, and update existing ones. Vegman want to thank their worldwide community for their participation as it leads to a better world, and the animals and environment thank you for it!
Vegman have a motto which I love – Animals: Friends. Not food.
Vanilla Bean
Vanilla Bean featured in ‘new apps we love’ by Apple and ‘well-known’ from Huffington Post and PETA. This app will help you discover the best plant-based venues in your area.
Vanilla Bean is very similar to Happy Cow, however Vanilla Bean offers more extensive filtering capabilities, and European eateries is a major feature on this app.
Vanilla Bean is an app for vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians. Whatever your motivation – health, climate change, compassion for animals – switching to plant-based meals is a healthier, more sustainable way of living.
Vanilla Bean offers the widest selection of US, UK, and German locations for anyone who eats consciously but does not want to miss out on anything. With self-explanatory indicators for each restaurant, you can immediately spot what each location has to offer. The photos and detailed descriptions, including reviews from the community, will help you decide which restaurant to visit. Information such as addresses, opening times, and telephone numbers are constantly reviewed.
GETTING STARTED
Four-Eyed Plant Eater
If you want to start on your plant-based journey then this app is for you. The Four-Eyed Plant Eater is a whole food plant-based information finding app that lists resources for newcomers and veterans. With links to starter guides, apps, YouTube channels, and Facebook groups, the Four-Eyed Plant Eater is your one-stop app for the information you need to live a life that makes you healthier, happier, and results in a smaller carbon footprint on mother Earth.
21-Day Vegan Kickstart
If you want to kick your ‘meat habit’ to the curb then this is the perfect app. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit! If you are new to veganism this app can be helpful in planning your meals. This app provides simple recipes to help kick-start your plant-based journey, as well as inspirational and useful tips that are shared every day.
This free app is created by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and is worth a download, if only for the yummy, healthy recipes.
BOOZING
Vegaholic
Not all alcohol is vegan-friendly (yep, this was a shock to me too!). It’s easy to avoid drinks made with milk, or cocktails with egg whites, but distinguishing which beers, wines and liquors are free of animal-derivatives is a tricky job (this app list over 24,054 beers, 13,303 wines, and 2,648 spirits). Wines can be filtered with egg, and beer can contain fish bladders (what!? Gross), so this app is essential if you want your drinking to be vegan.
This app allows you to search up your favourite boozy drinks to find out if they are cruelty-free and vegan. Vegaholic is powered by Barnivore (an ever-expanding website database that has set out to contact as many distillers and manufacturers as possible and verify the ‘vegan-friendliness’ of their libations).
This app is accessible offline. Date is updated fortnightly.
Green Vegan
This vegan alcohol guide lists 40,000+ drinks. It’s easy to use with a simple search feature, and you can save all your favourite drinks. Once again this works offline so no internet connection is required, and it is powered by Barnivore.
Once you’ve searched up your drink you’ll see a green, yellow or red status which indicates if these products are vegan or otherwise.
TRAVELLING
Veganagogo
This app is a vegan travel translator and in my opinion is essential if you are travelling to places where you don’t speak the language. This amazing app will make your dining out experience a whole lot easier as it translates basic sentences to help you order a vegan meal. You can try to read out the translation or alternatively show the translation to your waiter.
This app will save you all the stress and theatrics that I’ve felt when eating at foreign restaurants, where I’ve need to ‘act out’ animal sounds when placing my order, and am still never confident they have understood that I don’t want animal products in my meal.
This app offers professional translations for 50 languages, including those spoken in many of the world’s most visited countries. The developers want you to be able to successfully order vegan fare from Albania to Zambia.
$5.99 to download (both the Vegan and Vegetarian bundle)
