Eleven great apps to help you navigate the farmers market

Picking out the freshest or most environmentally-conscious offerings at the local farmers market can be a challenge. Here are a few apps that help increase the impact of each market visit for buyers and sellers alike.

|
Katie Alaimo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group/AP/File
Douglas De Leo hands customers a bag of produce at the Kalamazoo Farmers Market in Kalamazoo, Mich. There are a wide variety of apps available for shoppers who want to purchase the most sustainable, environmentally friendly offerings at local farmers markets.

Picking the best in-season produce with the lowest pesticide levels or purchasing the most sustainable seafood at the local farmers market can be a challenge. Here are a few apps that help increase the impact of each market visit for buyers and sellers alike.

Dirty Dozen. Free. Published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit environmental research organization. This app focuses on which types of conventionally raised produce are the lowest in pesticides and which types are the highest. Lists include the Dirty Dozen, like apples, spinach, and grapes, and the Clean Fifteen, like sweet corn, asparagus, and cantaloupe. The app helps decide when finding an organic alternative is especially important. The Dirty Dozen Plus, an expanded app, includes a list of hot peppers and leafy greens.

Farmstand. Free. The app lists more than 8,700 farmers markets around the world and connects shoppers with markets for locally grown food. It supports local communities by supporting linking users to each other by allowing them to take and post pictures of markets and vendors, alert others to great finds, and browse information posted by fellow market-goers. Markets can be sorted by location and opening times.

Good Guide. Free. A wide-ranging shopping app that includes everything from produce to pet food, the Good Guide rates products and producers according to their environmental and social benefits. In the case of fresh produce, dairy, and meats, items can be sorted using filters such as organic, vegan, and specific nutrition aspects (low sodium, etc.). The app can be tailored to highlight shoppers’ personal requirements.

Harvest. Paid. The app provides a list of pesticide levels on fruit and vegetables and instructs shoppers on methods for picking the best and ripest piece in-season produce, from shaking blueberries to knocking on watermelons. It also provides information on the best means of storage for different kinds of produce.

HarvestMark Food Traceability. Free. Participating fruit, vegetable, and dairy brands label their products with a 16-digit HarvestMark code or QR code; shoppers use the app to scan the code, retrieve the product’s harvest information, and give feedback. The app connects food producers with their customers and offers food production transparency.

Locavore. Free. Locavore has a large database of local farmers markets, farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and vendors selling organic produce and in-season foods. It showcases recipes using in-season ingredients and also allows users to tag local sellers, share reviews, and post new finds.

Love Food Hate Waste. Free. Produced by the United Kingdom-based organization WRAP, the app helps shoppers reduce food waste by better organizing their kitchen, cooking, and shopping habits. It helps eaters keep track of what’s in their cupboards, posts alerts where there are duplicate items, highlights recipes for how to best use the food that’s already there, and cuts down on unnecessary purchases.

Seafood Watch (U.S.) / Good Fish Guide (U.K.). Free. Optimized for use in the United States or in the United Kingdom respectively, these two apps help shoppers identify the most sustainable seafood options at the market. Seafood Watch highlights best choices and indicates the options to avoid. The Good Fish Guide uses a traffic light rating system.

Seasons. Paid. The app lists natural growing season data and local availability of hundreds of kinds of produce, from herbs to mushrooms to fruits. It also includes the import seasons of produce, photos, and the location of farmers markets around the world.

True Food. Free. Some countries, including the United States, do not require mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This app, created by the nonprofit environmental advocacy organization Center for Food Safety, helps shoppers identify which foods contain GMOs, including dairy products, meat, and meat alternatives.

What’s on my food? Free. Created by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), this app accesses an extensive and up-to-date database of all pesticides used on various kinds of produce. Pesticide residues remain on some fruits and vegetables even after washing. Watermelon in the United States, for example, can have up to 26 different pesticide residues by the time it reaches market, according to PAN. The app illuminates the effects of each pesticide.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Eleven great apps to help you navigate the farmers market
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Bite/2014/1001/Eleven-great-apps-to-help-you-navigate-the-farmers-market
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe