Discovering, eliminating and eventually managing allergies is a long and sometimes, tedious journey. Technology has enabled more user friendly apps to help track symptoms and provide a path towards managing triggers by capturing data and providing insights into your food choices. There are hundreds of apps supporting better health so we've started with a list of the top rated apps that help you discover your environment and food choices.
Find Me Gluten Free
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.9 | 4.5 | Free |
Find Me Gluten Free offers listings of local establishments that report to be gluten-free only. Food options include restaurants, fast food, bars, cafes, grocery stores. Users can filter by: closest to you, by address and city, takeout, delivery and by category. View other users ratings and reviews and submit your own.
What We Like
Lists of well known name brands, ratings from other trusted users who also have a verified ranking on the app. There's some international cities and airports and a broad palette of food from Thai to Mexican and Italian. Several food chains are included to help families with children find options. Find links to Gluten free brands.
Opportunities
More ratings by users will help increase coverage of restaurants in more cities & towns. The Gluten Free food brands are not rated like the restaurants.
Find Me Gluten Free's - Gluten Free Scanner
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|
No Rating | No Rating | $19.99 |
For a one year subscription of $19.99, you get all features above plus no in app adds, "most Celiac friendly," which filters the highest rated celiac safe locations, an open now filter on demand which gives you the open locations at the moment of your search or specified time and by directional search that offers suggestions in a specific direction you're heading in. Premium also pays for the feature development so that your profile data is not compromised to sell more ads.
What we Like
No ads, funds contribute to development features led by a small team.
Opportunities
More global content will help travelers.
AllergyEats
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.6 | 3.9 | Free |
AllergyEats is a guide for allergy-friendly restaurants in the U.S. The app provides peer-based ratings reflecting how well (or poorly) restaurants accommodate food-allergic guests. This sharing of real experiences from other food-allergic diners allows users to find restaurants that have been the most willing and best able to address food-allergy needs.
What we Like
Customize search results for major allergens and dietary restrictions and access menus for over 400,000 restaurants, as well as allergy menus for some as well. View places to dine in Disney World parks and hotels on AllergyEats Disney World. Make reservations to some restaurants via one-click OpenTable links.
Opportunities
More ratings by users will help increase coverage of restaurants in more cities & towns. US based and light on info from other major cities outside of the US.
mySymptoms
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.6 | 4.3 | Free |
No Rating | No Rating | $5.99 |
Free: mySymptoms is an IBS food tracker that allows you to record what you ate by brand. Unknown brands can be added with a barcode scanner. IBS Symptoms can be selected by time and day.
Premium: The premium version displays the correlation triggers by tracking your food intake & symptoms.
What We Like
Free Version: Share your results with a Clinician by linking them in the app. The app delivers a PDF or CSV of findings that your clinician can add to your file.
Premium Version: The correlation of analysis between your food and supplement intake with logged symptoms saves a lot of time from graphing your own analysis.
Opportunities
The focus on IBS seems limited. The functionality can enable other ailments to be tracked.
Spokin
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.7 | n/a | Free |
Food allergies require 24/7 vigilance and impact daily decisions including restaurants, recipes, hotels, airlines and more. Spokin provides top-rated resources customized to your family’s food allergies, location and experience.
What We Like
See aggregated reviews from people with your same allergies for resources such as allergists, restaurants, hotels and more. Follow users with the same food allergies and taste.
Opportunities
An Android version, more reviews in cities & towns throughout the US.
myPollen Forecast and myPollen Forecast Pro
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.7 | Not Available | Free |
4.5 | Not Available | $2.99 |
Free: You can view hay fever forecasts for the next 2 days and keep a diary of your symptoms. View a map to see which areas have the highest pollen count. Get a 2 day pollen forecast including temperature, wind and humidity. Use the app to track how you feel to monitor your symptoms over time. Discover which pollens you are most allergic to, by adding diary entries frequently. Receive push notifications when the pollen count is expected to be high.
Premium: Pro version offers the same functionality of My Pollen Forecast but is ad-free, includes widgets on iOS 14+ and support for Apple Watch to check pollen count on the go.
What We Like
Many of the major pollens are covered and the easy tracking and alerts allows you to look for trends when looking at the history. The pro version removes ads.
Opportunities
An Android version. The app currently only supports the contiguous US and the UK. States such as Alaska and Hawaii are unfortunately not supported.
Gluten Free Scanner and Gluten Free Scanner Full
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.7 | 4.3 | Free |
4.1 | 3.6 | $3.99 |
Free: The free version of the Gluten Free Scanner will enable bar code scanning to confirm if a product has gluten or not. A history log of products scanned is saved and you can heart your favorite products to help create shopping lists. Sharing allows you to send products with an image via email or SMS. You can delete any products from your history.
Premium: The paid version includes search by Product name, brand and category with a database of 500K US foods and beverages and 80k gluten free products and includes an Ingredient search to help aid discovery. The app also includes a digital dining and travel card.
What We Like
Products from major brands are displayed. The scanner works very easily and quickly to recognize bar codes.
Premium Version: The search function enables users to search food to eat and can help users build a list of acceptable foods. If you scan a food or beverage not included in the data base, you can write in to ask for a review of it to determine if it has gluten. The one-time payment of $3.99 is a nominal fee. The developer is very responsive to comments about bugs.
Opportunities
If you generally eat food from smaller less known brands, the app will be less likely to find the product. A list of the experts who determine the gluten and their credentials is not published on the app. Smaller less known brands won't be included.
Cara Care
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
4.8 | 4.7 | Free |
Track gut issues like IBS, IBD, GERD, Celiac, dyspepsia, or food intolerances. The app enables a user to track bowel movement, stress, food, pain, and other symptoms (e.g. from IBS). The app shows you what your food, symptoms, and bowel movements are like on your best and worst IBS days.
What We Like
Tracking is easy with the interface and timing is collected down to the minute. Export your data so it can shared with practitioners.
Opportunities
Symptom tracking beyond IBS. There's a free form field to add other symptoms so there's a great opportunity to include skin allergies. The app is made to focus on digestive issues but we can't help but want more issues addressed since accompanying skin issues are likely.
Cara Care 12 Week Program
Apple Store Rating | Google Play Rating | Price |
Not Rated | Not Rated | $89.99 |
Premium: The 12-week paid program includes coaching, tracking, mind-gut exercises, dashboards, diet plans, and holistic personalized support for IBS. Chat time with a dietician, an audio guided hypnosis program, science based articles, exercises and quizzes.
What We Like
The gut health focused program targets solutions for mind and body. It's rare to see a holistic solution.
Opportunities
Since the company is based in Berlin, doctors are based there too. Some content on the English site was not translated. Most Germans speak English fluently so they'll be able to support US users. We didn't verify the availability of the time zone differences.
Important Note:
Read reviews and call the restaurant directly, as menus and protocols change often. App ratings are captured at the time of publication. Restaurant ratings are based on the opinions of food-allergic diners, not allergy experts. Always carry emergency medication and discuss your allergies with restaurant staff in advance. List created referencing personal downloads, app store ratings and user reviews.