If you were to look at my phone right now, you would see that one thirdof it is taken up by pictures of food, another third is social media, and the final third is made up ofvegan apps. Yes, there are many, many vegan apps out there that come in super handy. Woot woot!
So today for a food break (do we need food breaks?) I decided to share my top 8 must have veganapps that will make your life easier. Whether you are a brand new vegan, have been vegan for 20 years, or maybe just flirting with the idea (veganism flirts back), these apps will be super helpful.
Now let's jump in! Click on the name of the app or the pictures to take you directly to download.
HappyCow
Hands down, this is the app that I use the most. No matter where you are in the world HappyCow willhelp you find the perfect place to eat. HappyCow will show you everything near by with reviews and photos from other users. This makes finding great food anywhere super easy. A must have for sure.
If you are planning on goingto arestaurantthat isn't specifically veg-friendly check out my guide on How To Eat Vegan at Any Restaurant (and not order salad).
Is It Vegan
Weall know that apples and almond milk are vegan, but when it comes to packaged food it can be trickier. This is where Is It Vegan comes in handy. You can either scan the barcode of an item, or manually search for it. The appwill tell you if it's vegan and if not, what the non-vegan ingredients are.It's great way to find accidentally vegan junk food.
I found this appdoesn't know every packaged food I scanned, so if you can't tell if it's vegan by using this app or by reading the ingredients, it probably isn't very healthy for youanyways, so I suggest skipping the creepy chemicals.
Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen
Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen app details the healthiest foods, as outlined in his book How Not to Diet, and helps you track the servings of each food each day. The app is free and helps you eat the recommended foods until it becomes a healthy part of your routine.
vKind
This is an online directory to help you find vegan businesses and professionals in your area, including shops, hair stylists, doctors, realtors, and more. It's simple and free and constantly updated with photos and special offers. The content is primarily US based, but there is great room for this app to expand!
Quit Meat
This is an app designed to help track your progress towards a vegan lifestyle. You can follow your day by day progress and see how your consumption patterns change and help you reach your goals. The app shows you fun calculations to show you the direct impact of your efforts, and provides interesting facts and articles you may enjoy.
Cruelty-Cutter
Similar to Is It Vegan this cruelty free app lets you scan barcodes of products, making it super easy to find household cleaners and beauty products. If an item shows up not cruelty-free the app will help you find products that are safe. I like howyou can also save your favourites, and see your history of items you previously scanned. Red letters means it's a no-no!
Bunny Free
This app is similar to Cruelty-Cutter, but the reason I have both is because I love how I can quickly and easily search for abrand name. Personally, I'm not a fan of lavender, oolong, or patchouli, and so I'm not very drawn to the beauty section at my local health food store.This app made it SO much easier to find products that I actually liked the scents of and many of them I could find at my local drugstore.
Just quickly search the company name and it will tell you if it's cruelty-free or not. Beware that neither of theseapps mention ifspecific items are totally vegan, so do a quick check for milk, honey, beeswax, or eggs which are sometimes found in products, but often clearly labeled.
21-Day Vegan Kickstart
It takes 21 days to make a habit! If you are new to veganism this app can be helpful in planning your meals. It's very helpful in providing some simple recipes, as recommended by dietitians, as well as an overall understanding on how to make up a day of vegan meals. I also like the little tips and inspirational messages that come a long with each day.
BONUS:
If you are looking for vegan recipe apps, there are a TON of those. I can't honestly recommend any because I write my own recipes and don't have much time for testing out other peoples, but if you are interested in some, here are the ones I have heard good things about:
- Food Monsterfrom One Green Planet that contains 5000+ recipes
- Oh She Glowsfrom the popular blog
- Forks Over Knives from the makers of the documentary, oil-free whole food recipes
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Rowan says
I am so happy I stumbled across this article! I had a few of these apps already, but I had not heard of the cruelty-cutter app. It turns out that while I have been eating vegan with no problem that most of the cleaning products and a few personal care items I was using daily are far from vegan or cruelty free! This app helped me easily identify the products that needed to go bye bye and find comparable items to replace them.
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Dennis von EcoYou says
Hey Sam,
thank you very much for this List.I really like the Happycow App ... it already saved me from starving several times. I'll try "Is it Vegan" for sure. 🙂
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Sam Turnbull says
Glad you found it helpful!
Ashley says
So many good vegan apps! This is amazing and super helpful, thank you!❤️
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Sam Turnbull says
You're most welcome 🙂
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Cecil Villeut says
Hey I found a new Vegan App that is really awesome to monitor the nutrients intake and to create shopping list from recipes planning. It is call Veganized and It is available in Google Play Store. When I first start using this app I only take the recipes for inspiration, but now I plan my entire month meals with the app and create automatically the shopping list, I love it :)).
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Sam Turnbull says
Awesome,thanks for sharing!
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Connie Leung says
For those living in Vancouver, check out @gomaeapp ! It is so useful! Vegan menus from restaurants, upcoming events, vegsn news, etc. Definitely a way to keep yourself in touch w the vegan community!
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Sam Turnbull says
Great tip!
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Kendall says
This is a great article! I knew about most of these but I never had any idea that Veg-Options on Happy Cow worked that way!!! That changes the whole game for me! Also my sister is in Europe right now and Vegangogo will be perfect for that! Also I loooove the cruelty cutter.. I do think you should include in the article the cost because Veganxpress got me SO hype and then I saw it was 2 dollars and I still bought it but it would help to have that expectation going into it. Thanks for a great resource!!
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Sam Turnbull says
So happy you found the article helpful! 🙂
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Jen says
I live in Asia, and Vietnam to be more specific.
I was wondering whether these apps work with all the stuff sold here (well, except HappyCOw, I've been using that for a few weeks)
Thanks and vegan bunch!Reply
Sam Turnbull says
Hi Jen! I'm not really sure, but I believe most of them are free, so you could try! 🙂
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Jasmine says
I can also recommend vanilla bean! https://www.vanilla-bean.com/
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Sam Turnbull says
Interesting! I gave it a look, and it didn't pull up a single vegan restaurant for Toronto (and there are lots), so I guess it must work better in some places.
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Emma D says
This was exactly the kind of information on Apps I was looking for! Thank you so much. Also, I'm a vegan from Toronto too!
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Sam Turnbull says
See AlsoDairy Free Mozzarella CheeseHigh five Toronto vegans!! 🙂
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Elaine says
I will try the VeganExpress app Than you!
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Artueo says
Veganexpress sounded great BUT it hasn't been updated in a year and charge for that neglect. No thank you.
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Sam Turnbull says
Aww that's too bad they aren't updating it.
Elaine Livingston says
The only disappointment I have with HappyCow after downloading and paying $4 dollars for it was I thought they listed vegan options at ALL restaurants but they only list vegan restaurants and nearby vegan grocers etc . I am traveling soon and I wanted to know vegan options at REGULAR restaurants that my friends are going so I still have to go to the website and look at these regular restaurants to see if there's any vegan options . if the restaurants serve any meat on the menu they will not add them to their database to support the cause so I don't find this app is not useful to me in wanting to go to regular restaurant chains that I can order vegan options at . if there is a different app for that let me know thank you .
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Sam Turnbull says
Ah yes, Happy Cow does lists restaurants that serve meat, but only if they have a particularly veg-friendly menu as well (you can click the "veg-options" button to see those). They don't include restaurants where there isn't specifically veg items on the menu. So for example, ordering a pizza without cheese, isn't going to make the app. A pizza place that has vegan cheese options, does.
For chain restaurants the app VeganXpress is pretty good (see above). I found it doesn't have all of the chain restaurants, but the ones that it does have are pretty thorough in what you can order. Hope that helps!Reply
Robin Hansen says
so glad I came across your blog! I am a vegan who doesn't want to be vegan, so I'm happy to have found someone so alike me!
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Sam Turnbull says
Haha! Welcome Robin. So happy you found me too 😀 I didn't want to be vegan at first, but it turns out it was one of the best decisions I ever made! I hope you feel the same way 😀
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Laura says
Hey if you are looking for a bigger vegan community I would suggest vegan amino. Its a social media/blog site with so many supportive informative people. Check it out.
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Sarah Clifton says
Could you share some of your recipes?
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Sam Turnbull says
You can see all of my recipes here: https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/vegan-recipes/ and be sure to subscribe so you get notices about all the new recipes 🙂 https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/subscribe/
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Jason says
Cool list! Credit where credit is due: Vegaholic is a great app but it's not made by Barnivore - it uses our data feeds but the app is all Ben's work.
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Sam Turnbull says
Thanks Jason! Oh ok, I corrected it in the post. Great to know! Thanks to both of you for your awesome contribution to the vegan world. Drinkers such as myself appreciate it! P.S. Is Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum vegan? The Jamaican tourist in me need to know! 😉
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Jason says
If it's not on Barnivore yet, the best thing to do would be to follow up via http://www.barnivore.com/askacompany - it's not like we have a secret list of products that for some reason we don't share 🙂
Sam Turnbull says
Haha! 🙂
Jemimah says
I went Vegan recently for 30 days for an experiment/school project and wrote a diary of the things I ate everyday and recipes of things I tried. This blog has been a brilliant help and inspiration for me and made vegan-ism a lot easier and enjoyable. Thank you so much for writing all of this and best wishes!
- Jemimah
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Sam Turnbull says
Oh that's so awesome Jemimah! So very happy I could help. I hope you were inspired to stay more vegan 😀
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Sherry says
These sounds great! Thanks for sharing. Are the apps only available for IOS phones? I have a Samsung android phone. Are they also available for android?
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Sherry says
Oh, I did find most of them in the Google Play Store. Just answered my own question!
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Sam Turnbull says
Haha! Glad to hear it! I only have an iPhone so I wasn't sure how to look it up. Happy that you are able to download them too 🙂
Kristi says
Sam, thanks for the recommendations. I had a couple already and was on the fence about a couple before your post. Got them now!
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Sam Turnbull says
Haha! You're very welcome! I hope you find them handy as much as I do 🙂
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Nicola Wise-Sturt says
These are brilliant - than you! Some in here I hadn't heard of so off to download 🙂 Just shared on Twitter too
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Sam Turnbull says
I'm glad you like them! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I'm excited to see what kind of clothes you will be selling!
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Nicola Wise-Sturt says
It is more a publishing platform to show that cruelty free can be stylish as well - and giving people really simple ways to take steps towards a cruelty free life. I'm excited to launch!
PS. Totally LOVE your recipes and use at least 2-3 every week 🙂
Sam Turnbull says
Oh neat idea! So flattered that you are using my recipes so much! Yay!
Erin O'Brien says
Thank you, Sam––so helpful! I'm gonna need a bigger phone!
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Sam Turnbull says
Haha, you're welcome Erin! Glad you enjoy 🙂
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