While I’m on the fence about whether to ditch my beloved year-old iPhone for the new, supposedly faster and feature-rich model that just arrived in stores, I’m not at all on the fence about the two new free apps I just downloaded.

Both speed my shopping decisions and make me feel better about what I’m buying; it’s like taking a really smart friend shopping with me (except maybe not as much fun in the gossip department). Best of all, both apps help me make healthier food choices.

Good Guide
Does this sound familiar (or am I just totally nuts)? You’re standing in front of the dairy case at a big supermarket, trying to figure out which organic milk to buy. Well, it happens to me all the time. But now, I can just tap on the GoodGuide button on my phone, then tap on “food.” I scroll down to “Dairy & Dairy Substitutes” and tap on “milk.” Here’s what appears: nine products, including Stonyfield Farm Fat Free Milk and Horizon Organic Fat Free Milk—the two choices presently staring me in the face. Each selection has a little green dot and a rating.

So, which of these two do I buy? Turns out, the Stonyfield Farm milk is rated 8.1 out of 10, while the Horizon product is a 4.4. I tap the arrow next to the product to get the whole story:  The ratings average the product’s marks in three areas:  health/nutrition, environment, and social. Stonyfield Farms gets a 7.3 for health/nutrition, 8.8 for environmental, and 8.3 for social, compared to Horizon’s 8.0 for health/nutrition, 0.9 for environmental, and 4.2 for social. I’m taking home the Stonyfield Milk.

According to the GoodGuide website, the company strives to provide the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. Its mission? To help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet.

Born as a University of California Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into “a totally independent ‘for-benefit’ company, committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.”

More than 70,000 products (and counting) in four categories—food, personal care, household cleaners, and toys—are rated.

Caveat: The GoodGuide app crashed three times as I was writing this. Maybe that annoyance wouldn’t occur if I splurged on the newer, faster iPhone? Hmm…

Seafood Watch
I’ve just about given up on buying fresh fish these days because I simply can’t keep straight which kinds come with the fewest environmental issues and the lowest amount of toxins. This new free app will be a big help.

It’s an iPhone version of a website that’s been available for a while now, sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It uses a color-coded system to show you which fish are the safest choices: green for “best choice,” yellow for “good alternative,” and pink for “avoid.” You tap on your area of the country, and up come all the seafood choices listed alphabetically. Tap on each choice for complete info about each fish.

I got particularly excited when I saw that the SW app has a sushi guide, being that I’m a sushi fanatic who closes my eyes to its potential toxicity. I can’t afford to indulge my habit as regularly as Jeremy Piven (who traced the debilitating case of mercury poisoning that ended his Broadway run in Speed-the-Plow last year to his daily tuna sushi lunches), so I’m not very concerned about the amount of mercury I get from my infrequent sushi dinner treats. Still, it would be nice to make safer choices.

Only trouble is, the sushi bars I frequent don’t tell you where the fish comes from or whether it’s wild or farmed—info that Seafood Watch uses to rate sushi choices—so this part of the app isn’t very useful unless you’re in a restaurant that provides that kind of info, or you’re willing to ask the chef.

GoodGuide and Seafood Watch are both online, so you can access them on the go if your cell phone navigates the Internet.

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