Food Apps You Didn’t Know You Needed

words by: EVA RODERICKS design by: ELAINE TANG Photography by: BEN CHEN / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

One thing that many students have in common is limited funds and equally limited cooking skills. Often, this results in pretty boring meals. What students also have in common is our love of the internet, so I’ve found a way we can use our best friend, the app store, to spice up our kitchen lives. Here are some apps that will stretch your cooking creativity and your money!

Eaten

Eaten allows you to see reviews of specific dishes at local cuisines near you. Simply put your location into the app and it will show you a map with local nearby restaurants pinpointed, along with customer ratings and dishes, so you can see what’s on offer and make an informed choice. This is brilliant if you’re in an area you do not know so well as it enables you to find cuisine gems that may have otherwise taken a while to find. There is a search by city filter which is accessible across the globe - so it’s a great tool to use on your travels. It also shows ready meals that people have made at home, which will help you find some easy dinners in your weekly shop. Give it a download and start freshening up your knowledge of the food in your local area.

TooGoodToGo

T ooGoodToGo involves a similar process to Olio, however, only restaurants and shops upload items - at a reduced price. The shops and restaurants create a ‘magic bag’ of leftover food that would have been otherwise wasted, creating an element of surprise as to what you might get. This is great to get you out of your comfort zone and try new foods. You can ‘heart’ your favourite shops, so you can be the first to know when they’re giving away cheap food.

There are also brilliant filter tools which allow you to narrow down your search result to the distance you are able to travel from your location, meaning you will only see the most relevant listings. Timing is crucial. Often around 3 o’clock, restaurants and cafes realise that they will have excess food that they will be throwing away, so this is when a lot of listings go up, to be collected at the end of the day. TooGoodToGo handily categorises food by when it needs to be collected, for example “Tomorrow between 3 and 4,” helping you to plan what you would be able to collect. So, what are you waiting for?

Olio

It is estimated that 7 million tonnes of food are wasted everyday in the U .K. This seriously needs addressing, right? Olio allows people to upload any food items that they are no longer going to eat, often including tins, fruit and staple carbs. You can then request the item, and arrange to pick it up - easy. Not only that, everything on Olio is free, so it’s perfect for the student bank account.

Often as students, we are buying a number of things that go off quickly and which we don’t get round to eating in time, so why not add something to OIio that you’re only going to waste? If you’re going to list multiple items, make sure you list them all separately so that distribution is easier, and the path of consumption can be accurately tracked. You could even pick up food to give to the homeless at no cost to yourself!

Kitchen Stories

This app is aimed at novice chefs who are looking to branch out in the kitchen. Professional chefs and foodie pros alike share their recipes, top tips and provide dining inspiration. Recipes are labeled with the time they will take to make and are reviewed by other users, so you know what you’re getting yourself into before you begin.

You can search for dishes with filters such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, sugar free, so it’s perfect for any diet. The app separates your feed into categories such as ‘five ingredients’, ‘fast week-night favourites’ and ‘most popular’ dishes, so you can easily navigate and see what’s trending. A cool feature is that you can save recipes and add the ingredients in one click to your in-app shopping list. Once you’ve made one of the recipes listed, you can upload a picture to share with the community. Already a cooking pro? Upload your own recipes to share with others! Why not start your kitchen career today?

With these apps, cooking no longer needs to be a chore. Students can eat well at a good price, too. Explore these apps and expand your culinary horizons!