Food App of the Week: Wild Food Forager

Wild Food Forager
Developer: Chris Bax
Cost: $0.99
Runs on: iPhone
Website: www.tastethewild.co.uk

With the economy still struggling to recover, food foraging continues to find new fans. Of course, knowing what is safe to consume and what will kill you is kind of important. Wild Food Forager from Taste the Wild provides a guide of 50 commonly found plants.

There are three ways users can identify wild plants they can put into their mouth: food pictures, search, or a scrollable A-Z list. When searching by the image option, the images take up a quarter of a screen and are easy to distinguish. If you’re searching for a plant name, the predictive engine will pop-up available options from the list.

Once you’re in one of the plant pages, you get the common name, the botanical name, family, habitat, season, flower color, possible confusions and uses. They’re very serious about the confusions. When you first launch the app you have to agree not to hold the company liable if you eat a poisonous plant. In case you forget, there’s a bold, red link permanently displayed on the homepage to remind you.

The descriptions provided with the plants are short and to the point, and very helpful. In fact, all the information provided is concisely written—and that’s a good thing. This app is smooth, well designed and very straightforward. It’s very much like a tiny pocket guide for those of you who are ready for the hunt.

This app could, however, be improved with the addition of more robust features. For example, being able to mark on a map locations you have previously foraged items from would be a great help. Just being able to take notes would be a plus. A larger library of items is also desired. It almost seems odd that mushrooms are no where to be found. Finally, a more complete search engine that would accept plant descriptions (not just their names) would make identifying these edible treasures much easier.

Part of the new foraging phenomenon is the community element that is completely ignored here. You can’t share a picture, send an e-mail or send a location to a friend. However despite all this, the Wild Food Forager is a helpful guide that will make foraging easier. It’s not the best app on the market, but it’s edible.

Toque Rating: 3.5/5