There’s a new free iPhone app that can help you simplify grocery shopping choices. Fooducate, created by Hemi Weingarten, is a super simple app that lets you know if a food is healthy or not using a letter grade. Scan a bar code on any food item, and the app will return that food’s grade, the number of calories per serving, and how many users like the food. Fooducate will also give you a few notes explaining that food’s letter grade, and suggest healthier items.

You can also easily scan a second food and compare the two. The less healthy food will be grayed out. For example, I compared a frozen Cedar Lane burrito with an Amy’s frozen burrito. The Amy’s burrito got a lower grade than the Cedar Lane version. While the app does provide some additional info about each food, like vitamins, controversial food additives, artificial food coloring and added sugars, I had a hard time understanding why the Cedar Lane Burrito did better. It seemed that Amy’s suffered from having a higher calorie count, although it contains organic ingredients.

According to app’s website, Fooducate analyzes foods based on their calories and ingredients, weighting “nutrients to limit” (saturated fat, sodium, sugar) against “food to encourage” (fiber). So, it doesn’t look like organic ingredients play a role into the grade.

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Is Apple working to create the iTunes of fitness apps? That’s what it looks like from a recent patent application, first reported by AppleInsider. The application, titled “Systems and Methods for Accessing Personalized Fitness Services Using a Portable Electronic Device,” lays out the plans for a piece of software that could help people reach a variety of fitness goals.

The application would provide a number of services, such as finding a gym, seeing fitness class schedules, creating and keeping goals, counting calories and even providing workout guides and how-to videos. There will also be a social aspect of the app, allowing uses to share their accomplishments and challenge their friends.

While apps like MapMyFitness and RunKeeper Pro already allow users to track and share their workouts, Apple seems to be looking to build a product that other fitness companies can use to sell their services. Users would be able to see available services and receive incentives to join, such as coupons or discounts. There are also a number of “upsell” opportunities, such as personal trainer services once you’re already at the gym, play-lists that might be heard during a class or even equipment.

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A food journaling app that prides itself on being different, Food Puzzle not only helps users keep track of calories and daily intake of key nutrients, it also can make suggestions to help you create a balanced meal-plan. Although this iPhone and iPad app offers a great concept, they still have a few kinks to work through.

After registering with your name, email and stats, you can go to the “Search” tool and find the foods you have eaten that day. After you have saved several foods for the day (by hitting the “I ate this” button), click over to “Meters” to see what percentage of calories you’ve used for the day, in addition to how much of 14 essential nutrients you’ve consumed, plus sodium, cholesterol, saturated fat and total fat. You can use the “Sliders” feature to get recommendations of foods that contain these nutrients from a variety of categories, like cereal, dairy, fruits, veggies and even fast food. If a food you have eaten is not in the database, then you can manually input the item using the “+ Food” feature (which confusingly does not add food to your daily journal). When you input a new food, be prepared to have all the nutrition info handy, as it’s not provided for you, not just calories. Go over to the “Trainer” feature to add any physical actives you’ve done.

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Do you ever wish you could choose the stretches and positions that you do in yoga class? Or wanted to continue your yoga practice at home, but didn’t know where to start? Now there’s a great way to get the yoga class you want without being a yoga pro yourself with the Asanamix Yoga iPhone app.

The creators of Asanamix Yoga describe it as a “modular yoga kit” that allows you to create a guided practice that’s exactly the way you want it. This is an app that’s great for someone who is familiar with the basics of yoga, but still wants guidance for sequences. The iPhone app comes with two hours of audio modules narrated by yoga instructor Ariel Albani. You can combine these tracks with music from your iTunes library and arrange them as you like.

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Hypnosis can be an effective treatment for a variety of conditions related to mental health. Those who are seeking to lose weight can use suggestion therapy hypnosis to change unhealthy habits or curb cravings. According to WebMD, hypnosis is usually performed by a licensed or certified mental health professional who is specially trained in the technique. However, self-hypnosis is sometimes promoted at a means of stress-relief.

Now, there’s an iPhone app that claims it can hypnotize you for weight loss benefits. Believe In Weight Loss with Hypnosis uses Benjamin P Bonetti’s hypnosis techniques to change your associations with food. Bonetti is a motivational speaker who has a large collection of self-help publications and recordings.

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