Lumiappaday #17: Healthy Chef demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800

This next app is a recipe book for more healthy conscious individuals

#17) Healthy Chef

Price: Free

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/07a01d74-85a7-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8

 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrNm47lOsyY

Developer Blurb:

Running out of ideas on healthier dishes that you can prepare for yourself and your loved ones?

Introducing Healthy Chef, an app which provides over 70 healthier (and mouth-watering) recipes created by renowned chefs in Singapore! There are recipes for Chinese, Malay, Indian and Western cuisines, plus you can search for recipes according to their calorie content. You also get to rate the recipes, publish them on Facebook and add reminders in your calendar to prepare the recipes you have chosen.

What’s more, the app will adjust the amount of ingredients needed for cooking based on the number of servings that you have specified, and consolidate a shopping list for your convenience. The app also highlights products carrying HPB’s Healthier Choice Symbol, so you can look out for them while grocery shopping.

Go on and experience Healthy Chef today!

Rating: 9.5

Design: 10

It’s a nice straight forward looking application. It’s not in Metro. The main menu has a sort of greeny woody earth like theme going on and the background you’ve got a slide show of what looks to be healthy veggy things.

The recipe lists are cleanly laid out. The font for the titles is an attempt of making it look more homely/handwritten, whilst underneath you are given the amount of servings possible and the calorie count per serving.

As well as a single list you can view the recipe’s in a grid. When you press the grid button you see the screen pivot around as it changes view.

The bottom rests a persistent toolbar that allows you to switch between recipe view, diary view, shopping lists and your favourites. They’ve also decided to keep the status bar visible at the top

Usability: 9

It’s very usable. The aformentioned toolbar makes it very easy to navigate. The recipes button acts as a home button to bring you back to the main view so you don’t have to keep pressing back.

Recipes are categorized into all recipes, budget (under $5), cuisine (separating into Chinese, Malay, Indian and Western),  calories and search. Calorie categorie is pretty useful as you can set what level of calories you want to eat at a particular meal.

The recipes themselves are laid out quite nicely although the font , may be a little too small for some on the side buttons for rating/prepare etc.

Each recipe has a nice picture of what you’re making, as well as individual tabs for an overview of nutritional information, ingredients needed as well as preparation methods with thoughtful healthy tips.

I found the prepare button especially helpful as it gives you the option to set how many portions you’re making, to which it will alter your shopping list quantity accordingly. The shopping list view is also pretty good as you can click to mark off items you’ve purchased. When you’re preparing you can put things in your meal planner, so you can set for what date you make this for and for what type of meal. You can then review this in diary later on. It is all included in your shopping list so if you’re going for a weekly shop, everything you’ll need to buy for your set of recipes will be included there. Pretty smart.

Performance: 9

It’s fast to start up and fast to navigate and it’s stable. The only issue possibly is that the back button takes 0.5-1 second to respond when in a recipe at the all recipes category. In every other place it’s pretty much instant.

Only works in portrait.

It does ‘multitask’. It blinks, resuming to the position you last left it.

Price: 10

It’s free. No ads

Conclusion:

A well thought out, overlooked application that will come very useful for folks who want to perhaps watch what they eat but get some variation in their healthy meals with a wide range of healthy options other than the usual “salad”.

Category: Applications, Lumia, Lumiappaday, Nokia, Video, Windows Phone