I hope all of my readers enjoyed the holidays and have kicked 2010 off to a great start!

My favorite Christmas gift: an Apple iPhone.

Thousands of iPhone applications (a.k.a. apps) focus on food, nutrition, and healthy eating habits. There are apps for cooking just about anything, in any fashion; apps for searching nutrient and recipe databases, apps for making grocery lists and budgets; apps for tracking calories, carbohydrate and fat grams; apps for planning meals and weekly menus; apps for finding local farmers markets, choosing sustainable fish, tasting new wines or cheeses; essentially apps for everything food.  The iPhone even has a built-in timer for use in lieu of a kitchen timer.

Since many of these apps can help you eat smarter, and since eating smarter is my great passion, I am excited to tell you that I will be testing some of these apps and reporting my favorites to my readers.

Today, I installed Whole Foods Market Recipes, a fabulous app that let’s you search for recipes by category or specific dietary preference.  Categories include  family friendly, one pot meals, portable, and quick and easy, and special diets offer low fat, sugar conscious, high fiber, gluten-free, and vegetarian fare. Not only is there a comprehensive variety of recipes to choose from, but once you make your selection, the ingredients are automatically added to your shopping list, in the exact amounts called for.  Who hasn’t arrived home after a well-intended trip to the grocer to realize one or another ingredient was forgotten?  No more!

Rank recipes as Favorites, and you have a complete, portable recipe box to refer to when shopping or meal planning, nutritional information included.

Another useful feature, On Hand, lets you enter foods items you already have but don’t necessarily know what to do with.  The app lists recipes using those items, meaning new meal ideas and less food waste. Better bang for your food buck!

Don’t have an iPhone?  You can find the same, great recipes on www.wholefoodsmarket.com.