The best apps for food allergies when you eat out or travel

Talking to the kitchen. You build a card for each allergy or diet, then show it in the local language. Each translation goes through a professional translator, a proofreader and a native speaker. You can keep cards for several people in one app, and saved cards open offline. Registered users also get a free emergency card that asks for help, in every language the app supports.

It does not read menus or tell you what is in a dish. It only speaks for you. Cards you buy on the Equal Eats website do not show up in the app, so you make your app cards again inside it. The wording on its cards is fixed: on custom cards you pick your allergens, but you can't write your own sentences.

You are going to a country where you don't speak the language, and you want staff to understand your allergy the first time.

Reading a menu you can't read. Take a photo of the menu, or upload a photo or a PDF, and you get it back as sections and dishes. Each dish has its original name, a translation, a short description, likely ingredients and allergen tags. Save your allergens once and the app warns you on any dish that may contain them. A dish with no match is never shown as safe. It is marked "still unverified", so you know to ask. When you are ready to order, Show to Waiter puts the dish name on screen in the original language.

The tags come from what a typical recipe for that dish contains, not from this kitchen. You can pick any of the 14 allergens that EU restaurants must give information about, but the app checks 9 of them. Celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites and lupin are marked "Not evaluated", and the app reminds you to ask about them. Peanuts and tree nuts share one tag, and so do crustaceans and molluscs. It needs an internet connection, and it does not make allergy cards.

You will sit down in front of menus in another language and want to know which dishes to ask about before you order.

Finding a place to eat. Spokin shows reviews of restaurants, hotels, bakeries and products from people who share your allergies, and you can filter them by allergy and cuisine. Spokin says it has reviews from 80 countries, so it is worth a look before a trip. You can also follow people with the same allergies and see what they recommend.

It is iPhone only for now. Spokin says an Android app is planned, but it has no date yet. A review tells you how one visit went, not how the kitchen will handle your meal today. The app is in English.

You have an iPhone and want to pick a restaurant that other people with your allergy have already tried.

Packaged food. Scan a barcode and Fig checks the ingredients against your profile, which can hold many allergies and diets at once. With Fig+ you can make a profile for each person you shop for. You can also build shopping lists in the app.

Fig says it is only available in the United States for now, and its restaurant feature is US only and part of Fig+. Its scanner reads barcodes, not printed menus, so it helps less once you leave the US.

You buy packaged food in the US and want a quick label check for you or your family.