Harmony Food AgentAbout Us
Know what you're feeding the people you love
Harmony Food Agent is a free app that helps families decide what to buy and what to cook. Scan a barcode or search for a grocery product and Harmony scores it with Tufts University's Food Compass 2.0, checks it against the health conditions, allergies and diets of everyone you shop for, and suggests a better product of the same kind. It also plans a week of meals that are safe for everyone at your table and turns them into a shopping list.
It works in the web browser on any phone, tablet or computer at harmonyfoodagent.com.
Who made it
Harmony Food Agent was conceived, designed and written by Damon Abramson, who is its author and owner. Damon created Harmony around one idea: everyone who feeds a family should be able to see, at the shelf, whether a food is truly good for the specific people they are feeding, using the best published nutrition science instead of marketing on the front of the box.
The app is operated by Harmony Technologies.
What it does
Scores every food
Each product and meal gets a Food Compass 2.0 score from 1 to 100 with the official label: Encourage, Moderate or Minimize. How we score
Checks it against your family
Profiles for up to 10 family members, covering 29 health conditions, 12 allergies, 12 food sensitivities and 18 diets and goals. Anything that conflicts is flagged by name.
Finds better options
Alternatives are the same kind of product (a cereal for a cereal, a drink for a drink). They score at least 5 points higher, or are an organic or non-GMO version that scores about the same. Products that can't be scored are never recommended.
Plans safe meals
Seven-day meal plans where every meal is safe for every family member and scores at least 65. Processed meats such as bacon and sausage are never offered.
Builds the shopping list
Meal plans become a grocery list of real ingredients, each listed once, with store prices where the store makes them available.
Keeps up with research
New nutrition research is gathered from PubMed and CrossRef every day. A person reviews each finding before it appears in the app.
The work is divided among seven specialist assistants, led by the voice of Grandma Harmony, who listens and reads results aloud. Meet the seven agents.
Schools and organizations can also manage groups of members from an administrator dashboard.
Where the information comes from
Food scoring
- Food Compass 2.0, developed at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Barrett EM, Shi P, Blumberg JB, O'Hearn M, Micha R, Mozaffarian D. Nature Food 5, 911–915 (2024). doi:10.1038/s43016-024-01053-3
- U.S. Department of Agriculture data used by Food Compass: the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS 2017–2018), the Food Pattern Equivalents Database, the flavonoid database and SR Legacy.
Product labels and ingredients
- Open Food Facts, the open database of product labels and ingredient lists.
- FatSecret Platform API, for product and nutrition search.
Health conditions
The guidance for each health condition draws on published guidance from organizations including the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, National Kidney Foundation, American Gastroenterological Association, American College of Rheumatology, American Thyroid Association, Celiac Disease Foundation, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the National Institutes of Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Herbs, supplements and integrative care
The NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, Cochrane Reviews, Memorial Sloan Kettering's herb database, the Natural Medicines Database, Examine.com and Monash University's FODMAP research.
Harmony Food Agent is independent. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tufts University, the USDA or any organization named on this page; their work is cited as the source of the science.
Why it's free
Good information about food shouldn't depend on what a family can afford. Harmony is free so that anyone can use it: parents shopping for a child with allergies, someone managing diabetes or heart disease, and the schools, hospitals and community programs working to make food part of medicine.
- Everything, including all seven agents, is free with an account. You can scan a product without an account at all.
- Advertising pays for the servers and the data. Offers can be matched to the product you're scanning, the stores near you and your family's needs, but that matching happens inside the app: advertisers never receive your identity or health information from us, and ads never change a score or a recommendation.
- An optional ad-free subscription removes the ads. It unlocks no extra features; free and ad-free users get the same app.
- Harmony does not sell your personal data. See the Privacy Policy.
Not medical advice. Harmony Food Agent provides general information for education. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and is not a substitute for advice from your doctor or a registered dietitian. Always read the product label yourself, especially for allergies, and talk to your doctor before changing your diet or taking supplements.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections or partnership ideas are welcome. Contact us.