The FAT App — Label Transparency in Your Pocket
At the meat case, the fish counter, and the restaurant table. Photograph a label, a counter sign or a menu, and the FAT App shows what it tells you — and what it doesn’t. Free for iPhone and Android. No account, no email, no tracking.
Four things the app reads
Meat, poultry & seafood labels
See how many of the 16 FAT categories the label discloses, whether claims like “no antibiotics ever” are third-party verified, USDA-reviewed or label-only, and the public enforcement record of the plant behind the EST number.
The fish counter
No package? Photograph the sign. FAT reads the origin and wild-or-farmed facts a covered store must post, and flags species that are often swapped.
Restaurant menus NEW
Photograph a menu. FAT finds the meat and seafood dishes, explains words like “grass-fed,” “Gulf shrimp” and “sustainably sourced,” and gives you questions to ask your server or chef.
Cuts of meat
Look up ribeye, pork butt or chicken thigh to see where the cut comes from on the animal, the other names it goes by, and what its label leaves out.
Use the same Scan button. FAT lists every meat, poultry, fish or shellfish ingredient named, marks the per-animal categories (breed, farm, age, feed, welfare, medicine, hormones) as not applicable rather than missing, and tells you whether USDA or FDA regulates the product. On a USDA-inspected prepared food, the establishment number identifies the plant that made the product — the cannery or pizza plant — not the slaughterhouse. For prepared seafood, origin and wild-or-farmed are not required either — how FAT reads prepared seafood.
History keeps your scans, lookups and menus, and the Learn section explains label claims and the rules behind them.
📱 iPhone
Free on the Apple App Store. No account required, no email collected, no data tracked. The iPhone version surfaces six USDA enforcement protocols tied to the processor on your package — recalls, administrative actions, humane-handling violations, quarterly enforcement actions, chemical-residue violations, and salmonella/pathogen testing results.
🤖 Android
A direct download — no app store required. Free. No account required. No data collected. The FAT App is not yet listed on Google Play; direct download is the only Android option for now. A Google Play listing is in the works.
To install: download the APK, open it on your Android device, and allow installation from unknown sources when prompted in your settings.
⬇ Download for Android (APK) — v1.49.0
48 MB — works on virtually all phones from the last decade (64-bit ARM), including Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and most others.
Older 32-bit device? Download the 32-bit build (37 MB).
Download not starting? Try the same file from GitHub: 64-bit · 32-bit.
Want to inspect what you’re installing? The Android app’s full source code is public: view the source on GitHub →
Using the app while you shop or dine
- Photograph the label, sign or menu. The app reads it on your phone.
- Start with what matters to you — animal welfare, feed, antibiotics and hormones, origin — then look at the rest.
- Check verification, not just the claim. The app shows whether a claim is third-party audited, USDA-reviewed, backed only by the producer, or unverified.
- Ask. At the counter or the restaurant, the app gives you the questions; the answers are the disclosure.
The app also recognizes the USDA retail exemption for store-cut and store-ground meat — read why a store-cut steak has no establishment number.
Privacy Policy · Prepared by Dirk Adams with the assistance of AI. Last reviewed: November 2026.