New free app check the health of your food by scanning the bar code.

There is also an app Open Food Facts which does the same and tells you if it is processed or ultra processed.

Sounds good.

Trouble is, at the moment, DH seems to have gone off vegetables, in particular. Even fresh meat to a certain extent. He has never done that before. So I am having to cook or buy alternative food for him.

Is it only able to understand mass-market products or is it good on more niche items?

I ask as there's an app that does this for cosmetics and shampoos etc - but it wasn't very good on my products.

But who decides what “health” means in terms of those foods? If its the food producing conglomerates then it would mean nothing.

Why do yu need an App? All you need to do is read the list of ingredients on a tin or packet to know whether it is processed it untra processed.

Anyway, there are no such things as healthy/unhealthy foods, only healthy/unhealthy diets.

Some one gave DH a box of choolate caramels last week. Probably defined as an 'unhealthy' food. We scoffed the lot, in one afternoon, BUT they were the first chocs or sweets we had eaten since Christmas, so highly unlikely to damage our health, given that we generally have a healthy diet with very little processed food.

Monica it just is quicker in the shop and sometimes the writing is so small on packets that it is difficult to read.

I suppose using or not using the app will not be of great use to me to be honest as I do read all packets anyway, and 97% of the time I cook everything from fresh.... though I no longer make my own cheese crackers or regularly make my own mayonnaise!
Coincidentally, M0nica* we too ate through a small box of chocolate gingers the other evening the first chocs or sweets we had eaten since Christmas!

I use Yuka and OpenFoodFacts when I’m shopping, they’re not new. I don’t buy much ultra processed food and cook from scratch, but if I fancy chocolate it just takes a moment of scanning various barcodes to remind me I really don’t want it that badly! Also good for eg hand cream, not just foods.

You do not need to read the detail. if the list of ingredients goes over 3 lines, especially in small print, it is a UPF.

I picked up a quiche loraine when shopping today, looked at the 7 or 8 lines of ingredients, print too small to read any of them, clearly UPF so I put it back on the shelf and decided to buy eggs and make an omelette instead.

I find it helpful as it breaks down salt sugar and all sorts of things. It is not about good or bad food. It is about helping me make the right personal choice.

I posted because I thought it might help others. I cannot read the ingredients as they are too small.

Definitely giving this a try. I'm both vegetarian and diabetic, so shopping takes an inordinate amount of time, reading all the labels. Especially as my eyesight is so poor these days. Some ingredients and dietary information lists are ridiculously tiny.

Sounds really useful! Thank you. I will give one or the other app a try. Processed food does seem to be a real health hazard, and over time could shorten your healthy life - as well as your overall life expectancy. I'm a vegetarian and rarely eat processed food (but do sometimes) and need to be vigilant.

I couldn’t be bothered with it as I can read the list of ingredients on the back if I want to. I certainly wouldn’t be bothered reading the ingredients in hand cream. However if people like it and find it useful then that’s good.
We buy vegetables, meat etc and although they’re cook from scratch we don’t know what they’ve been sprayed with, fertilised with, injected with, unless we buy everything straight from the organic farmer.

www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/food-facts/nhs-food-scanner-app/ This is another similar app, from the NHS
I do realise I can read the ingredients but think this is also potentially helpful.

Point the camera on your phone at the label , increase the size , easier to read

I use an app with Slimming World which shows me what Syns the food has which is very useful and quick. I can imagine an app for choosing the right foods would be useful but it is difficult to know what is right these days. An article I read this morning suggested that the argument about full fat milk, etc being better for you may not be right. I have always used little fat and artificial sweetener but I still have high cholesterol and diabetes. The NHS tells me I need to eat pasta, rice and porridge for diabetes but Diabetes UK promotes low carb with higher fat! I am definitely "Confused from Hampshire."

Downloaded this yesterday and it is really helpful in letting you compare similar products to find out which is healthiest. Always cook from scratch and read labels but often forget my glasses and it takes ages, so very happy with this. I paid for premium use which means I can look up products when doing an online shop without a barcode available.

Try the free app Myfitnesspal to scan barcodes , check calories and basic macros .

Have already had fun checking food in my cupboard! Not thrown anything away yet, but happy to find that my mild salsa is good. I will be using it in the supermarket.

See my message above! I will be using the app in the supermarket, not the mild salsa!

I use Yuka for beauty products, it's horrific how many parabens and nasties are in them. I've changed a lot to natural products after using it. It tells you which are bad, poor, good and excellent.

I’m generally more of a lurker on gransnet but recently there does seem to be rather a lot of what I call “snipiness”. If I’m not interested in a post I move on. The poster was only try to make a helpful suggestion and I must admit I going to give the app a try as I can’t read many of the labels due to the print size/colour.

I have been using Yuka for about a month now and I am in the process of changing a lot of my cosmetics and beauty products. For example my shampoo, which is a mainstream brand from a high street supermarket, is rated red for dangerous additives. The one I have now started buying is also a mainstream brand from the same supermarket yet it has no alarming extras at all and costs the same price. I might as well reduce the load of chemicals in my body since its no extra trouble to me. Food is a similar story, products which look the same can be very different indeed in terms of E factors, salt content and added sugar. In theory I could read all the labels but actually I dont know what a lot of them mean and the App explains it very well and gives a simple to understand score out of 100, the higher the better.

@JCFrance thank you for your observation . When I read the reply I thought, ‘was that necessary?’