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

I’ve used yuka app for few years it’s not new but it is brilliant when I first got it I went through my kitchen cupboards and scanned everything then went onto the shampoos and make up . Told my friends about it years ago and we all got it

Thanks for that littleflo I’ve just downloaded it,I’m sure I will find it useful…

Baggs exactly. There are very few examples of human's eating carnivores - dogs, possibly, in some Asian countries.

Unless it's from a carnivorous animal of course.

But, ultimately, it will be made from plants

Meat is made from plants.

Just saying ☺️

I am with you Missinterpreted. There is so much information about good nutrition out there, ut should be easy to tell broadly where a food stuff lies on the nutrition spectrum.

Personally, I do not think micro adjusting your diet makes any difference to health or longevity. It is the long term basic foodstuffs based diet/mediterranean diet wot does it.

An American food writer, Michael Pollen came up with the easiast way to judge whether food is good for you or likely to be harmful. He said

If it is made from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't

Works because the US word for a 'factory' is a 'plant'.

It's the mantra that governs my eating patterns - and so far, it has worked very well.

TBH the majority of the food I buy is unprocessed, so I wouldn’t bother. I’d be interested to know, though, what would be its healthy alternative suggestion for our occasional fresh jam doughnuts? 😂

littleflo

Could be even shorter without using the tools available to help me make the right choices. I am too skinny, have high blood pressure and arthritis. I agree that a lot of healthy eating is common sense.

For me it just helps me understand a little more about what I eat. Particularly the salt content. I don’t necessarily want to live longer, but I do want my remaining time to be as comfortable and pain free as possible.

I think I'm perfectly capable of making the right choices without all that palaver, thank you very much indeed.

Most packaged foods have the colour coded nutritional info, much quicker and easier to see a if there is a red on salt, sugar or fat.

It could be useful in that it might stop DH complaining that I take too long shopping
"What are you staring at?"
"I'm reading the labels"

Could be even shorter without using the tools available to help me make the right choices. I am too skinny, have high blood pressure and arthritis. I agree that a lot of healthy eating is common sense.

For me it just helps me understand a little more about what I eat. Particularly the salt content. I don’t necessarily want to live longer, but I do want my remaining time to be as comfortable and pain free as possible.

Life's too short...

Applegran

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.

Vegetarian food isn't necessarily unprocessed. In fact, many meat alternatives are processed and vegetarian ready meals include some of the most ultra-processed foods in any supernarket.

I have tried Yuka and found some anomalies - for instance I scanned two equally organic items by Crazy Jack and one came out as really good and the other came out as bad! Also if you look for alternative 'good' products it is not easy to use in my experience. It is a good idea and I am sure does some good things, but I am now using the NHS app for food - not sure what to go to for toiletries and cleaning things.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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.