I’ve been asked many times over the past few years to do a review of the Yuka app. It’s always interesting seeing apps that purport to help people make better choices with their food, because inevitably these apps reduce those choices to some arbitrary category of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’
How does Yuka determine if a food is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? And what is the benefit or harm of using an app like this? Let’s get into it.
What is the Yuka App?
The Yuka app was originally released in France in 2017 and later released in Canada and the US in 2022. According to their website, they have over 55 million users.
The app allows users to scan barcodes of food and cosmetic products and gives them a rating of how “healthy” or not they are. For products with a lower score, the app suggests an alternative choice that they deem to be ‘better’.
For this Yuka app review, we’ll stick to the food and nutrition side of the Yuka app.
When you scan a product, it gives you an overall score and rating and then breaks down the positive and negative attributes of a product based on the Yuka app scoring system, which we will get to.
The app also classifies foods as “good” or “bad” based on the overall score.
Yuka also prides itself on being independent and not influenced by food companies. There is a premium, paid version of the app and that’s how they make money.
How does the Yuka app score products?
The Yuka app scores products based on three factors: nutritional quality is 60% of the score, the presence of additives is 30%, and a product being organic or not is 10%. According to the Yuka app’s website, this 10% is a “bonus” that is automatically given to organic products.
The scoring system for nutritional quality is based on a method adopted by several European countries called Nutri-Score. Nutri-Score grades the nutritional quality of food products based on energy (calories), sugars, saturated fats, sodium, fibre, and protein and of fruit, vegetables, legumes and nuts. A front-of-package labeling system is then used, which breaks down foods into five categories based on nutrition quality. The system rates foods from ategory A to E, where A indicates higher nutritional quality and E is lower.
The categories are given a color based on a traffic light, where the higher categories are green, descending to yellow and then red, depending on the overall score.
There is research on Nutri-Score but as I have said many times, just because research exists, doesn’t mean it is good research. This study found associations (not causations) that using this system has benefits on health and reduced mortality, but these findings were weak overall, and many factors such as genetics and environmental factors were not taken into consideration. The study used food frequency questionnaires, which are notoriously inaccurate, to assess dietary patterns. They only assessed diets at baseline, and then followed up several years later. We know that people can change their eating habits and lifestyle habits over time, so making conclusions based on one survey at one point in time doesn’t tell us much.
I’ve written about how to interpret nutrition research here.
When you use the Yuka app to scan a food item, it gives you a numerical score out of 100 and a rating of either “excellent,” “good”, “poor,” or “bad.” For example, the goldfish crackers I scanned were given a score of 7/100 (bad) because they had additives that Yuka says should be avoided, and too much sodium and calories according to the app. Some of the positive attributes given were that the crackers had 3g of protein, and were low in saturated fat.
The natural peanut butter I scanned was given 69/100 (good), but lost points for being too high in calories and saturated fat.
Categorizing foods as “good” or “bad” is a terrible practice. It can create guilt and shame around food and eating, and it’s completely arbitrary. There are no good or bad foods. Any food can fit into a varied diet, and food should never be associated with morality-based labels.
This sort of narrative doesn’t help anyone be healthier (especially emotionally – and that matters just as much as physical health), and it tends to create more confusion around nutrition. Peanut butter has lots of healthy fats, vitamins and minerals. This isn’t the 80’s when we were all avoiding fat.
I can’t even imagine anyone giving peanut butter points off for being high in calories – it’s a NUT BUTTER. It’s also packed with nutrition (and low in saturated fat!). Quality of calories matters!
Labeling food as good or bad can also create fear and anxiety around food, and lead people to develop orthorexic type habits where they become overly focused on making healthy choices. This is terrible for our mental health and takes away from the fact that we don’t eat foods in isolation. It’s the totality of our diets that matter.
If you’re eating a diet full of whole and minimally processed foods, you shouldn’t have to care about the ‘score’ of your crackers or peanut butter or whatever.
The Yuka app ranks foods with higher amounts of saturated fats as “bad,” or at least lowers their score. Dairy products are particularly affected by this rating system because they are naturally higher in saturated fat. Guidelines for saturated fat intake are to keep it at less than 10% of our total calorie intake. When I scanned cheese, it got a low rating because it was too high in saturated fat and also lost points for being too high in calories and sodium.
Foods contain a variety of nutrients, and while cheese may have more saturated fat (compared to lower-fat milk or yogurt for example), it is a good source of protein, calcium and other vitamins and minerals. Research also suggests that the saturated fat in dairy products is not a risk factor for inflammation or heart disease.
Reducing the score because of one aspect is problematic, and letting that determine the overall nutritional value of the food, just leads people to be confused about making healthy choices.
The calorie rating system also seems a bit off to me. Cheese had 120 calories per serving and was deemed “a bit too caloric,” but 2% milk was considered “low calories” at 130 per cup. One food may be higher in calories than another, but that food may also be more satiating. Once again, this categorization can lead to obsessive behaviours around food and counting calories. Not healthy.
Yuka app and additives
Before I say anything, let me share that I found this part of their rating system to be completely ludicrous.
It told me that the monocalcium phosphate in Goldfish Crackers was “hazardous,” but the explanation they gave does not prove anything. It only states that getting too much phosphorous can lead to problems. Too much of anything can be a bad thing, but if you’re going to comment on the dangers of random additives, you have to qualify those comments with the actual amount of this additive in the product, and how much of the product you would have to ingest to cause harm.
Incredibly, the app also categorized the monosodium glutamate (MSG) in my daughter’s Takis as ‘hazardous,’ when science consistently refutes that. The 14 studies that Yuka cites to back up their claims are not convincing and appear to be cherrypicked to suit their narrative. Rodent studies, cell studies, old studies, horribly done studies, even a study that found no adverse effects of MSG on humans.
Maybe Yuka thinks the average person isn’t going to check their citations, but I sure as heck am.
Their explanation is only leading to chemophobia around food, making people think that what they are eating is toxic. In reality, all foods are perfectly safe. Food additives are well regulated in Canada and the US, and there are limits on how much can be used.
Should your diet be comprised entirely of Froot Loops? Of course not. But let’s approach our diets with some nuance and science here.
PS: Froot Loops got a higher score than Multigrain Cheerios and Goldfish crackers.
Organic food and Yuka app
After the whole Yuka app ‘additive’ situation, I’m sad to say that I’m not surprised in the least by what they say about organic foods.
The website cites the health benefits of an organic diet and states that organic foods are higher in antioxidants. Yuka states that people who eat more organic foods have a reduced risk of cancer, diabetes, and of being overweight or obese. They cite studies to back up these claims, but these studies only show associations and not causation.
That’s because there are no direct links between organic foods and improved markers of health. None.
I’ve actually written about the study they cited that shows that people who consume more organic foods have a lower risk of cancer. There was a media frenzy when this study came out, but what they don’t say is that people who eat more organic foods tend to have healthier diets and lifestyles overall as well as better access to medical care, higher socioeconomic status, and more time for physical activity. These are all factors that can impact disease risk far more than just eating organic food over conventional.
When the Yuka app suggests a “healthier” alternative to a product, it is usually an organic version that is going to be more expensive and this can lead people to feel bad about their food choices, and we don’t need any more of that going around.
Organic foods are not nutritionally superior to conventional foods. With prices of food already being so high, most people can’t afford to eat organic food. As a dietitian, I do not recommend organic over conventional, and I do not buy organic food myself.
There are plenty of organic foods that are ultra-processed, such as cookies, crackers or frozen entrees. Whether organic or not, we should be eating less of these.
There is absolutely no justification for Yuka to give an automatic 10% point bonus to organic foods, and this is a dead giveaway that the app is basically non-evidence based garbage.
Yuka app review: can Yuka help us make better food choices?
When it comes to processed or packaged snack foods that score low on Yuka, the app will suggest “healthier” alternatives. The alternatives may be lower in sodium or sugar, but are they really going to be a suitable alternative for the person based on their preferences, budget, etc?
For example, the Goldish cracker’s top-rated alternative was an organic, gluten-free cracker that in my opinion, tastes like death and also costs far more. How many kids want Mary’s crackers? Seriously, even I don’t want those things. Do we need to be guilting parents into buying more expensive alternatives when the original is perfectly safe?
If the app suggests, for example, choosing an organic cookie that is made with organic sugar, it may have a higher score, but it isn’t a better choice. Your body is going to digest that sugar the same way as conventional sugar, and scoring things this way is misleading. Sugar is sugar, and organic sugar is not healthier.
Most of us know what foods are nutritious and that make us feel good. The most nutritious foods don’t typically come with a barcode that can be scanned, but not everything we eat has to be physically nourishing. A healthy diet has a variety of foods….and no guilt attached.
Eating more whole foods and fewer ultra-processed ones is always ideal, and we don’t need the app to tell us that.
The lack of science in this app’s scoring system, plus the fear, shame, and anxiety it can create around food, outweigh any benefit it may have.
I wouldn’t recommend the Yuka app to anyone.