The truth about nutrition apps and the additives that you really have to avoid

EEC Healthy Living app focuses on reducing chemical exposure and comprises around 120,000 food, cosmetics and cleaning items. The identification of products via your barcodes gives you to 10 health value based on the dangers in the ingredients. You can search categories and ingredients.

PureCheck is another barcode scan -app for food and cosmetics. There is no number of points, but instead offers a summary of the nutrition/ingredients. This is probably the simplest of the three and provides less information than Yuka or EEC.

While these apps help to identify high -risk ingredients and enable consumers to make better decisions when shopping, there are several disadvantages. One problem is the evaluation systems that can simplify complex nutritional information. For example, Yuka can badly evaluate a product due to the presence of additives, even if the overall nutrient profile is good. In some cases, PureCheck has only cited limited research based on animal studies and varies the size of the databases for all of these apps, so that the product selection is sometimes somewhat limited and there are some tendency towards larger brands.

Instead, none of the apps seem to be taken into account on ultra-processed foods, emphasizes specific ingredients/components that are associated with adverse health results. These could include Nitrites/nitrates associated with colon cancer riskor certain artificial sweeteners (such as aspartame or acesulfame-k), marked for possible metabolic or neurological effects.

Critics argue that ignoring the processing level overlooks an important health factor, as numerous studies link Upf consumption to chronic diseases And Aging, Regardless of the nutritional content. For example:

1. With milk-based milk-based aromatized almond or oat milk, you can score well if you are too sugar and are free of additives, even if they are heavily processed and protein low
2. Vegan meat alternatives – are low in fat, with a few additives, but heavily processed
3. Protein bars – are sugar and protein -rich protein, which can increase their score, even though they contain artificial sweeteners and are very processed

A food with a high sugar can therefore score better at Yuka, EEC and PureCheck than one with additives that are classified as risky (like nitrites), which can be misleading.

In addition, other factors such as environmental compatibility are overlooked and are not always the portion sizes or dietary context, which leads to potentially inaccurate or misleading conclusions. For example, if a tortilla wrap scored low, but they had it with a little grilled chicken and salad, would it still be classified as a “bad” election? On Yuka, a fresh top -up item only gets a score of 100 if it is biological, which seems a bit excessive.

Here you will find an overview of how these apps tend to evaluate various common foods.

Fresh fruit and vegetables
Points: 90-100
Why? Unpassed

Extra virgin olive oil
Points: 75
Why? No additive, low sugar, low salt and yet too calorie

Whole grain bread
Points: 60-75
Why? Contains salt, sometimes sugar or additives

Hummus
Points: 60-80
Why? Nutritious, but can contain preservatives

Suitable breakfast flakes
Points: 10-30
Why? High sugar, additives, ultra-processed

Yogurt with flavored yogurt
Points: 10-30
Why? High sugar, flavors, sometimes artificial sweeteners

Processed cheese slices
Points: 5-20
Why? Emulgators, flavor enhancers, ultra-processed

How useful/trustworthy is the council?

As a nutritionist, these apps can be useful for people as general guidelines, but they have clear restrictions when it comes to giving trustworthy, personalized nutritional advice. The useful aspects include:

• Makes nutritional information more accessible to people who might not look at the ingredients of the back-of-package lists
• Color coding is easy and easy to understand
• Marked controversial or over -claimed ingredients such as nitrites, certain sweeteners or emulsifiers
• Encourages people to think more about what ingredients can influence their health
• Provides alternatives that lead to better decisions and objects that contain lower fat, sugar or salt

There are also restrictions to take into account that should be taken into account when using the apps:

• Complex nutrition data is reduced to a single score that can be misleading
• You have no personalization and do not explain any illnesses, allergies/intolerances and energy requirements
• The uniform approach is too simple
• Additives are overempined, even if they have been approved by supervisory authorities/food safety and are available in tiny quantities
• Can create unnecessary fear and obsession with the selection of food

The additives that I avoid as a nutritionist

The apps usually focus most on controversial additives, preservatives and artificial flavors and colors. I would have to agree that if you are someone who consumes ultra -processed food every day, regularly feeds her to your family or has a chronic state of health, it is probably advisable to avoid/reduce it. For most healthy people, however, small quantities are not occasionally dangerous.

There are some ingredients that I try to avoid/limit, namely:

1. Trans fat (hydrated oils): associated with heart disease And prohibited in many countries. Unfortunately, you can still appear in some processed foods.
2. Maiss syrup with high fructose (HFCS): A highly processed sugar associated with obesity, Insulin resistance and fatty liver disease
3. Sodium nitrite: often used as preservatives in processed meat, but with it connected with it Increased risk of cancer
4. Monosatrium glutamate (Msg): a flavor enhancer that can Cause headache Or sensitivity in some people
5. Food dyes red 40 and yellow 5: associated with hyperactivity in children

These apps can help identify foods that may be less common, but it is more important to focus on general nutrition than observing small amounts of additives in certain products. If you simply check whether an article has a long list of ingredients, you can usually determine whether it is added to a car or not.

Overall, these apps can be instructive and are a useful entry point to raise awareness of the food they eat. However, it is difficult to be sure how precisely or consistently the information is. Diet is rarely black and white and apps are not a substitute for tailor -made, professional and individual information, especially for complex cases. If you concentrate on cooking with whole food and fresh products, you can be sure that you make good decisions without needing apps.

Read more

Good guide for healthy eating
What is a balanced diet?
What is the truth about Upfs? A nutritionist assessed
Everything you need to know about sugar

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