People usually eat between three and four meals a day, many with foods that we consider healthy for our health and metabolism. Food products are part of our day to day, although sometimes it is good to know everything about what we consume in the morning, noon, afternoon and night.
At the last point Yuka comes into play, an application that will help us to know the composition of each product which you usually use, for this you need a barcode. The app has a large database with which to indicate if each thing is excellent, good, mediocre or bad.
A total of 700.000 food products handle the Yuka base, an authentic library that allows us to objectively know if we should consume it or stop doing so. In addition, it also has 300.000 known cosmetics, revealing all the ingredients used by the manufacturer or brand.
Four Reasons Yuka Is Reliable
- It does not sell data to brands: Yuka confirms that for ethical reasons, Yuka does not sell or use any personal data to third party companies. In this sense, the positive thing is to be able to use the application without fearing for our data.
- There are no brand influences: All recommendations and ratings are totally objective, each of the products will be valued depending on positive and negative things. They add up with the first and the second allows us to know what is negative in each food and drink product.
- Collaborative database: The valuation about the products was questioned, the food data has been collected over time. Yuka already has its own database, there are user contributions and some brands usually provide some information about them.
- Fragmented valuation: There are three different criteria, 60% belongs to nutritional quality, 30% to additives and 10% to organic. If they have a European eco-label it will be valued positively.
Eat healthy with Yuka
It is recommended when buying food is to do it with a base of vegetables, fish is part of what is healthy, if you want to know information you need packaged food In bags, in cans in corresponding cardboard boxes and all of them offer a barcode to know product information.
The method that Yuka uses is Nutri-scoreThis allows the calculation of nutritional data, calculates the following elements: calories, sugar, salt, saturated fat, protein, fiber, fruits and vegetables. Additives represent 30% of the product grade, there are several sources that have studied the danger of food additives.
Standalone app
Yuka is since its launch an independent applicationBut how does it survive? The app has a premium subscription of 10 euros per year on Android with added functions. It has an offline mode, activate alerts if the products have gluten, lactose, palm oil and it has a search bar to search quickly.
It is a free application, if a product is not in the database, the person can add information about this product and the community can collaborate in a disinterested way. The information will continue to be expanded with Nutri-score throughout the hours that the information of a product or cosmetic is filled in.
How to scan food with Yuka
The operation of Yuka is quite simple at first glance, users will have to scan the barcode with the camera of their mobile device and read the information that will appear about it. It shows many details of each of the registered products, which is why it makes it a very interesting and resulting app.
The first step to use it is to download and install it on our device mobile, the second is to open the app, create your username and password, once the previous step is done, open the camera with the carrot icon, point to the barcode and in just a few seconds it will open the information.
- Use a color code to verify if it becomes an excellent, good, mediocre or bad product
- Add a list of ingredients and the possible effects on our health
- It offers different recommendations and much healthier options in many cases, always similar to the product you scan.
- The user will be able to save a product that does not contain information, the same happens with the most often used
- The current database exceeds 700.000 products and 300.000 cosmetics, it is being expanded weekly with more than 20 products and cosmetics
- Yuka claims to be independent, objective and reliable, it does not compete between companies and gives opinions of consumers, also that of experts
Opinions about the Yuka app
You are going to see quite positive comments about the application on the Internet, however, there are some users who think the opposite, not using it and thus buying foods considered essential. Products currently being sold are State Approved and because of the health institutions, consumers should therefore be reassured by that part.
On the other hand, you should not worry about the reliability of this already popular tool., the information has been created and analyzed by users and nutrition experts. Yuka's information will vary when it comes to organic products or if you have additives that are not healthy for our health.
Certain additives are not so harmful, on the other hand there are opinions that assure with certain of them it is dangerous, but each of the products goes through a fairly strict approval process in our country. In this case, if the food is natural, it becomes healthy since it has not gone through different manufacturing processes.
All organic food does not always have to be healthy, 10% of Yuka's classification is based on whether they are organic-type products, made with sustainable practices. In this sense, it does not evaluate the product directly, having a possible good score and not being so healthy.
Disadvantages of the application
Nutri-score is not as accurate as it claims to beThis is revealed by the Ministry of Health by ensuring that the tool does not verify the reliability of the components. In many cases the application can help us, in this case the best recommendation is to follow a healthy diet imposed by experts in the field.
Experts point out that consumers can develop fear, since certain foods are classified as "dangerous", all despite having passed the approval of the authorities. This ultimately means that many users do not compensate for their nutrition and eat incomplete meals.
Nutri-Score in Spain has been adapted to the Mediterranean dietIt is one of the most complete diets and has been gaining weight thanks to this adaptation in the last year. A clear mention is that Nutri-Score does not differentiate between organic and organic products, this can lead to confusion for people who use the app.
Yuka benefits
Your body needs food, different nutrients according to each occasion, in this case the application will help us, in this case to choose products that are as healthy as possible. There are many benefits that we will have when using Yuka, we will learn about many of the components and alternatives. Among them, the main advantages of using Yuka are:
- It educates you nutritionally: With Yuka you will understand the values in the ingredients table, this will happen in elaborate meals. The necessary macronutrients are proteins, carbohydrates and fats, micronutrients are of two types, vitamins and minerals.
- Dieting: The app allows us to follow a strict diet. If you want to control what you buy and eat, you need to establish a pattern that will guide you on a day-to-day basis. Losing weight happens by eating healthy and balanced, fruit plays a great weight, this is what Yuka clarifies.
- Get healthy alternatives: Yuka will give you the best alternatives to what you are looking for, that will make you eat healthy every day to achieve that goal you are looking for. In this way, avoid eating sweets and fats, he will advise eating things that feed and in the end satisfy as normal.
- Check the teeth of the little ones at home: If this tool stands out for something, it is to be able to control the diets of your children, just as the diet you follow can control that of the little ones. It will mark you the plan of the week and will break down all the things that come to be eaten by tables.
- Side effects: Already in the last point Yuka shows you all side effects and harmful agents for allergy sufferers. In addition, if you are vegan or celiac, you also have plans for them, adapting to a great degree to what they can and cannot eat.
Final opinions Yuka: is it worth it?
After testing the application for more than two days, we can assess positive things and negative, although of course it has been helping us to learn about those products that we thought were healthy and in the end they were not so.
The only negative part is that certain products were not registered, although it is assumed that they will expand over time in their large database.