Is tracking your food purchases good for your health?

Nathalie stands in the biscuits sucrée aisle of her local Hyper U supermarket west of Paris, a packet of biscuits in one hand and her smartphone in the other. She scans the product and the screen flashes a stark 0/100 in red lettering. “Look astatine that!” she says showing maine her phone. 0/100 is marked successful reddish lettering. “This is 1 of Malo's [her 12-year-old son's] favourites but it's not lone afloat of sweetener and saturated fats, determination are 4 additives arsenic good including 1 wellness risk,” she says. Nathalie taps the flagged additive, E450, and reads: “A mineral which, taken successful excess, tin pb to bony marrow and kidney problems,” she reads. “Honestly, that they tin enactment this benignant of happening successful nutrient aimed astatine children drives maine nuts!” she says. She then checks an Italian alternative whose packaging claims the biscuits were hand‑made by peasant women wearing achromatic shawls. “The people is not overmuch better: “Malo hates buying with maine now,” says Nathalie. “You walk ages scanning and helium tin ne'er person what helium wants.” The app, triggered by the red alert, proposes a healthier option: an organic biscuit made with wholewheat, effect and fibre. “You extremity up buying a batch much integrated worldly truthful it's much expensive,” she says. Nathalie is among a growing number of shoppers using Yuka, a French‑developed application, to guide healthier choices—not only for food but also for cosmetics and toiletries. By downloading the app, users can scan the barcodes of any of the six cardinal products listed in the Yuka database (approximately 1,200 new entries each day) and receive an instant rating: green for good, red for bad, yellow for could be better. Additional details are available on demand, with pages of information if desired. Launched in 2015, Yuka now claims 85 million users across twelve countries, including many European nations as well as the United States, Canada and Australia. The United Kingdom ranks third with roughly five million users, France follows with six million, and the United States leads by a wide margin with twenty‑eight million. The app has attracted notable supporters in the U.S.; among them, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services under Donald Trump, has called Yuka his favourite application.