FOOD RATING APPS: HELPFUL SHORTCUT OR OVERSIMPLIFIED SCORECARD?

By Kacie Barnes, MCN, RDN

Walk down almost any grocery aisle today and you’ll see shoppers scanning barcodes with their phones. A brightly colored score pops up, quickly categorizing foods as “good”, “bad”, or somewhere in between.

For many, food rating apps have become a go-to shortcut to healthier eating. They don’t have to fumble through label reading to guess if a product is healthy — there’s an app for that.

Among these tools, the Yuka app has gained significant traction, particularly among those seeking to avoid ultra-processed foods and food additives. While the appeal is understandable, these apps raise important questions for health professionals: How are foods being evaluated? What scientific assumptions are built into these scores? And how might these tools influence dietary behaviors and perceptions of various foods?¹

How Food Rating Apps Work: Yuka as a Case Study

Food rating apps typically scan a product’s barcode and assign a numerical score and/or color-coded rating intended to summarize its “healthfulness”. Yuka’s scoring system is based on three components: overall nutritional quality (60%), the presence of food additives (30%), and whether the product is organic (10%).²

The nutritional quality component is derived from the Nutri-Score system, which weighs nutrients including calories, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, fiber, protein, and fruit and vegetable content. Nutri-Score was developed by French public health researchers and adopted by the French government in 2017 as a voluntary front-of-pack labeling system. It was intended to aid consumers in quickly assessing nutritional content of a product, and to encourage food manufacturers to improve the nutrition of their products.³

However, Yuka layers their own additional criteria onto this foundation. Food additives are penalized based on hazard classifications rather than exposure-based risk assessments. That means they evaluate based on the question, “Could this substance ever be harmful, in any amount?” instead of, “Is this harmful at the amount we actually consume?”⁴ And if a product is organic, it contributes positively to the score, regardless of nutrient composition.

Why These Apps Resonate with Consumers

From a behavioral standpoint, food rating apps tap into several powerful motivators. They reduce decision fatigue, provide instant feedback, and align with growing public skepticism toward processed foods. Many users say that scanning products encourages them to consider ingredient lists and nutrition labels more closely — often for the first time.⁵

From a public health lens, this increased engagement with food labels and formulation is not inherently negative. Awareness is often a necessary first step toward behavior change. But awareness alone does not equal understanding.

Where Food Rating Apps Oversimplify Healthy Eating

The most significant limitation of food rating apps lies in how they collapse complex nutritional and formulation realities into binary judgments. A single score cannot account for portion size, dietary context, frequency of consumption, or individual health needs. Foods are evaluated in isolation, divorced from the dietary patterns in which they are actually consumed.

Food additive scoring presents another challenge. Many additives penalized by apps like Yuka serve important functions like improving shelf stability, food safety, texture, and nutrient delivery.⁴ Hazard-based classifications, when removed from regulatory context and real-world exposure levels, can unintentionally frame all additives as inherently harmful rather than functionally neutral or beneficial.^6-8 In the Yuka app, any food without additives includes the claim, “no hazardous substances,” making it seem like any food with additives is hazardous/dangerous.

This approach and accompanying strong negative language around all additives can amplify fear around foods that are widely consumed and considered safe, particularly for children.

Similarly, the “good” versus “bad” language embedded in many scoring systems risks reinforcing moralized views of food. For some individuals, especially those prone to rigidity or anxiety around eating, these tools amplify fear rather than foster informed choice.

Using Food Rating Apps as Educational Tools, Not Verdicts

Despite their limitations, food rating apps are unlikely to disappear — and outright dismissal can alienate clients who feel empowered by these tools. Instead, health professionals can play a critical role in reframing how these apps are used.

Practical guidance includes:

• Encouraging patients/clients to view scores as conversation starters, not final judgments.

• Redirecting focus toward key nutrients of concern (fiber, added sugars, sodium, saturated fat) rather than composite scores.

• Explaining the functional role of additives and the difference between hazard and risk.

• Reinforcing that nutrition quality is determined by patterns over time, not individual foods in isolation.

• Guiding patients/clients with food allergies or sensitivities to use apps as a tool for identifying certain ingredients they need to avoid.

Dietitian-Recommended Digital Alternatives

Apps that support nutrient tracking, meal planning, or food journaling can complement clinical counseling by increasing awareness without moralizing food choices or creating unnecessary fear.

One app called Open Food Facts allows users to filter and highlight nutrition information based on individual priorities, like avoiding allergens, or limiting sodium or saturated fat. It also uses the Nutri-Score nutrition rating system, but it is more personalized and guides users toward products that fit their individual needs. For example, a user can search for granola that is dairy free and low in saturated fat, and it will provide “best fit” options based on those specific parameters.

Conclusion: The Role of Health Professionals in a Scored Food World

Food rating apps reflect a real consumer desire for clarity, transparency, and control in an increasingly complex food environment. While they can promote engagement and awareness, they also risk oversimplifying nutrition and reinforcing misconceptions about processed foods.

For health professionals, the opportunity lies not in endorsing or rejecting these tools outright, but in helping patients interpret them and use them appropriately. In a world where algorithms increasingly shape food choices, professional insight remains essential in guiding people toward healthy eating patterns, not just to the products that receive an “A” grade.

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