Using an app to rate food for nutrition? Take the results with a grain of salt

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2121x1414+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F48%2F0c%2F3ca4f28b4b04ad72c2895470ad8f%2Fgettyimages-2206558734.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2121x1414+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F48%2F0c%2F3ca4f28b4b04ad72c2895470ad8f%2Fgettyimages-2206558734.jpg" class="img" alt="A closeup of a woman's hands scanning the barcode of a product and reading nutrition details on a smartphone. " fetchpriority="high"/> Meals apps could be helpful as a result of they put extra data within the fingers of the patron. However completely different apps may give the identical meals completely different outcomes. AJ_Watt/Getty Pictures disguise caption

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AJ_Watt/Getty Pictures Meals apps that fee the healthfulness of packaged meals have turn into more and more in style. You may scan a meals bundle together with your cellphone digicam and the app will rank it for its dietary content material. Some apps will flag substances and components. If the product you scan will get a poor score, many apps will recommend another in the identical meals class.

However do they actually assist shoppers make more healthy decisions?

They'll, so long as you method the usage of these apps with a sure stage of skepticism and maintain some caveats in thoughts, diet and public well being coverage specialists say.

"When you're simply beginning off, you wish to eat more healthy, you need one thing that will help you decode a bit bit what's on the diet info label and substances, I believe it is a helpful technique to begin," says Jerold Mande, an adjunct professor of diet at Harvard College and a former federal meals coverage official who helped designed the diet info label that seems on practically all packaged meals within the U.S.

Today, Mande says he typically turns to meals scanner apps when he outlets for groceries — he makes use of each Open Meals Information and Yuka, a well-liked app that ranks meals merchandise on a scale of zero to 100 based mostly on dietary content material and the presence of components, with bonus factors granted to natural merchandise.

He says these apps might help nudge shoppers towards more healthy decisions, although typically the outcomes offered can go away him a bit puzzled.

For instance, on a current journey to the grocery retailer, Mande says he used an app to attain two variations of store-brand tortilla chips. The plain model of the chips received a excessive rating, whereas the opposite, with a tequila lime flavoring, scored poorly.

"There was virtually an 80-point distinction of their rating," he says. "I am undecided it truly is justified by the substances. Nevertheless it's useful to see how merchandise are scored and it makes you assume once more about what's in them."

Generally, completely different apps can present completely different scores for a similar product, as I found once I examined a number of apps at a grocery retailer alongside registered dietitian Lindsay Moyer of the Heart for Science within the Public Curiosity, a client advocacy group.

For example, once we scanned an natural almond butter, the Yuka app gave it a rating of 78 out of 100, which is taken into account "glorious," though the app did flag it as a high-calorie meals. One other app, referred to as ZOE Well being, which focuses on dietary content material, the extent of processing a meals has undergone, and different elements, additionally gave the nut butter the inexperienced mild. However a well-liked app referred to as Bobby Authorised, which focuses on substances, flagged it as not accredited as a result of it contained cane sugar.

Moyer says that, as a registered dietician, she advises folks to not fear about a bit little bit of sugar of their peanut or almond butter, as a result of as an entire these are nutritious meals, so long as you do not eat the entire jar in a single sitting.

In a press release to NPR, Bobby Parrish, the social media meals influencer who developed Bobby Authorised, stated: "We take a transparent place centered on clear, minimally processed substances, avoiding refined sugars, inflammatory oils, and synthetic components. We respect that completely different specialists might prioritize issues otherwise."

Julie Chapon, the co-founder and CEO of Yuka, agrees that getting completely different assessments from completely different apps could be complicated. "These variations typically stem from the truth that every app makes use of its personal methodology, with various levels of transparency and scientific grounding," she wrote NPR in an electronic mail.

Chapon says Yuka's assessments of dietary high quality are based mostly on Nutri-Rating, a dietary score system utilized by many European nations. She says the corporate has its personal scientific group, "which repeatedly displays the most recent unbiased research and official well being authority assessments. This enables us to judge every additive based mostly on probably the most up-to-date and dependable proof out there."

Meals scanner apps could be helpful as a result of they put extra data within the fingers of shoppers, Moyer says. When you do use an app, she recommends choosing ones that assess meals on their total nutrient content material — like fiber, protein, sugar and fats — as a substitute of those who simply deal with the presence of single substances. She says in lots of circumstances, how a lot of an ingredient is used — such because the sugar within the nut butter we scanned — is extra necessary to well being than whether or not any is current in any respect.

And, she says, method the outcomes apps offer you with a grain of salt. She's heard tales of individuals throwing out the whole contents of their kitchen pantry after scanning their packaged meals.

"It is necessary to not panic, as a result of a few of the means that these apps fee meals components within the substances listing is a bit bit overblown. This will not be a security concern or a purpose to not eat the meals," she says.

She additionally suggests in search of apps which can be clear about what information sources they base their scores on and the way they attain their assessments.

And apps alone will not assist shoppers make more healthy decisions, says Sundus Mahdi, a public well being diet researcher on the College of York within the U.Okay. who has studied how meals apps affect client habits. She says proof suggests apps can nudge shoppers towards higher decisions, however the total impact tends to be small. "Meals apps are nice," Mahdi says.

"The bulk are free. They're accessible. Individuals like them. They assist improve consciousness. They enhance diet information. However are they sufficient to enhance dietary consumption? Are they going to unravel the nation's weight problems downside? In all probability not, and undoubtedly not on their very own," Mahdi says.

Nonetheless, former federal meals coverage official Jerold Mande says he thinks apps are the way forward for meals labeling, and he thinks the federal government might assist make them extra helpful by setting requirements for the info utilized in apps. He'd additionally prefer to see the federal government work with firms to construct a standard database of what is in our meals. The Division of Agriculture has a meals database, however he says it is incomplete.

Chapon says a standard database might be a optimistic step, however she worries it might be topic to undue business affect.

For now although, if apps go away you a bit confused, Mande suggests checking the ingredient listing on the bundle. Those used probably the most seem first. " simply the highest three substances within the ingredient listing is one other helpful means you may resolve what meals is on this meals," he says. "If it begins off with sugar, for instance, that ought to be regarding."

Or you may all the time flip to some basic math that will help you assess the healthfulness of meals, says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Meals Is Medication Institute at Tufts College.

He says three completely different ratios could be very useful.

Fiber to carbohydrates ratio: First, search for meals which have a minimum of 1 gram of fiber for each 10 grams of carbohydrates — the extra fiber, the higher, Mozaffarian says. One cup of blackberries, for instance, accommodates 8 grams of fiber per 14 grams of carbohydrates.

"We and others have printed research that discover that ratio offers an total sense of carbohydrate high quality" in a given meals, he says.

Sodium to potassium ratio: Search for merchandise which have as a lot or extra potassium than sodium, "as a result of potassium immediately offsets the harms of sodium," he says. One cup of inexperienced beans accommodates 211 mg of potassium and 6 mg of sodium.

Saturated fats to complete fats ratio: Unsaturated fat are excellent for total well being, and "we ought to be searching for them out in our meals," Mozaffarian says. It is the saturated fat you must be careful for, as a result of they'll trigger issues with ldl cholesterol and improve the danger of coronary heart illness. He says you wish to eat meals the place saturated fats isn't any multiple third of the full fats content material.

And bear in mind, the healthiest meals — like fruit and veggies — typically do not include a barcode. These are those we ought to be consuming probably the most.