How It Works

The Yuka App allows you to scan the barcode of food products, as well as cosmetics and other personal care products. Once you scan the product you're curious about, Yuka will rate the healthiness of that product on a scale of 0 to 100. Based on the overall score it receives, it will be labeled one of three colors- green (excellent or good), yellow (poor), or red (bad). Additionally, the app analyzes and scores each individual ingredient within that product as risk-free, low risk, and high risk to give it its overall score.
 

After scanning your product, it will list a few recommendations of healther alternatives, along with their scores. Another special feature is the Tops Tool, which lists top products in different food and beauty categories based on highest health score.

User Experience

This app is easy and simple to navigate, not to mention a huge time saver! I do not have time to look at all of the labels in the grocery store and google the unfamiliar ingredients and then try to decipher which product is a healthier choice. Yuka makes it easy to scan a product and quickly see if it is a healthy choice. "Thanks to Yuka, 95% of all users say they are now eating healthier."

As an added bonus, there are NO ADS and the rating system is safe from any outside influence of brands, because Yuka is a 100% independent project.

With 55,623,659 users and a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars, I think it is safe to say the Yuka user experience is worth checking out!

Cost and Accessibility

The app is free, which is almost hard to believe! They do have an option to become a member, which grants you a few more special features at a price of your choosing. That's right, you read that correctly! You can choose from a scale of $10-$20/year and become a member. This will allow you to search any product without having to scan, give you offline access, and enable you to customize the app based on your dietary preferences (i.e. palm oil free, gluten-free, lactose-free, vegetarian, & vegan).

As a wellness community that is passionate about helping people live their best lives, we at Tikvah Health and Wellness are excited about the Yuka app. We believe it can be a great tool in making the healthiest decisions for you and your family.

Health Tips and Education

One of my favorite features in this app is the individual ingredient analysis. This helps me learn why my product received the overall score it did. I can look through each ingredient and see which ones are a health risk to me. However, Yuka takes it one step further by allowing you to click on an ingredient to learn more about it. For example, lets say one of the ingredients listed in my product was "DMDM Hydantoin". The app tells me this is a "moderate risk" ingredient, but when I click to learn more, I find out why. This ingredient happens to be a potential allergen, irritant, endocrine disruptor, and potential carcinogen. Following this information is an even more detailed explanation about this ingredient and the scientific sources they used to obtain this knowledge. This feature is both empowering and educational.