{"id":28944,"date":"2025-06-03T15:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T15:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28944"},"modified":"2025-06-03T16:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:23:16","slug":"can-the-yuka-app-help-you-eat-more-healthfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28944","title":{"rendered":"Can the Yuka App Help You Eat More Healthfully?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yuka, which Kennedy has called \u201cinvaluable,\u201d assigns health scores to food. But can it actually help people make better choices?<\/p>\n

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Cheez-Its used to be one of Marissa Gradei\u2019s go-to snacks, in part because she thought of them as \u201chealthier\u201d alternatives to other savory nibbles like potato chips.<\/p>\n

That changed three months ago, when Ms. Gradei, 27, a social media manager in Fairfax, Va., started using a smartphone app called Yuka. The app prompts users to scan the bar codes of food and personal care items \u2014 in grocery stores and at home \u2014 and then offers a score out of 100 to indicate how \u201chealthy\u201d it thinks the item is for you or the environment.<\/p>\n

Ms. Gradei\u2019s trusty snacks scored a two out of 100 \u2014 \u201cbad\u201d for health, according to the app. She hasn\u2019t purchased any since.<\/p>\n

After the Yuka app launched in the United States in 2022, more than 20 million people have downloaded it \u2014 a figure that has more than doubled since January 2024. In a recent interview with CNN<\/a>, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, said that he and his wife \u201cconsider it invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou can go into any grocery store, flash it at any product, and you can get a \u2018go\u2019 or a \u2018no,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But can the Yuka app accurately portray how good a given food is for your health? And should you rely on an app to guide your food choices in the first place? We asked four nutrition experts.<\/p>\n

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Yuka, which Kennedy has called \u201cinvaluable,\u201d assigns health scores to food. But can it actually help people make better choices?Cheez-Its used to be one of Marissa Gradei\u2019s go-to snacks, in part because she thought of them as \u201chealthier\u201d alternatives to other savory nibbles like potato chips.That changed three months ago, when Ms. Gradei, 27, a social media manager in Fairfax, Va., started using a smartphone app called Yuka. The app prompts users to scan the bar codes of food and personal care items \u2014 in grocery stores and at home \u2014 and then offers a score out of 100 to indicate how \u201chealthy\u201d it thinks the item is for you or the environment.Ms. Gradei\u2019s trusty snacks scored a two out of 100 \u2014 \u201cbad\u201d for health, according to the app. She hasn\u2019t purchased any since.After the Yuka app launched in the United States in 2022, more than 20 million people have downloaded it \u2014 a figure that has more than doubled since January 2024. In a recent interview with CNN, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, said that he and his wife \u201cconsider it invaluable.\u201d\u201cYou can go into any grocery store, flash it at any product, and you can get a \u2018go\u2019 or a \u2018no,\u2019\u201d he said.But can the Yuka app accurately portray how good a given food is for your health? And should you rely on an app to guide your food choices in the first place? We asked four nutrition experts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28946,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28947,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28944\/revisions\/28947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}