22 Million Americans Trust a Food Score. Dietitians Say They Should Not.

At a glance

• Yuka reports more than 80 million users worldwide. The United States, with about 22 million, is its largest market.
• Its score out of 100 blends Nutri-Score (60 percent), a penalty for additives (30 percent), and a bonus for an organic label (10 percent).
• Registered dietitians Abby Langer and Kacie Barnes both advise against relying on it.
• EatSure does not score food. It gives one of four verdicts about how a product fits you, with the reason.

The issue

Yuka is the most downloaded food scanner in America: more than 80 million users worldwide, about 22 million of them in the United States, adding roughly 600,000 US users a month by the company's own figures, with 25 products scanned every second. Scan a barcode and you get a number out of 100 and a color. Simple. Too simple, according to the registered dietitians who have tested it.

How big the problem is

Abby Langer, RD: "I wouldn't recommend the Yuka app to anyone." Kacie Barnes, MCN, RDN: "not legit." Their objections line up. The score blends 60 percent Nutri-Score, 30 percent an additive penalty, and 10 percent a bonus for an organic label into one number that looks precise and is not. It labels foods good and bad, penalizes cheese for saturated fat and calories while calling milk low-calorie, treats MSG as dangerous, and hands organic sugar ten free points. And the features that would make it more useful sit behind a Premium subscription: InsideHook's review found that searching the database without a barcode in hand, and scanning offline, both require it.

What it means for you

A score that does not know you cannot tell you whether a food fits you. It can only tell you whether the food fits the formula.

What EatSure does instead

EatSure does not score food. It reads the label and gives a verdict about fit: Great for you, All clear, Go easy, or Not for you, computed from your own profile: allergens, diet, goals, the values you look for, and the ingredients you chose to avoid. Every flag comes with its reason, so "Go easy" reads as "this has 480 mg of sodium and you set a blood pressure goal", never "this food is bad". The full rules are public in How EatSure grades food.