I am keen to live as long as possible.
As the years fly by so has my awareness of the importance of health and fitness increased. My immune system is not what it used to be, my intolerance to some foods has increased and I am conscious of what I eat and what body lotions I apply to my skin.
To help myself, my lifestyle choices have become more important than a decade ago. In my seventies, I feel better in myself when I feel healthy which means making better choices to lessen the factor of diseases occurring.
Making better choices
Apart from keeping fit, there are two factors that I feel help avoid diseases. One is internal, what we put into our bodies i.e. what we eat, the other is external, what we put on our bodies, i.e. lotions, body wash etc.
So my shopping habits have changed. The difficulty when shopping for products is trying to read the labels of contents. Most times the print is so fine I am forever foraging in my handbag for my glasses. Then when I read the contents, most of the terminology is like reading a foreign language in English, which suggests the contents may not be good for me.
You can’t imagine how thrilled I was when my daughter introduced me to an application that helps with food and beauty products and lists the ingredients. A woman I was chatting with on the plane recently, also mentioned this wonderful App for scanning product barcodes with the phone camera.
They were both talking about the Yuka App.
The Yuka App
You can download it onto your smartphone. Its icon is an orange carrot with a little green sprout with a white background. Once you scan your smartphone camera over the barcode, immediately it gives you access to a picture of the product and its ratings. They range from green (good) to red (bad) then a more detailed analysis by going to the product’s product sheet which gives you a breakdown of all the ingredients.
It is a free App (which I am using) however there are options to become a Premium Member. I find the freebie works for me.
Yuka (pronounced yoo kuh, like you car). On Google, it says it is a Japanese name. Yet the three founders, Julie, Francois and Benoit say the inspiration and name comes from the Mexican state of Yucatan. So Yuka was named in honour of that beautiful region and a love of no borders.
Yuka focuses on two areas:
1 Food products: it produces a nutri-score, a rating system developed in international research terms that measures the nutritional value of food products. The IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer), a WHO agency, supports this method, citing both its effectiveness in guiding consumers toward healthier food choices and its scientific relevance.
2 Cosmetic products: the scoring system analyses every ingredient that goes into the product and based on the latest scientific research, each ingredient is assigned a risk level according to its potential effects on health or the environment: endocrine disruption, carcinogenic, allergenic, irritant or pollutant. The potential risks associated with each ingredient are displayed in the application, with the relevant scientific sources.
There are four risk categories – Risk-free (green dot), Low risk (yellow dot), Moderate risk (orange dot), and Hazardous (red dot). The score is based on the level of the highest-risk ingredient present in the product.
You will be amazed by your finds with both food and cosmetics and it is the old age saying not everything is as it seems or as advertised. For example, after scanning my roll-on deodorant, due to the high aluminium level (it was rated bad with a little red dot next to it). I immediately changed to a recommended safer product with a green dot and an excellent rating.
Minor Limitations
There may be phone compatibility issues but their website can guide you on the requirements. You must have as a minimum an iOS16 or an Android 7.0. If your RAM is less than 256 MB it won’t work. Not all nutritional values are displayed or have a rating. You can add a food product without a nutritional table but it can’t be rated.
Yuka may recommend a product but there are times when there is no recommendation because Yuka hasn’t found any. They state finding alternatives is ongoing. Many products are not recognized such as alcohol, supplements, cleaning products, pet food, and medications but it is worth using for packaged food and beauty products. It becomes addictive. Yuka is available on the App Store and Play Store. Happy scanning.