I don’t read labels in the supermarket any more. Not because I stopped caring what’s in my food. I’m a nutrition nerd; I care far too much. It’s that standing in an aisle, squinting at 6-point font on the back of a jar while my body files a formal complaint, is not a good use of my spoons.
So these days I scan. The Yuka app reads the barcode, gives me a score out of 100 and breaks down what’s in the product. I’ve been using it for a while now, and I pay for the Premium version. Here’s how I actually use it, where it’s genuinely useful, and where it gets keto and low carb food spectacularly wrong.
What the Yuka app actually does
Yuka is a French app that scans food and cosmetics. Point your phone at a barcode and you get a score out of 100, labelled Excellent, Good, Poor or Bad, plus a list of what pulled the score up or down.
For food, the score comes from three things:
- 60% nutritional quality, based on Nutri-Score, a European food-rating system
- 30% additives, with higher-risk additives dragging the score down hard
- 10% organic certification, as a bonus
If a product scores poorly, Yuka suggests a similar product that scores better. It doesn’t run ads, and brands can’t pay to change their scores or be recommended. That independence is a big part of why I trust it enough to use it at all.
How I use Yuka when I’m shopping
The goal is fewer decisions in the aisle, not more. This is my routine.
- Scan before it goes in the trolley. Hold the barcode up to the camera. It reads in about a second.
- Look at the red flags first, not the score. The breakdown tells you why something scored the way it did: too much sugar, a high-risk additive, high salt. That’s the useful bit.
- Check the carbs myself. Tap through to the nutrition panel and look at carbohydrate per 100 g (more on my rule of thumb below).
- Use the alternatives as a starting point, not an instruction. The suggestions are handy when I’m stuck between brands. They’re not always available at my local shop, and they’re not always lower carb.
- Do the scanning at home when I can. On a low-spoon week, I scan the pantry and fridge staples once, then my shopping list is basically decided before I leave the house.
That last one is the real accessibility win. If you use a shopping list built around fewer steps, Yuka slots straight into it: decide at home, then grab and go.
Free vs Premium: is Yuka Premium worth it?
The free version does the main job. You can scan as many products as you like, see the score and the breakdown, and get alternatives.
Premium adds:
- Search without scanning. Look up a product by name from the couch. This is the feature I use most, because it means I can check things without standing in the aisle at all.
- Offline mode. Scan when the supermarket has no reception (looking at you, back corner of the freezer section).
- Food preference alerts. Set flags for things like gluten, palm oil or a vegetarian diet, and the app warns you when a product doesn’t match.
- Unlimited history. Every scan from the past year, so you can find “that stock I liked” again.
I pay for Premium. For me, search alone earns its keep, because it moves the decision-making out of the shop and onto my couch. Yuka also says Premium is its main source of income, which is how it stays ad-free. If you only scan the odd product, the free version is perfectly good.
The database: big, and better on Australian brands than I expected
Yuka’s database has several million food and cosmetic products. It started on Open Food Facts, the open, Wikipedia-style food database, then moved to its own database in 2018 so it could check additions more closely.
It grows in two ways: users add products the app doesn’t recognise by photographing the label, and brands hand over their product data directly.
I went in expecting a European app to know nothing about Australian supermarkets. I was wrong. It handles Australian brands and supermarket own-brands well, and I rarely hit a barcode it doesn’t know.
The catch is data quality. User-added products are only as accurate as the photo and the person typing it in. Recipes get reformulated and the entry doesn’t always keep up. So when a number matters to me, and carbs always matter to me, I check it against the actual label.
Where Yuka gets keto and low carb wrong
This is the part I wish someone had told me.
Yuka’s nutrition score is built on Nutri-Score, and Nutri-Score is not designed for keto or low carb eating. It counts energy, saturated fat, sugar and salt against a food, and fibre, protein and fruit and veg in its favour.
That means a lot of keto staples score badly. Butter, cheese and cream get marked down for saturated fat and energy density. Yuka even has a help article explaining why all butters score poorly. Meanwhile, a low-fat product with more carbs can sail through with a respectable score.
The keto and low carb alerts are useful, but they don’t always get it right either. I’ve had products flagged that fit my plan fine, and products that slipped through when they really didn’t.
None of this makes Yuka useless for keto. It means the score answers a different question to the one I’m asking. Yuka is asking “how does this rate on a general European nutrition profile?” I’m asking “will this fit my carbs for the day?” Those overlap less than you’d think.
My rule of thumb: 5 g of carbs per 100 g
When I’m deciding whether a packaged product works for low carb, I ignore the score and look at one number: carbohydrate per 100 g.
- Under 5 g per 100 g: generally an easy yes for me.
- Over 5 g per 100 g: not a no, but I look at how much I’ll actually eat. A teaspoon of something at 20 g per 100 g is a very different thing to a bowl of it.
I use the per-100 g column rather than per serve because serving sizes are wonderfully creative. One brand’s “serve” is two crackers, another’s is half the packet. Per 100 g lets you compare products fairly without doing maths in the aisle.
This is the approach that works for me. It isn’t a medical rule, and your carb target depends on what you’re eating and why. If you’re not sure whether keto or a more relaxed low carb approach suits you, our keto vs low carb guide walks through the difference, and the No Spoons calculators can help you work out your own numbers.
Why the Australian context matters
Yuka doesn’t use Australian standards. Its nutrition score is based on the European Nutri-Score, and its additive ratings draw on European and international sources. It doesn’t use our Health Star Rating, and it isn’t built around Australian food standards.
So it won’t always flag things the way an Australian dietitian or label would, and some of its additive warnings reflect European debates rather than anything you’d see discussed here.
There’s also a nerdy label difference worth knowing. On Australian nutrition panels, “carbohydrate” doesn’t include fibre; fibre is listed separately. On American labels, “total carbohydrate” includes fibre. So if you’ve been using American keto advice about subtracting fibre to get net carbs, don’t do it with Australian labels. Our carb number is already roughly the net figure, and subtracting fibre again undercounts.
If an app entry seems to have been copied from an overseas version of the product, that difference can trip you up. Another reason I check the real label.
What I use Yuka for, and what I don’t
I use it for:
- spotting additives and sugar I didn’t expect in sauces, stocks and processed meats
- comparing two similar products quickly
- checking products from home with search, so the shop itself takes fewer spoons
- finding the nutrition panel without hunting for it on a curved jar
I don’t use it for:
- deciding whether something is keto or low carb (that’s my 5 g rule and the label)
- judging whole foods; a block of cheese getting a “Bad” score tells me about Nutri-Score, not about cheese
- feeling bad about what’s in my trolley
That last one matters. A low score isn’t a moral verdict. Sometimes the convenient option is the right option, because convenience ingredients are accessibility tools. Yuka gives you information. What you do with it is up to you and your spoons.
A final spoon-saving note
If you try Yuka, start with the pantry staples you buy every week. Scan them once at home, check the carbs per 100 g, and you’ve made most of your shopping decisions for the next few months. One sitting, on the couch, no aisle required.
