Is tracking your food purchases good for your health?

The article explores the growing trend of using food-tracking apps like Yuka to make healthier purchasing decisions. It follows a user named Nathalie in France who scans barcodes to get instant health ratings (green, yellow, red) for products, often finding her son's favorite biscuits score a 0/100 due to sugar, fats, and additives. While the app suggests healthier alternatives, Nathalie notes that buying organic options ends up being more expensive. Yuka, launched in 2015, now has 85 million users across 12 countries, with the US being its largest market by far. The app is part of a wider food-tracking phenomenon in France that includes the crowdsourced database Open Food Facts and the government's Nutri-Score labeling system, which was inspired by the UK's Traffic Light system but offers a simpler, global score.