HealthLinks Charleston March/April 2023

78 | www. Char l es tonPhys i c i ans . com | www.Hea l thL i nksChar l es ton . com YUKA Yuka gives you the scoop on how food and personal care products can impact your health. The app inspects product ingredient lists to offer a rating and analysis of risks, often providing the sources that helped the app reach its conclusion. If the rating is poor, Yuka offers healthier alternatives. Yuka is an independent project and is not influenced by brands or manufacturers, nor is there in-app advertising. A version that you must pay for allows you to search products without having a barcode handy. In the free version, the relevant information is available simply by scanning the barcode on products in your house or in your hand at the store. OPEN FOOD FACTS Empowering you to choose the products that are good for you and the planet, Open Food Facts allows users to scan products, decipher the labels and learn about a product’s carbon footprint, packaging information, allergens – for which you can even set up an alert – nutritional score and information on additives, culminating in a grade informed by peer-reviewed science. Many have nicknamed the project “the Wikipedia of food” because it already has 1.3 million items users can scan, find and compare and is continuously added to by users scanning in new products. The resulting database is published as its own data and is used for other apps such as Yuka. Get the full picture of the everyday products you use and contribute to a worldwide database on the app. THINK DIRTY Think Dirty is an easy way to get you to buy clean. The app allows you to compare products as you shop by referencing a database of more than 850,000 cosmetic and personal care products. By scanning the product barcode or searching a keyword, users can access easy-to-understand information about the product, track dirty ingredients and explore cleaner alternatives. With the comprehensive rating on the dirty meter, users can better understand the impact of various products. Think Dirty can help users “clean up” their bathroom by calculating the cleanliness of current bathroom products and allowing them to track their progress toward a cabinet that is less “dirty.” In the premium version, users also can personalize their ingredient preferences by pre-selecting allergens and ingredient preferences, search by curated categories and explore health impacts by ingredient. BETTER HEALTH? THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! Get it on Google Play or download it at the Apple App Store. By Molly Sherman APPS FOR HEALTHFUL PURCHASES Knowing is half the battle, as G.I. Joe once said. Get to know the products you use with these product information apps. With the push of a button and the scan of your phone camera, get the good, the bad and the ugly of what’s going into your body when it goes into your cart.

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