# Concerns about what you eat?



## gavroche (23 Apr 2022)

I found a new app called " Yuka". It tells you if the food item you want to buy is good for you or not. Once you have downloaded the app on your phone, scan the bar code and the app does rates it as : excellent, good or poor. 
I tried it on it on the packet of porridge this morning and it says: Excellent.


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## Ridgeway (23 Apr 2022)

I agree your porridge will be excellent 👍🏻


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## winjim (23 Apr 2022)

Eat nothing but plain porridge for a month and see how you feel.


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## Mo1959 (23 Apr 2022)

A friend told me about the app and I use it occasionally to check stuff, especially given I am inclined to live on ready meals. I try to go for the healthier ones and several of them have come out as being good or excellent so maybe it's not too bad.  It's good that it tells you how bad some of the additives are and others that are of no real concern.


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## vickster (23 Apr 2022)

Not especially, I’ve got better, probably should eat less sugary stuff (I did choc and sweet free lent abd now have Easter goodies ). No longer eat meat. 
Eating a big pre ride bowl of unsweetened porridge as i type.
I’m capable of reading nutrition info on packages without an app!


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## Cycleops (23 Apr 2022)

I wonder what it says about bacon?


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## Electric_Andy (23 Apr 2022)

Sounds ok but I think all adults should know what's good for you and what's not. I know I eat crap sometimes but I'm aware of it, I just have the will power of a crack addict. Very few foods are actually bad for you, if eaten in contextually the right proportions. Likewise, no food is actually good for you if you eat too much of it or otherwise don't have a balanced diet to go with it. If you ate nothing but fruit, you'd arguably be at similar risk of diabetes than if you ate junk food all day


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## winjim (23 Apr 2022)

My wife always starts the day with a mouthful of Willy's.


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## annedonnelly (23 Apr 2022)

It won't be much use for anything without a bar code then. Like fruit & veg bought from a market stall or some homemade soup.

And does it point out that your porridge won't be quite as good if you cover it in chocolate sauce?


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## presta (23 Apr 2022)

They claim to be transparent, but they don't publish the criteria by which they decide which foodstuffs are healthy and which ones aren't. 

My diet spreadsheet uses the Nutrient Profile Score devised by the FSA, and calculates the score for each individual foodstuff as well as an overall score for my whole diet. In addition it also calculates how well my diet meets the Nova criteria for unprocessed food content, and calculates the level of each vitamin and nutrient using the USDA database.

What originally piqued my interest in diet 9 years ago was a bowel tumour, I was never much interested in cookery so it was payback for years of eating an unhealthy diet, or so I thought. What made me even more interested was making a spreadsheet, and finding that my diet wasn't anything like as unhealthy as you might think from my lack of home cookery. It really isn't that difficult to meet the main criteria for fat, salt, sugar, fibre, fruit & veg, processed meat etc without cooking everything from scratch, if you're selective about what you buy, but the Nova criteria are quite different, instead of focusing on macro nutrients like most systems, they just look at the level of processing. That makes a big difference to my diet, because I eat _a lot_ of bread, and bread is either very healthy by the standards of the FSA NPS, or very unhealthy and ultra-processed by the standards of Nova. Conversely, olive oil fares well under Nova, but not the FSA.

In the last 5 or 6 years I've switched to about 70% of my dinners cooked from scratch and 30% processed, but hasn't made a great deal of difference to the data, except for an increase in fat due to the olive oil in everything. I'd like to find a way of cutting down on the bread, but it's difficult replacing such a huge quantity of calories and fibre without switching to another cooked meals each day instead of sandwiches.


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## Once a Wheeler (23 Apr 2022)

Porridge is not nearly as good for you as porage:


the essential food of cross-dressing men with iron balls. Real women are also encouraged to indulge.


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## markemark (23 Apr 2022)

winjim said:


> My wife always starts the day with a mouthful of Willy's.
> 
> View attachment 641361


She says it’s more like a small nibble…


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## Ming the Merciless (23 Apr 2022)

Cycleops said:


> I wonder what it says about bacon?



Two rashers and add door stopper bread is it’s recommendation.


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## stephec (23 Apr 2022)

Cycleops said:


> I wonder what it says about bacon?



Food of the gods probably.


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## itboffin (23 Apr 2022)

having recently discovered a new cafe stop for club rides that boasts 3/4lb of pork in every sausage roll, i think i'll give this app a miss, plus there's no barcodes so it must by default be excellent, certainly tastes excellent


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## Ming the Merciless (23 Apr 2022)

Any food to excess is bad for you. Everything in moderation as they say.


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## cyberknight (23 Apr 2022)

Cycleops said:


> I wonder what it says about bacon?


EDIT @stephec in agreement and there 1st
isnt bacon the proof that god exists ?


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## ColinJ (23 Apr 2022)

Ming the Merciless said:


> Everything in moderation as they say.



Except moderation itself...?


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## slowmotion (23 Apr 2022)

winjim said:


> Eat nothing but plain porridge for a month and see how you feel.



The inhabitants of the remote island of St Kilda lived on a diet of porridge and gannets. 

They did all eventually leave for the mainland.


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## ColinJ (24 Apr 2022)

slowmotion said:


> The inhabitants of the remote island of St Kilda lived on a diet of porridge and gannets.
> 
> They did all eventually leave for the mainland.



The gannets left (got tired of being eaten, I suppose!) so the inhabitants had to make do with just porridge?


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## slowmotion (24 Apr 2022)

ColinJ said:


> The gannets left (got tired of being eaten, I suppose!) so the inhabitants had to make do with just porridge?



The gannets are still there. Lots of them. The human inhabitants, who left some time in 1930, never returned. It's a sad story of a small community that came up against the twentieth century.


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## Etern4l (25 Apr 2022)

Nice. Interesting results when you try it on cosmetics and some packaged/processed foods  Coverage is a bit patchy, but love the idea, if only to increase the awareness of the impact and potential risks associated with things like parabens, BHT, some Es etc. Thanks for posting this.


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## Mo1959 (25 Apr 2022)

Etern4l said:


> Nice. Interesting results when you try it on cosmetics and some packaged/processed foods  Coverage is a bit patchy, but love the idea, if only to increase the awareness of the impact and potential risks associated with things like parabens, BHT, some Es etc. Thanks for posting this.



I've been using SLS and Parabens free deodorant and body wash for a few months now and like them and find them effective. Every little helps with all the nasties we are bombarded with now.


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## mustang1 (25 Apr 2022)

Not a fan of those food apps. I feel they do more harm than good especially among the more impressionable and then it could lead to eating disorders.


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## Oldhippy (25 Apr 2022)

No concerns whatsoever. Always been a vegetarian since a small child. Processed foods very very rarely and eat fresh cooking daily. No health or weight issues ever. Don't touch fast food. Common sense of what's good and bad to eat.


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## NorthernSky (27 May 2022)

no real worries here, as said everything in moderation. but yes it can be hard to get a varied / balanced diet
takes a bit of discipline


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## oldwheels (29 May 2022)

Once a Wheeler said:


> Porridge is not nearly as good for you as porage:
> View attachment 641426
> 
> the essential food of cross-dressing men with iron balls. Real women are also encouraged to indulge.



But porridge made with pinhead oatmeal is even better. Just cook with water and a little salt. Definitely no sugar but milk is ok.


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## Cycleops (29 May 2022)

Oldhippy said:


> No concerns whatsoever. Always been a vegetarian since a small child. Processed foods very very rarely and eat fresh cooking daily. No health or weight issues ever. Don't touch fast food. Common sense of what's good and bad to eat.


A lot of people will struggle to follow your good example. I would say everything in moderation is a good maxim as Ming and others says.

I see children at my boys school here very overweight at 10 or eleven years or younger. I feel so sorry for them condemned to a life of health problems. Mostly down to the parents.


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## gavroche (1 Jun 2022)

oldwheels said:


> But porridge made with pinhead oatmeal is even better. Just cook with water and a little salt. Definitely no sugar but milk is ok.



I have mine with honey which is healthy, natural sugar, not the refined stuff.


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## Cycleops (1 Jun 2022)

gavroche said:


> I have mine with honey which is healthy, natural sugar, not the refined stuff.


Unfortunately it's still sugar 😞


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## rockyroller (1 Jun 2022)

gavroche said:


> I found a new app called " Yuka". It tells you if the food item you want to buy is good for you or not. Once you have downloaded the app on your phone, scan the bar code and the app does rates it as : excellent, good or poor.



wutz in it for Yuka?


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## gavroche (2 Jun 2022)

rockyroller said:


> wutz in it for Yuka?



No idea.


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## kayakerles (16 Jul 2022)

At 66 I am now pretty tired of most things interactive, or recommendations as to what is best for me, or how to be or how to act, think, etc. Don’t care for Alexa connected devices, don’t do Twitter, Facebook, Strava, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. My one vice of the last couple of years, and arguably enjoyable, has been CycleChat, which I traded all current news sites for. After all, in todays world you really CAN'T escape hearing “the latest” anyway. Even our pandemic quarantines couldn’t stop us from hearing it.

Back on topic, as for food, we all know the do's and don'ts by now, (or should) so no app needed for pretty much anything on that topic. I do appreciate a basic weather app, exercise tracker (non-interactive) and one that tells me when various public transportation is available (buses, trains, etc.) But for those that like or appreciate any/all of the other stuff above, I’m happy for you/them. I never have liked being told what to do by anyone or any organisation. 

I do believe in the moderation route for most things combined with common sense. Moderation never worked for me with drink, so I put an end to that around 18 years ago. Oh well, I suppose we can't have everything. I can be happy with some of most things, that’s pretty great on a full life level! Life has been good to me so farrrrrr… sing it with me! 🎵🎶🎵


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## ColinJ (16 Jul 2022)

kayakerles said:


> Moderation never worked for me with drink, so I put an end to that around 18 years ago.


Same here, but 10 years ago.


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## simongt (19 Jul 2022)

Also, Kayakerles, at 69, I don't recall any such thing as 'sell by' / 'use by' dates when I were lad, especially on canned goods. We used the 'three test system'; if it looks okay, smell it. If it smells okay, taste it. If it tastes okay, eat it - !  And I'm still alive and kicking - !


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## dave r (19 Jul 2022)

simongt said:


> Also, Kayakerles, at 69, I don't recall any such thing as 'sell by' / 'use by' dates when I were lad, especially on canned goods. We used the 'three test system'; if it looks okay, smell it. If it smells okay, taste it. If it tastes okay, eat it - !  And I'm still alive and kicking - !



I still use that method now.


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## iandg (19 Jul 2022)

I didn't used to have any concern regarding diet. Mostly vegetarian with occasional fish, cook from fresh for majority of meals. I do like my carbs tho' and eat a lot of pasta, rice and bread. Reading a lot about anti-inflammatory diet recently having been diagnosed with polymyalgia and started long term prednisolone treatment so need to start thinking about reducing carbohydrate intake due to risk of type 2 diabetes.


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## IanSmithCSE (20 Jul 2022)

Good morning,

I know that it can be fun to mock things, but I also remember the days when pretty much all food sold in the UK came without any nutritional information on the packing. When laws were introduced to require it there were "nanny state" cries, yet I now almost rely on it.

So I was not immediately dismissive of Yuka, but the big issues raised when I went and looked up Yuka was is the team behind the app competent to make dietary judgements, https://yuka.io/en/team/?

The conclusion that I came to was no. 

We all know that a chocolate bar contains a lot of fat and sugar, except of course they don't, I am currently commuting around 18miles each way 5 days a week, so a Mars bar is almost essential rather than a treat.

Borrowing from their home page



Seems to confirm my concern that they are simply working on a very trivial basis of something like _fat bad, grains good. _

Bye

Ian


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## MontyVeda (20 Jul 2022)

rockyroller said:


> wutz in it for Yuka?



money


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## chris667 (20 Jul 2022)

As someone who is living with diabetes one of the big things I realised is a lot of the foods that I was fed which were supposed to be good for me really weren't.

Porridge is awful for me. Makes my blood sugar shoot up. I still have it because I love it, but I always get hungry after eating it. Something with a lot of fat is better for me, because it makes me eat less.

It's not as simple as self-control. There are foods which are commonly marketed as healthy which are anything but.


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## Mike_P (20 Jul 2022)

Being a coeliac shopping is invariably disappointing, best Gluten Free breaded cod is the Co-Ops but guess which was the only fish sold out this morning. It's annoying how many products have wheat on them for no obvious purpose when the same product under a different brand does not. Annoyingly many specific products are sky high on sugar so I try to cut back where possible but do add honey to the incredibly expensive cereal as it had a great smoothing effect on a rough feeling throat.


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## Badger_Boom (20 Jul 2022)

rockyroller said:


> wutz in it for Yuka?



'Big' data on the consumption of foodstuffs, on a scale normally held close to the chests of Mr Tesco-Clubcard et al.


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## simongt (25 Jul 2022)

dave r said:


> I still use that method now.


Indeed. And there's also 'the knife method', i.e., if there's a mouldy or dodgy looking mark on your grub, cut it off and eat the rest - !


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## dave r (25 Jul 2022)

simongt said:


> Indeed. And there's also 'the knife method', i.e., if there's a mouldy or dodgy looking mark on your grub, cut it off and eat the rest - !



My Mum used to do that in the 1950's-1960's, I haven't done it for years.


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