6 Thursday January 13 2022 | the timesthe table
Dr Linia Patel, a registered
dietician and a spokeswoman for the
British Dietetic Association, is a fan
of Food Scanner, saying it should
win over new consumers in the same
way Couch to 5k converted exercise
refuseniks. “For me, this is for the
unconverted because it is so easy to
use,” she says. “You could be someone
who has pizza three times a week but
you want to make healthier choices.
The app suggests a pizza, but one
less loaded with salami and one with
more vegetables. It’s a small swap.”
She insists that small changes make
a difference, having overseen a trial —
in conjunction with the Food Scanner
app — whereby a family reduced their
weekly intake of sugar by 40 cubes
(160g), saturated fat by 80g and salt
by 15 sachets (7.5g) in a week. “The aim
of the game is lots of small changes.
A little bit less salt here, a little bit less
sugar there, it all adds up,” Patel says.
Other food apps using barcode
scanning technology do exist. One,
called Giki when it launched in 2018
but now called Impact Score
Shopping, rates products not just on
nutrition but on sustainability too,
measuring the carbon footprint and
their packaging among other factors.
It’s very good and, like the NHS app,
offers suggestions for “better” items.
Ian Yates, a co-founder of Impact
Score, says: “We know that children
love using our app, especially when
they are in the store, running around,
scanning stuff, learning about
products. It keeps them entertained.”
He points out, however, that
children are particularly engaged
when it comes to the environment,
and like to shame their parents into
choosing products that will not
destroy the planet. Whether they will
pester their parents into ditching
delicious, sugary biscuits in favour of
rice crackers is doubtful, however.
But Yates says people do change
their behaviour if they are given
suggestions of alternative products to
buy. “We know from surveying our
own consumers that 83 per cent of
users say they have bought a different
product from seeing an alternative
product on the app.”
Is the app going to make me ditch
Philadelphia cream cheese for the
tasteless light version? No. But will
I keep it on my phone to discover
what’s inside more obscure products?
Yes. It’s a clever bit of technology.And did you know that Pot Noodle,
the ultimate lazy junk food, does a far
healthier option called Lost the Pot?
With 0.4g of saturated fat versus the
traditional version’s 8.6g, and
significantly less salt and sugar, it
seems mad not to make the swap.
The app is not perfect, however.
Although as many as 120,000 products
across most of the main supermarkets
are listed, it relies on a company
called Brandbank, which uploads
pictures and data on behalf of
supermarket websites. Some products
that you cannot buy online,
particularly sandwiches and salads in
the food-to-go section, were not listed.
My fear is that the app preaches to
the converted. If you are interested
enough in nutrition to download the
app, won’t you already be the sort of
parent who bans Kellogg’s Frosties
and insists that your children have
cornflakes instead?
As Tam Fry, chairman of the
National Obesity Forum, says: “I think
it will work for a surprisingly small
number of people, from my experience
working on Action on Sugar. People
know what they want to eat and they
go ahead and eat it.” He argues that
apps are the wrong tool to change
consumer behaviour. “Exercise apps,
for instance, sound like a good idea,
but they don’t really work.”
On this, he may be wrong. Couch
to 5k, a free app sponsored by Public
Health England, has been a huge
success. The idea is that through
gentle encouragement and starting
slow, the app helps people to go
running, often for the first time. The
app was downloaded 2.36 million
times between March 2020, at the
start of the pandemic, and July 2021.C
an barcodes help you
to lose weight? It
seems unlikely, but
this is the hope of
the NHS, for whom
Britain’s burgeoning
weight poses a greater
problem than even a
pandemic. During 2019-20 more than
one million patients were admitted to
hospital because of obesity, a higher
number than have had to be treated
in hospital for Covid so far.
It has launched something called
Food Scanner, an app that you can
download on to a smartphone. Your
phone’s camera scans the product’s
barcode and tells you immediately the
amount of salt, sugar, saturated fat
and calories in each pack of cereal or
bottle of ketchup. Then — and this is
possibly the clever bit — it suggests
“swaps” that might be healthier.
I tried it this week, wandering
around a couple of supermarkets,
eliciting only the odd suspicious look
as I rummaged in the freezer cabinet
wielding my phone. For an NHS app,
it is surprisingly easy to use. Finding
out the level of saturated fat in Sacla
basil pesto (high: 6.4g per 100g) was
a great deal easier than reporting a
lateral flow result. You really do only
have to wave your phone at the
barcode and ping — up pops the
details of the McCain’s waffle fries
or Pizza Express American Hot.
It is clearly aimed at families with
young children, because along with
the information you get animated
sachets of salt, cartoonish blobs of fat
or smiley sugar cubes tumbling on to
your screen. This is either cute or
fantastically annoying, depending on
whether you have a six-year-old in
tow with you at Sainsbury’s.
While some of the swap suggestions
were blindingly obvious — try Diet
Coke rather than the full-sugar
version, or Hellmann’s Lighter than
Light rather than its standard
mayonnaise — some were surprisingly
useful. I had no idea, for instance,
that Waitrose British Wiltshire cured
roast ham has more salt than Waitrose
British finely sliced Wiltshire roast
ham, and the suggestion to swap
McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes for the less
sugary Soreen chocolate and blood
orange mini loaves was a revelation. I
didn’t know Soreen made snack-sized
versions of its delicious malt loaf, let
alone an orange-flavoured one.The aim of
the game
is lots of
small
changes.
A little bit
less salt
here, a
little bit
less sugar
there
Swap this for
d B o w w r u u w y Tle
ma
i
a
k thtPtNoodle wKellogg’s Frosties:
37g sugar per 100g
Swap
Kellogg’s Plain
Wheats:
0.9g sugar per 100gPizza Express Classic
American pepperoni
pizza:
4.9g sat fat and 1g salt
per 100g
Swap Pizza Express
Classic Fiorentina:
2.8g sat fat and 0.7g
salt per 100gThai Dragon sriracha
hot chilli sauce:
24g sugar per 100g
Swap Epicure Fiery
Piccalilli with chilli:
4.7g sugar per 100gSwitch your
Pot Noodle
for the healthier
version, whichhas only 0.4g of
saturated fat
per 100gWalk away from the
camembert! Could this
new app change my
(unhealthy) eating habits?
Just scan a food product’s barcode using your smartphone and a healthier
alternative is suggested — it’s clever but will it work, asks Harry Wallop