When doing the weekly shop, most of us opt for the same items week on week, often out of habit or because we are too time-poor to really think about what we are putting in our baskets.
Designed to help us make healthier choices, the NHS has launched a food scanner app, which not only pulls up the nutritional information on a particular product, but also suggests healthier replacements.
Scanning the barcode of a product brings up the “traffic lights” for sugar, saturated fat, and salt content, so you can instantly see whether the product has high (red), moderate (yellow), or low (green) amounts, and there are other useful visuals to help put the numbers into context – for example, 6 g of salt depicted as 12 salt sachets.
The app gives you the opportunity to compare your original product and the suggested swap(s) side-by-side, so you can see at a glance the difference between the two in sugar, saturated fat, and salt content.
There is also other useful content within the app, such as a sugar calculator and healthy lunchbox ideas, together with games to get children thinking about what goes into their food.
Download the app from your app store, or click here to find out more about making healthier swaps.