In a world where wellness is becoming more and more important, it is crucial to use advancements in technology to make it easier to make health-conscious choices when it comes to food. Luckily, there are many apps available that help identify harmful ingredients, but it can be tough to know which one to choose. We've broken down some of the popular food scanner apps, and the differences between them so you can find what's right for you.

The Trash Panda App aims to deliver the transparency people deserve about what’s really in their food. So everyone can feel empowered to shop confidently and make healthier choices for themselves and their families.

The Trash Panda App believes in three core values: Ingredients Matter, Transparency is Key, and Better Quality Means Better Health. These key values are what make the Trash Panda App a great choice for finding products with clean ingredients. The app helps to identify these ingredients as well as provide insights into why each ingredient is deemed harmful with links to scientific studies to back the information found on the app. The ingredients are rated as:

With a premium membership, you can customize additional food allergies to flag such as gluten, dairy, eggs, and soy. Members can also access weekly recommended shopping lists that make it easy to find healthy options.

The Yuka app uses a food analysis to provide users with a score on a scale of 0-100 on each product scanned. Nutritional value (calories, etc) makes up 60% of the rating, 30% is made up of the presence of additives, and the additional 10% is made up of the organic dimension of the product.

The Yuka app rates products on a scale of four risk categories:

The purpose of the Yuka app is to scan products and receive a rating based on caloric attributes and macros in each product.

The bad ingredients found on Bobby Approved are highlighted in red, and by tapping on them you can learn why. The app has a list of over 100 harmful ingredients that are flagged each time you scan a product. Some of the flagged ingredients include natural and artificial flavors, fake sugars, food dyes, chemical additives, inflammatory seed oils, preservatives, and more. However, there is not much information provided about why ingredients are flagged.

The Fig app utilizes its platform to help identify ingredients based on specific food sensitivities and allergies. Some of the main ones are gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, sugar-free, and nut allergies. Additionally, the Fig app allows you to review ingredients and rank them based on:

If you are someone who needs to find certain products based on specific, known food sensitivities, the Fig app works well. Once you tell the app which ingredients in food to look out for, the app will provide you with flagged ingredients based on what you've previously selected. However, it does not provide guidance on ingredients to avoid based on their overall health impact.

If you're looking for an app that is simple and easy to use, the free Trash Panda app can help identify additives or other ingredients to avoid while grocery shopping.