Barcode scanner
Scan a barcode or type its number. Ingredients, nutrients, NOVA group and Nutri-Score come from OpenFoodFacts, then the score is worked out step by step.
Transcript and description: Meet Skinny Scanning
Skinny Scanning video “Meet Skinny Scanning”, 28.8 seconds, no sound: screen recordings of the Android app with demo data, showing a barcode scan with its score and its working, sugar shown as sugar cubes, the meal mode that reads plates on the phone, a Myth or Fact answer with its source, and two drinks compared head to head.
- 0:00“They told you losing weight was all about willpower. They were wrong.”
- 0:04Barcode scan — “Stop guessing what you eat. Start seeing it.” “A score out of 100, explained”
- 0:04On screen: The Scan tab; the Nutella sample is tapped and its result opens: score 17, Very High Risk, with what the score means.
- 0:08Why this score? — “A score that shows its working” “Every point lost has a reason” “Sugar shown in cubes”
- 0:08On screen: The result scrolls to “Why this score?” (start 100, a deduction for each flag, score 17), then to Sugar in cubes: 14 cubes per 100 g, next to the WHO’s 25 g daily ideal.
- 0:13Meal photos — “Snap your plate, see its food groups” “Recognised on your phone” “Food groups, never calories”
- 0:13On screen: The Scan tab switches to Meal: take or choose a photo, “Runs entirely on this device. Photos never leave it.” and “Meal photos show food groups, not calories or portions.”
- 0:17Myth or Fact? — “Myth or fact? Check the study” “Every answer comes with its source”
- 0:17On screen: Myth or Fact? Question 1 of 19, “A Nutri-Score A means a food is not ultra-processed.”; Myth is tapped: confetti, “Correct!”, the answer explained and its source (Monteiro et al., Public Health Nutrition 2018).
- 0:21Head to head — “Scan your food. Understand your choices. Take control.” “Two products, side by side”
- 0:21On screen: Head to head: Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, their scores counting up to 11 and 70, “Better pick” under Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, and their rows side by side.
- 0:25Skinny Scanning — “Scan foods and meals and see the science behind every score” — For education · not medical advice — skinnyscanning.com · Screen recordings from the Android app · demo data · Product data: Open Food Facts contributors (ODbL)
- 0:29How it was edited: Pauses where nothing moves are shortened; frames are never reordered. Some motion is sped up, at most 1.6×. The device moves closer to show part of the screen larger. Transitions between shots. Callouts with icons beside the device name what the screen shows.
Screen recording from the Android app · demo data
Food scanner for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch
They told you losing weight was all about willpower. They were wrong.
You can't change what you don't understand.
Stop guessing what you eat. Start seeing it.
Skinny Scanning — Scan your food. Understand your choices. Take control.
SkinnyScanning.com
Scan a barcode or point your camera at a plate. Skinny Scanning shows the ingredients research links to weight gain, the study behind each one, and two healthier swaps. One score, three traffic lights, no guesswork.
- No account
- Meal photos never leave your phone
- Every claim linked to its study
Stop blaming your willpower. Start understanding your food.
Every food has a story. One barcode scan reveals the numbers.
How it works
You've tried eating less. You've tried harder. But have you ever really looked at what you're eating?
01
Scan
Scan a barcode, type its number, or take a photo of your plate. Product data comes from OpenFoodFacts; meals are recognised on your iPhone.
02
Understand
Get a Wellness Score from 0 to 100, traffic lights for sugar, saturated fat and salt, and every flagged ingredient with the research behind it.
03
Choose
Each flagged ingredient comes with two healthier swaps. Your seven-day average shows whether your choices are moving the right way.
The Wellness Score
Your eyes see food. Skinny Scanning sees what's in it.
Every scan starts at 100. Each ingredient the research links to weight gain removes points in proportion to how strong that evidence is. Measured sugar, saturated fat and salt and the Nutri-Score then adjust the result.
What costs points
- Very high-risk ingredient−30
- High-risk ingredient−20
- Medium-risk ingredient−10
- Low-risk ingredient−5
- Sugar high / medium−10 / −4
- Saturated fat high / medium−8 / −3
- Salt high / medium−6 / −2
- Nutri-Score D / E−5 / −10
- Whole foods on the plate, up to+10
An ingredient costs more than 5 points only when there is human evidence of an effect on weight.
Four bands
- Low risk75–100
- Moderate50–74
- High30–49
- Very high0–29
Example: a cereal bar with added sugar (−20), 18 g of sugar per 100 g (medium, −4) and Nutri-Score D (−5) scores 71, moderate.
Nutrient traffic lights
Sugar, saturated fat and salt per 100 g, coloured with the UK's front-of-pack thresholds. The measured values overrule the words: a label that mentions salt but contains 0.05 g is never flagged for sodium.
| Per 100 g | Low | Medium | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar | ≤ 5 g | 5.1–22.5 g | > 22.5 g |
| Saturated fat | ≤ 1.5 g | 1.6–5 g | > 5 g |
| Salt | ≤ 0.3 g | 0.31–1.5 g | > 1.5 g |
Thresholds: UK Food Standards Agency front-of-pack guidance (2016). Drinks use lower cut-offs per 100 ml.
The watchlist
Twelve ingredients, each with the research behind it
These are the ingredients and food groups the scanner looks for, ranked by how strongly the evidence links them to weight gain. Tap any of them in the app to read the studies and the swaps.
-
01
Very high
Sugar-sweetened drinks
In adult trials, adding sugary drinks raised body weight; cohorts link each extra daily serving to more weight gain.
-
02
Very high
Trans fats
Partially hydrogenated oils. Linked to weight gain over eight years in the Nurses' Health Study, and to belly fat in a six-year monkey study.
-
03
High
Ultra-processed foods
In a controlled NIH trial, people ate about 500 kcal a day more on an ultra-processed diet and gained weight.
-
04
High
Added and refined sugars
Pooled trials: cutting free sugars lowers weight slightly, adding them raises it, mainly through the extra calories.
-
05
High
High-fructose corn syrup
Roughly half glucose, half fructose. Affects weight mainly when it adds extra calories.
-
06
Medium
Refined grains
A small, borderline link with overweight; whole grains and fibre are linked to lower body weight.
-
07
Medium
Excess saturated fat
Energy-dense; flagged only when the measured level is not low.
-
08
Medium
Processed meats
Each extra daily serving was linked to about 0.4 kg more weight gain every four years in three large US cohorts.
-
09
Low
Artificial sweeteners
Randomised trials found no effect on BMI. Cohorts link regular use to higher BMI, which may reflect who chooses diet products.
-
10
Low
Added flavourings
Increase how much is eaten in animal studies. No human data yet, so it costs the minimum.
-
11
Low
Emulsifiers
Some altered gut bacteria and caused weight gain in mice. Effects on weight in people are unknown.
-
12
Low
Excess salt
Mainly a blood-pressure concern; counted only above 1.5 g of salt per 100 g.
What the research finds
Three numbers from the studies behind the watchlist.
~500 kcal
more eaten per day on an ultra-processed diet than on an unprocessed one, in a controlled inpatient trial.
Hall et al., Cell Metabolism, 2019
0.85 kg
average weight gained by adults in trials that added sugar-sweetened drinks.
Malik et al., Am J Clin Nutr, 2013
0.4 kg
more weight gain every four years for each extra daily serving of processed meat.
Mozaffarian et al., NEJM, 2011
Inside the app
What if the secret to eating better isn't eating less, but knowing more?
Four tabs: Today, Scan, Lab and Journal. No calorie counting, no diary to fill in.
Meal scanner, on your iPhone
Point it at a plate. Apple's on-device image recognition names the foods, and the meal is scored like a product. No upload, works in airplane mode.
Your week at a glance
Today shows your seven-day average score, how it moved against last week, and your recent scans.
Myth or fact?
A quiz of 19 questions, each grounded in one verified study. Five explainers show how sugar, processing and labels work.
XP, streaks and badges
Earn XP for scanning, reading studies and answering quizzes. Fourteen badges reward curiosity; none rewards eating less or a lower weight.
History and compare
Every scan is kept on your device. Put two products side by side to see which one is the better choice, and why.
Real screens
This is the actual app
No mockups: screenshots of the real app, running on demo data.
-
A result, step by step -
Sugar in cubes, and the traffic lights -
Today: your seven-day score -
Lab: Myth or fact? -
Flagged ingredients and healthier swaps -
Two products, head to head -
Journal: history and compare -
Today: your seven-day score -
Book mode: the scanner beside the result
Every screen you own
iPhone, iPad, iPhone Duo and Apple Watch
The layout follows the space it gets: one column on iPhone, two or three on iPad, and nothing drawn under a foldable's hinge.
-
iPhone
Scan, Today, Lab and Journal, with Liquid Glass controls over the camera.
-
iPad
Two and three columns, Split View and multiple windows.
-
iPhone Duo
Half-open in book mode: the scanner on one side, the result on the other.
-
Apple Watch
Your score, streak, recent scans, a quick quiz and a sugar converter, plus complications for your watch face.
An Android version for phones, tablets, foldables and Wear OS is in preparation.
The science
Every claim in the app links to the paper it came from
Every reference was checked against its DOI, PubMed record and abstract. Animal studies say which animal, observational links are not called causes, and trials that found no effect say so.
In a 4-week inpatient crossover trial, 20 adults ate about 500 kcal a day more on an ultra-processed diet and gained about 0.9 kg in two weeks.
In adult trials, adding sugary drinks raised weight by about 0.85 kg; in cohorts, each extra daily serving was linked to more weight gain in children and adults.
Cutting free sugars lowered adult weight (about 0.8 kg) and adding them raised it; swapping sugars for other carbohydrates at equal calories did not change weight.
In 120,877 US adults, each extra daily serving of processed meat was linked to about 0.4 kg more weight gain every four years.
In 41,518 women, increases in animal, saturated and trans fat intake were linked to weight gain over eight years; total fat only weakly.
Randomised trials showed no significant effect of low-calorie sweeteners on BMI; cohort studies linked regular use to modestly higher BMI, an association rather than proof of cause.
Trials showed lower body weight with more fibre, and cohorts showed the greatest benefit at 25–29 g of fibre a day.
In mice, the emulsifiers carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80 altered gut bacteria and caused low-grade inflammation and weight gain.
108 languages
Nutrition science shouldn't only be in English
This site speaks 108 languages, and the app more than ninety, from the most spoken to the rarely served.
🇬🇧EnglishEnglish🇪🇸EspañolSpanish🇨🇳简体中文Chinese (Simplified)🇹🇼繁體中文Chinese (Traditional)🇮🇳हिन्दीHindi🇸🇦العربيةArabic🇵🇹PortuguêsPortuguese🇧🇩বাংলাBengali🇷🇺РусскийRussian🇯🇵日本語Japanese🇩🇪DeutschGerman🇫🇷FrançaisFrench🇵🇰اردوUrdu🇮🇩Bahasa IndonesiaIndonesian🇮🇹ItalianoItalian🇰🇷한국어Korean🇹🇷TürkçeTurkish🇻🇳Tiếng ViệtVietnamese🇵🇱PolskiPolish🇺🇦УкраїнськаUkrainian🇳🇱NederlandsDutch🇹🇭ไทยThai🇮🇷فارسیPersian🇷🇴RomânăRomanian🇬🇷ΕλληνικάGreek🇨🇿ČeštinaCzech🇸🇪SvenskaSwedish🇭🇺MagyarHungarian🇮🇱עבריתHebrew🇩🇰DanskDanish🇫🇮SuomiFinnish🇳🇴NorskNorwegian🇸🇰SlovenčinaSlovak🇧🇬БългарскиBulgarian🇭🇷HrvatskiCroatian🇷🇸СрпскиSerbian🇱🇹LietuviųLithuanian🇸🇮SlovenščinaSlovenian🇱🇻LatviešuLatvian🇪🇪EestiEstonian🇲🇾Bahasa MelayuMalay🇵🇭FilipinoFilipino🇰🇪KiswahiliSwahili🇮🇳தமிழ்Tamil🇮🇳తెలుగుTelugu🇮🇳मराठीMarathi🇮🇳ગુજરાતીGujarati🇮🇳ಕನ್ನಡKannada🇮🇳മലയാളംMalayalam🇮🇳ਪੰਜਾਬੀPunjabi🇮🇳ଓଡ଼ିଆOdia🇮🇳অসমীয়াAssamese🇳🇵नेपालीNepali🇱🇰සිංහලSinhala🇲🇲မြန်မာBurmese🇰🇭ខ្មែរKhmer🇱🇦ລາວLao🇬🇪ქართულიGeorgian🇪🇹አማርኛAmharic🇦🇲ՀայերենArmenian🇦🇿AzərbaycanAzerbaijani🇰🇿ҚазақшаKazakh🇺🇿OʻzbekchaUzbek🇰🇬КыргызчаKyrgyz🇹🇯ТоҷикӣTajik🇹🇲TürkmençeTurkmen🇲🇳МонголMongolian🇦🇫پښتوPashto🏳️KurdîKurdish🇵🇰سنڌيSindhi🇮🇸ÍslenskaIcelandic🇮🇪GaeilgeIrish🏴CymraegWelsh🏴GàidhligScottish Gaelic🇲🇹MaltiMaltese🇱🇺LëtzebuergeschLuxembourgish🏳️EuskaraBasque🏳️CatalàCatalan🏳️GalegoGalician🇦🇱ShqipAlbanian🇲🇰МакедонскиMacedonian🇧🇦BosanskiBosnian🇧🇾БеларускаяBelarusian🇿🇦AfrikaansAfrikaans🇿🇦isiZuluZulu🇿🇦isiXhosaXhosa🇱🇸SesothoSesotho🇳🇬YorùbáYoruba🇳🇬IgboIgbo🇳🇬HausaHausa🇸🇴SoomaaliSomali🇷🇼KinyarwandaKinyarwanda🇲🇼ChichewaChichewa🇲🇬MalagasyMalagasy🇭🇹Kreyòl AyisyenHaitian Creole🏛️LatinaLatin🌍EsperantoEsperanto🇮🇩Basa JawaJavanese🇮🇩Basa SundaSundanese🇵🇭CebuanoCebuano🏳️HmoobHmong🇳🇿Te Reo MāoriMaori🇼🇸Gagana SamoaSamoan🌺ʻŌlelo HawaiʻiHawaiian🏳️FryskFrisian🕎ייִדישYiddish🏳️ТатарчаTatar🇲🇻ދިވެހިDhivehi
Full right-to-left layout for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu, Yiddish and more.
Private by design
What you scan stays on your device
Your scan history, progress and settings are stored on your iPhone. Meal photos are recognised on the phone and never uploaded. Only a barcode number is sent, to OpenFoodFacts, to look the product up. Your Apple Watch gets its summary straight from your iPhone.
- No account
- Meal photos never uploaded
- No ads, no analytics, no tracking
- Works offline, except barcode lookups
FAQ
Frequently asked
No. There is no diary to fill in and nothing to count. Skinny Scanning shows what is in a product or a meal, how strongly research links it to weight gain, and what to swap it for.
Skinny Scanning starts with a 3-day free trial. After that, Skinny Scanning Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription sold by Apple; Apple shows the price in your currency before you subscribe, and you can cancel anytime in your Apple Account settings. There are no ads.
Apple's image recognition runs on your iPhone and names what it sees, such as a burger, fries or a salad. Skinny Scanning maps those foods to the ingredients they usually contain and scores the meal. The photo never leaves your phone. It is an estimate: for packaged food, the barcode and the label are more precise.
From OpenFoodFacts, a free, open database of food products. When the measured sugar, saturated fat and salt are available, they overrule the words on the ingredient list.
Yes, except for barcode lookups, which need the internet. The meal scanner, your history, the Lab and the research database all work in airplane mode.
No. Skinny Scanning is an educational tool. It does not diagnose, treat or manage any condition. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing your diet, especially if you have a medical condition, are pregnant or have a history of eating disorders.
Another question? Write to us: support@skinnyscanning.com
Eat with knowledge. Live with freedom.
Try it free for 3 days, then start with the sample products in the Scan tab: no camera needed to see your first result.
They told you losing weight was all about willpower.
They were wrong.
You can't change what you don't understand.
Stop guessing what you eat. Start seeing it.
- Stop blaming your willpower. Start understanding your food.
- Every food has a story. One barcode scan reveals the numbers.
- You've tried eating less. You've tried harder. But have you ever really looked at what you're eating?
- What if the secret to eating better isn't eating less, but knowing more?
- Your eyes see food. Skinny Scanning sees what's in it.
Eat with knowledge. Live with freedom.
Skinny Scanning — Scan your food. Understand your choices. Take control.