The food scanner app that shows you what’s really inside.
Tallow is a barcode scanner for healthy eating — point your iPhone at any grocery product and get a full breakdown in seconds: seed oils flagged, NOVA ultra-processing score, harmful additives called out, and lab-tested contaminant data (microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals) sourced and cited. The seed oil app that doesn’t just flag — it explains.
Loved by 1,000+ users.
One scan. Every signal that actually matters.
Most food ingredient scanner apps stop at a traffic-light score. Tallow shows its work — every seed oil identified by name, every additive cross-referenced against EU bans and FDA flags, every NOVA group explained, and every lab finding cited back to its source. It’s the ingredient checker built for people who want receipts, not just ratings.
Find seed oil free restaurants near you.
A crowd-sourced map that scores every restaurant on what they actually cook with — before you walk in. Open the map, filter for what matters, and see scored spots around you in seconds. It’s live in the app today.
- Filter by rated, green-only, additive-free, or seed-oil-free
- Color-coded scores on every restaurant near you
- Submit and rate your local spots
Scan a barcode. See what’s really inside.
The barcode scanner reads ingredient labels and translates them into plain English — every additive flagged, every NOVA group shown, every red dye called out.
- Every product gets a NOVA group (1–4) and a 0–100 Tallow score in seconds
- Cross-checked against open ingredient databases & EU bans
- Kid-Safe Mode and Smart Swaps built in
Lab data, surfaced on every scan.
Every scan pulls published lab data from EWG, Consumer Reports, FDA testing, PubMed studies, and oasishealth.app — microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals, and pesticide residue, scored and cited right on the product page.
- Contaminant breakdown on every product — microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals
- Every figure cited back to its published source
- Beneficial ingredients counted too, not just the bad
The Tallow Score
The seed oil app with a score you can audit.
The 0–100 score is built on four weighted pillars — seed oils, additives, processing level (NOVA), and plastic exposure — then tuned by sourcing signals like organic, grass-fed, and wild-caught. Reproducible. Anyone can audit the methodology.
Seed Oils
We track soybean, canola, corn, sunflower, and safflower oils — visible and hidden.
Additives
Cross-referenced against EU bans, FDA flags, and peer-reviewed harm data.
Processing Level
We score every product on the NOVA scale (1–4). Ultra-processed foods get flagged on sight.
Plastic Exposure
Containers, linings, packaging, and lab-confirmed microplastic & PFAS levels.
Plus sourcing signals
Avoid
0–49
Watch
50–74
Safe
75–100
How it works
Three steps, one cleaner kitchen.
From a tap on the phone to a better choice at checkout — Tallow is the barcode scanner for healthy eating that keeps every step transparent. Whether you’re avoiding seed oils, ultra-processed food, or checking for microplastics and PFAS, each claim is cited and auditable.
Scan a barcode
Point your iPhone at any grocery product. The Tallow score lands in seconds — or open the map to see scored restaurants near you.
See the receipts
Drill into the score: which seed oils are used, which additives flagged, which packaging contacted your food. Every claim is cited.
Choose better
Smart Swaps surfaces a cleaner alternative on the same shelf. Toggle Kid-Safe Mode to double the penalty on harmful ingredients.
FAQ
Questions, answered straight.
Tallow is live on the App Store. It includes the barcode scanner, the 0–100 Tallow score with full NOVA classification, harmful-ingredient flagging (seed oils, additives, dyes, synthetic sweeteners), Smart Swaps (a cleaner alternative on the same shelf), Kid-Safe Mode (doubles the penalty on harmful ingredients for kid food), the Lab Tested badge, saved/scan history, and the new restaurant map — the same Tallow lens for places to eat near you, scored by the community. Contaminant data — microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals, pesticide residue — is surfaced inside each scan with citations to the underlying source.
The restaurant map just shipped — same Tallow score, but for places to eat. Next, in roughly this order: (1) Tallow-commissioned lab panels and a browsable reports archive on the web; (2) Android and a web app. Join the waitlist and we'll email you when each goes live.
Industrial seed oils — soybean, canola, corn, sunflower, safflower — are heavily refined and dominate ultra-processed food. Independent of the inflammation debate, Tallow flags them because they're the clearest signal of careful sourcing: products and kitchens that avoid them almost always also avoid the additives and packaging Tallow penalizes. The scanner highlights every seed oil in an ingredient list, and the restaurant map applies the same lens to places to eat near you.
Yuka is great for packaged groceries but doesn't penalize NOVA 4 ultra-processing, doesn't surface microplastic/PFAS contaminant data, and doesn't ship a Kid-Safe Mode. Tallow does all three on every scan — and the score breakdown shows every penalty line-by-line, no black boxes.
Every product starts at 100 and earns deductions for what's in it: NOVA 4 (−10), NOVA 3 (−5), each harmful ingredient (−5), each contaminant over the regulatory limit (up to −30), likely microplastics (−5) or confirmed (−10), likely PFAS (−8) or confirmed (−15). Kid-Safe Mode roughly doubles the harmful-ingredient and contaminant penalties. The full methodology is published at tallow.app/how-we-score — nothing hidden, no paid placements.
NOVA is the standard food-classification system used in nutrition research. Group 1 is unprocessed (vegetables, meat), Group 2 is culinary ingredients (oil, butter), Group 3 is processed foods (cheese, bread), and Group 4 is ultra-processed (sodas, packaged snacks, fast food). Tallow surfaces the NOVA group on every product so you don't have to read the label twice.
Today, Tallow synthesizes published lab data and peer-reviewed research from EWG, Consumer Reports, FDA testing, PubMed-indexed studies, oasishealth.app, and oliveapp.com — every citation is linked from the product page. We don't run our own labs in v1.0. Tallow-commissioned panels (bottled water, takeout containers, oil oxidation on restaurant cooking oils) are on the roadmap as a separate feature.
Tallow is free to download. The scanning, scoring, contaminant data, NOVA breakdown, Smart Swaps, Kid-Safe Mode, and scan history are part of Tallow Premium ($19.99/year, auto-renewing — start a free trial in-app). The restaurant map is free.
The Premium subscription on the scanner. We will never accept payment from the brands or restaurants we rate.
Not yet — iPhone only today. Android and a web app are on the roadmap. Join the waitlist and we'll email you when each one ships.
Available now
Get the seed oil free food scanner app — live on iPhone now.
iOS is live on the App Store. Join the waitlist for Android or web and we’ll email you the moment they go live — nothing else.