The best food scanner apps in 2026, compared
Yuka, Oasis, Bobby Approved, Olive, Seed Oil Scout, Scout, Exposr and Tallow compared on what they can see, lab data, seed oils, restaurants and price.
Maddox Schmidlkofer
There are now more than a dozen apps that will scan a barcode and tell you whether your food is "good." They don't agree with each other, and the differences aren't random. Each app is quietly answering a different question: Is this nutritious? Is it contaminated? Does it have seed oils? Did a lab check?
So instead of ranking them by vibes, this guide sorts them by what each one can actually see, using real scans. On October 1, 2026, I scanned the same grocery products in Yuka, Oasis and Tallow on one phone. I also went through the App Store listings, pricing and published methods of every other app here.
(Disclosure: I build Tallow. Every "best food scanner" list on the internet is written by one of the apps in it, this one included. I've tried to make this the one you'd write if you didn't have a horse in the race: every app gets a "best for," including the ones that beat us on something.)
The quick comparison
| App | Best for | What it scores | Lab data | Seed oils | Restaurants | Price (US) | iOS rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yuka | Cutting sugar, salt and additives, free | Nutrition label (60%), additives (30%), organic (10%) | No | No | No | Free; Premium ~$10–20/yr | 4.8 (100K) |
| Oasis | Water, filters, supplements | Contaminants | Yes, own tests + collected | No | No | Free tier; Pro $47–70/yr | 4.8 (13K) |
| Bobby Approved | A fast, free yes/no | Approved / not approved vs. a list of flagged ingredients | No | Yes | No | Free | 4.9 (162K) |
| Olive | Food plus cosmetics with seed-oil flags | 0–100 score, ingredients | Some: says it tested ~400 products for metals | Yes | Yes | $30–70/yr | 4.8 iOS / 3.7 Android |
| Seed Oil Scout | Eating out | Restaurant cooking oils | No | Yes | Yes, its core | $25–48/yr after a 7-day trial | 4.8 (28K) |
| Scout | All-in-one with a local map | 0–100 score for food, supplements, household | Not claimed | Yes, as a map filter | Yes | Paywall, ~$30–50/yr | 4.8 (3K) |
| Exposr | Heavy-metal and plastic "risk" flags | Additives, metals, microplastics, glyphosate | No sources named | Yes | No | $4.99/wk or $30–50/yr | 4.7 (5K) |
| Tallow | Label + lab results with sources, seed oils, restaurants | 0–100 from ingredients, processing, packaging and lab-measured contaminants | Yes, with tester and source on every report | Yes | Yes | Free scanning; Premium $9.99/mo or $30–40/yr | 4.7 |
Ratings and prices from each app's US App Store listing on October 1, 2026; prices vary by offer.
What the same products got in three apps
| Product | Yuka | Oasis | Tallow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Medicinals Dandelion Root tea | 100 | 83 | 4 |
| Driscoll's strawberries | 90 | 94 | 13 |
| Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter | 30 | 80 | 100 |
| California Olive Ranch olive oil | 75 | 80 | 100 |
| Sabra Classic Hummus | 49 | 71 | 40 |
| Coca-Cola | 0 | 50 | 0 |
If you take one thing from this table: the score is only as meaningful as the question behind it. Yuka can't see the heavy-metal test on the tea, Oasis reads that test per serving and passes it, and Tallow reads it strictly and fails it. Yuka penalizes butter for saturated fat, and Tallow scores it as a two-ingredient whole food. Oasis barely weighs sugar, which is how Coke gets a 50. (The full side-by-side, with screenshots.)
The apps, one by one
Yuka: best free nutrition scanner
The original and still the biggest. Yuka reads the nutrition panel and ingredient list and turns them into a score using the Nutri-Score system plus its own additive ratings. It's free to scan, takes no money from brands, and covers cosmetics too.
Watch out for: it can't see contaminants, it doesn't distinguish seed oils from other fats, it rates all butter "Poor" by design, and search requires a paid membership. Read more: Is Yuka accurate?
Oasis: best for water and supplements
Oasis began as a bottled-water ranking app and now scores food, supplements and personal care, mainly on contaminants. It pays for some of its own lab testing, which is genuinely valuable.
Watch out for: the useful parts are paywalled ($47–70 a year). It doesn't weigh nutrition much, so a can of Coke scores 50. On the screens we checked, it doesn't say who ordered a test or which lab ran it. And it's the defendant in a federal lawsuit from LMNT alleging it misconverted a lead measurement (allegations, not findings). Read more: Yuka vs Oasis
Bobby Approved: best free yes/no
From FlavCity's Bobby Parrish, with the most App Store ratings of any app here. Scan a product and you get a simple Approved or Not Approved based on whether it contains anything on Bobby's list: seed oils, artificial dyes, certain sweeteners and more. It's completely free.
Watch out for: it's binary, so "Approved" products can still be very different from each other, and there's no lab data. It also asks you to accept its privacy policy and license before you can use it, even as a guest.
Olive: best for food plus cosmetics with seed-oil flags
A newer app (January 2025) that scores food, cosmetics and personal care from 0 to 100 and explicitly flags seed oils. It says it has run its own heavy-metal tests on around 400 products, and it includes a restaurant finder.
Watch out for: it's subscription-only after the trial, and its Google Play rating (3.7) is far below its iOS rating (4.8). App Store reviewers complain about the trial-to-annual billing. Read more: Olive app review
Seed Oil Scout: best for restaurants
A map of restaurants by the oil they cook in, with tags like grass-fed and gluten-free, plus a barcode scanner. If your main problem is eating out, it has the deepest restaurant focus here, with around 45,000 restaurants mapped according to the company.
Watch out for: the grocery side is secondary, and the map is paywalled after a 7-day trial.
Scout: best "everything" app with a local map
Scout (from Wise Concepts, launched late 2025) scores food, supplements, household and personal care items from 0 to 100, and adds a map of healthy restaurants, farms and markets with a seed-oil-free filter.
Watch out for: it's a hard paywall with a short trial, and its listing doesn't describe any lab testing.
Exposr: best for metal and plastic risk flags (with caveats)
Exposr flags additives, seed oils, heavy metals, microplastics and glyphosate, and shows who owns the brand.
Watch out for: its App Store description doesn't say where the metal and plastic data comes from, which makes it hard to tell a measured result from an estimate. It also pushes weekly billing ($4.99/week).
Tallow: best if you want the label and the lab, with sources
Tallow scores every product from 0 to 100 on its ingredients (each one rated), ultra-processing (NOVA), packaging and, when a lab has tested it, the measured contaminants. Lab-tested products get a badge, and tapping it shows every report behind the score: the lab, who paid for the test, the date and a link to the original, whether that's Lead Safe Mama, Mamavation, PlasticList, Consumer Reports, a university, the brand itself or Oasis.
On top of the score, you pick personal standards (seed oils, artificial ingredients, ultra-processed, high sugar, high carbs, risky packaging, gluten), and every product gets a clear yes or no against them. There's also a community-rated restaurant map that already covers 234 chains, about 235,000 locations, with a seed-oil-free filter, plus healthier swaps from the same aisle.
Watch out for: Tallow is strict with lab results. It compares a measured contaminant against the strictest published limit it has on file, so it will fail products Oasis passes. The raw number and the limit are always shown, so you can judge for yourself. And while scanning is free, the full ingredient breakdown and swaps are Premium.
Which food scanner should you use?
- You want free and simple: Yuka for nutrition, Bobby Approved for a yes/no.
- You care most about water: Oasis.
- You mostly eat out and avoid seed oils: Seed Oil Scout, or Tallow's map.
- You want to know what a lab actually found, and whose lab it was: Tallow.
The one test that tells them apart
Pick the most "clean" product in your kitchen, the organic tea, the protein powder, the avocado oil chips, and scan it in whichever apps you have. If they disagree, ask each one why. The app that can show you the actual reason, down to the lab report, is the one worth keeping.
That's what we built Tallow to do. Scan the things you buy every week, see the score, see the reason behind it, and when there's a lab report, see whose it is.
Method: Yuka, Oasis and Tallow were tested hands-on on a Moto G 5G (2024) on October 1, 2026. The other apps are described from their App Store and Google Play listings, published pricing and company websites as of the same date; we did not create paid accounts. Ratings are US App Store averages unless noted. Olive's Google Play rating: 3.7 from about 2,900 reviews. LMNT lawsuit: Drink LMNT, Inc. v. Live Oasis, LLC, No. 1:26-cv-00677 (D. Del.); allegations are not findings of fact.