Ever wondered what’s really in your food? Well, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, is helping us learn just what we’re putting in our mouths—it created a huge new website and mobile app that give users on-demand nutritional info about more than 80,000 different food products, Time.com reports.
Titled “EWG’s Food Scores: Rate Your Plate,” the database gives rankings on products from more than 1,500 brands. The criteria used cover nutrition, ingredients, food additives and even how processed the food product is. In addition, the rankings are designed to help consumers make healthy choices while shopping for groceries.
When you’re mobile, the free app for your smartphone provides this info with a quick scan of the food’s barcode. Users can see measurements of everything from BPA levels and the amount of antibiotics in the food to the quantity of pesticide residue in certain popular products.
On the site, each product is ranked on a scale from 1 to 10 that places the food in a zones shaded in colors from green to red (or most to least nutritious). Interestingly, only 18 percent of foods tested fell in the EWG’s nutrient-rich “green zone.”. Most products—57 percent,—fell into the “yellow” and “orange” zones, and 25 percent wound up in in the “red” zone, the least nourishing fare.
In addition, 58 percent of all the products tested contained added sugar and 46 percent included natural and artificial flavors. (Legally, these ingredients needn’t be disclosed on traditional food labels.)
The EWG also has a list of the most pesticide-laden produce on supermarket shelves. Click here for more info.
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