Hi,
A couple friends have shown me lately a smartphone app called Yuka to evaluate the “healthyness” of the food you buy at the market.
For some reason, it scores Plenny Shake as “Mediocre” with 27 points out of 100, mostly due to use of E917 (Potassium iodate) tagged as High Risk, and E955 and artificial flavoring, both tagged as “Limited risk”.
Aparently it’s also a little bit salty 1,09 per 100gr vs the 0,92 per 100gr.
Just to let you know.
Hi Randur,
Thank you for your message! We are indeed aware that Yuka classifies our products way below standards we would expect. Unfortunately, because of their way of standardising what healthy is and what not we have no influence on this. For the public an app like this is generally a good thing since it simplifies many choices you make while grocery shopping on a daily basis, but it has its flaws (any nutritionist will confirm this). In other words: Our meals are designed to be as healthy as scientifically possible, but apps like Yuka are not designed to dissect fairly complicated formulas like ours.
Here is a little bit more info on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/JimmyJoyFood/comments/chbi70/yuka_rated_the_twenny_bar_vanilla_24100_2/
If you would like to learn more about nutrition or our products formulas explain please see:
Hahahaha, Yuka…
Nobody knows how they calculate their score. No transparency.
Their estimation on additives is based on rumors, or very few studies. I have found other sources, saying taht E917 is safe, but hey, they choose only the warnings… Fear sells.
They are purely ideological: for them, additive, or created by humans = evil, without any compromise. Nature = good.
Last but not least: they also sell their own nutrition coaching programs. Both judge and judged, it seems legit, right?…
Yuka is based on very few scientific studies and its notation system isn’t clear. Some criteria are purely based on faith (all organics products have a bonus for instance, and all synthetic components have a malus). So no synthetic food can have a good score with this application, because it’s essentially fear mongering and biased data.
Contrary to @otto, I don’t even think Yuka is a good application for the public because it participates to propagate bad science and irrational fear about food products. And this fear can have health consequences (like useless gluten free diet for many people, with low nutritional value).
If you can read french, this is a good article about the Yuka bias: https://www.jim.fr/e-docs/yuka_trop_bio_pour_etre_vrai__181253/document_jim_plus.phtml
Hey, thanks for making us more aware about this! Because Yuka only seems active in France I don’t know all the details about it, but there have been some rumours that the Dutch “voedingscentrum” is working on introducing a similar kind of scale, the Nutri-score (which I think is also French?).
Yes the nutri-score is french, and more scientifically grounded. Their score doesn’t seem to differ between two products with the same nutrional profil.
The app is also well known in Spain aswell.
Nutri-score is science-based, all information about the protocol and algorithm is public and reviewed by peers. And its team does not sell any nutrition coaching programs. It is not a company.
Yuka is totally based on belief and faith ; it all obfuscated ; its team is a company, and sells its own nutrition coaching programs and services.
Huel products get very high scores like 90/100 and are rated as « Excellent »
JJ active is rated mediocre 49/100 due to E450 and E170
Majority of French people use Yuka
E170/ Calcium: Both Huel and Plenny Shake active use Calcium carbonate (E170) as it is an essential mineral. But I’m not sure why Yuka flags this ingredient as bad for us and not for Huel.
E450/phosphor: Both Jimmy Joy and Huel use this ingredient. Yuka classifies this essential mineral as phosphorus but we don’t actually add phosphorus…
Phosphates are essential nutrients (a form of phosphorus), which are present naturally in the human body and are an essential part of our diet. A group of substances commonly referred to as “phosphates” are authorised as food additives in the European Union.
Like @otto said before: Our meals are designed to be as healthy as scientifically possible, but apps like Yuka are not designed to dissect fairly complicated formulas like ours.
We tried contacting Yuka to fix this but they are not very responding.
This is very interesting, since in Spain Yuka app is used by many people. I have tried the app on Huel 3.0 and it doesnt even list E450. Let’s see how Yuka will respond to your questions.
Interesting! Keep us updated on any findings <3
Is there any update on this from the Yuka side? Seems like it would be quite bad for marketing and the brand name if this is still true
We’re also interested in this! 