We integrated cool information from the new official German food portal lebensmittelklarheit.de in barcoo. Check out the German blog post if you want to.

Most of the time you can neither taste or smell it – but it’s there, hidden in many foods where we’d all least expect it: alcohol.

In Germany companies only have to designate food as containing alcohol if there is more than 1.2 percent of it in the product. Any amount less than that isn’t required to be listed on the packaging. For loosely sold products like freshly baked goods, it’s not necessary to tell consumers that there is alcohol inside. So it’s worth asking when you’re at the bakery. Often manufacturers prefer to use other names for alcohol like “ethanol” or “wine vinegar” on lists of ingredients. And although such small quantities of alcohol aren’t harmful to our bodies, it’s not good, for instance, for children to get used to the taste of alcohol at such a young age. That’s why it’s even more questionable when products designed for children – like cookies or after-school snacks – contain alcohol. A study by Austria’s Agency for Health and Food Safety found that only two of 19 the candies tested did not contain alcohol.

Since the mere taste of alcohol could trigger a relapse for alcohol-dependent people who have gone “dry”, these foods could even be questionable for them. When you use barcoo, it will automatically give you a warning if the product you’ve scanned contains “hidden” alcohol.

Some products have huge packaging but not much substance. We integrated the results of the analyses of the Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg in barcoo (in Germany). Check out the German post.

X-ray vision for rice

First and foremost: With regard to radio activity at the moment we (in Europe) can eat all food from Japan without hesitation:

• The percentage of food imports from Japan amounts in Europe to a mere .1%. Typical Japanese food like shiitake mushrooms don’t actually come from Japan, but grow in European greenhouses. The sushi consumed in Europe only rarely comes from the North Pacific.
• There is no way that potentially contaminated food could already be in Europe. Fish from Japanese waters end up on the German market no sooner than three months after being caught (according to the Bundesverband der deutschen Fischindustrie).
• Soy sauces (the most significant foodstuff import from Japan) mature in barrels and are thus safe to consume for at least another year (according to the Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg).

So there’s no reason to panic for the time being. However, some believe that in the long term there will be a danger for us European consumers. That’s why with barcoo you can find out, for example, where that fish you want to buy comes from. All you have to do is type in the catch area number and then you receive information about whether the fish comes from the North Pacific or not. At this point you can take the opportunity to see whether the type of fish is an endangered species or not. Currently, in terms of radio activity, you can eat all products from Japan. Should that change, you can find out in barcoo (and probably in every other news source out there).

By using flavoring agents many fruits get upgraded to a supposedly higher grade fruit. In this way manufacturers benefit from saving money on their purchases, but consumers are being deceived when, for example, cranberries are transformed into cherries or strawberries by using flavoring agents and sugar. Morever, fruit slurry is produced in part by using smaller pieces of fruit. As with meat slurry, fruit purées are combined together, colored and flavored.

Consumer Central Hamburg

Several smoothie and fruit slice manufacturers generate false illusions on the packaging of their products by overrepresenting the more expensive fruits instead. But if you take a look at the small print on the list of ingredients, it’s evident that this fruit often plays a less important role in terms of quantity.

If you scan one of products that have been exposed by the Consumer Central in Hamburg (German), barcoo notifies you and, if applicable, gives you a warning.

Who doesn’t prefer the taste of real, natural fruits to their artificial flavorings? As consumers, our interests are naturally different from those of the producers: when 100 kilograms of raspberry yogurt is produced with artificial flavoring, it costs six cents, while producing the same quantity with real raspberries costs about 30 euros. We aren’t trying to discredit anybody, but we want to point out what’s good.

Experts of the Consumer Advice Center in Hamburg performed a series of foodstuff analyses and has released a list of approved foods that don’t contain artificial flavoring. Since we at barcoo think this information is valuable, we’ve gone and integrated it into our database. Our rationale? Because consuming too much artificial flavoring has the following drawbacks:

Obesity: artificial flavoring stimulates the need to eat more.

Standardized flavors: many foodstuffs are over-flavored, which effects the our sense of taste. Unadulterated, natural flavors no longer taste good to children.

A lack of beneficial ingredients: when we consume artificial flavorings instead of actual fruits, we miss out on lots of vitamins and minerals.

If your smartphone runs out of batteries, try using this new fundamental “decoding help” (unfortunately only in German).

This blog post is only relevant for our German readers. It’s about the expensive Xmas versions of sweets and that you can find this information now in barcoo.

Happy holidays!

tegut… is an anthroposophical enterprise that really means well with our world and therefore pays close attention towards high quality and environmentally friendliness regarding its store brands. That is why we are excited that tegut now offers all you barcoonauts the possibility to pull up the information directly while shopping. After each tegut product is scanned, you can find next to the common neutral information clearly marked information provided by tegut (in German):

As a matter of fact, we are even more pleased with the news that in tegut’s 300 Supermarkets, there will be displays encouraging customers to scan products with barcoo. That’s cool!

We call this initiative augmented labeling and encourage other manufacturers open to the idea to join in.

Sorry, this post is not available in English. It’s about the possibility of ordering food with barcoo in Germany now. That’s quite cool for Germans as they are definitely not as used to food ecommerce as the British or the Swiss for example.

Genetically engineered foods are a permanent controversial topic with substantial pro’s and con’s. Whatever opinion one may have, we think that every consumer should be able to know what it is that he or she consumes. And since, for the time being, the EU said no to labels on groceries we’ll have to find a virtual solution – once again.

For that reason, when scanning foods, you’ll find information on whether the respective producer is using genetic engineering or not, if our sources provide these information. Cool :)

p.s. At the beginning coverage will be much better in Germany than in UK and France (where we will launch very soon). Contact us, if you have any reliable and transparent sources.