The Best Food Scanning Smart Phone App for Home and Supermarket

Dr. Gary Pepper welcomes Julie Ruelle, RDN a representative of GoCoCo, a company developing cutting-edge tools to help people eat smarter. Their discussion centers on a rapidly escalating health hazard: ultra-processed food. From the dangers they pose to their pervasiveness in the modern diet, Julie and Dr. Pepper explore how GoCoCo’s AI-powered food scanner app can help consumers detect and avoid these dietary minefields.
Julie shares alarming statistics—unhealthy eating now causes more deaths annually than smoking. Despite widespread consumption, most people underestimate their intake of ultra-processed foods because of confusion around what qualifies. Using GoCoCo’s app, users can scan packaged foods or use the app to scan their meals to receive a "health score" and ultra-processed rating. The app doesn't stop there—it also tracks your habits, offers healthier alternatives, and provides personalized progress reports.
A live demonstration shows how the app analyzes meals instantly, recognizing ingredients, scoring nutritional quality, and suggesting improvements. With both free and premium features, GoCoCo empowers users to make better decisions in real time and build healthier habits over weeks and months.
This episode is an eye-opener for anyone trying to eat healthier, especially those struggling with misleading food marketing. Whether you're a parent, patient, or health-conscious consumer, this podcast delivers actionable solutions.

Listeners are offered 1 year free of the premium version of the GoCoCo app using the code DRPEPPER. This offer is made through the app owner COCO POSITIVO SL. All communications regarding the app should be made to  gabriel@gococo.app

Apple: IOS users can obtain the free Premium version of the GoCoCo app from the Apple App Store using this link which already includes the exclusive DRPEPPER code: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=1446005742&code=DRPEPPER. The link provides the premium version for 1 year and can be cancelled at any time.

Android: Android users can download the GoCoCo app at the Google Play Store and by entering the code DRPEPPER when prompted, will receive 3 months of the Premium Version for free. The code can be used 4 times to provide a whole year of free Premium service. 

Gary Pepper, M.D., an associate professor at a prominent medical school and endocrinologist with 40 years of experience, brings clarity to numerous topics within the field of metabolic health. His view points are unhindered by corporate interests, unlike many other current "thought leaders" in medicine. Dr. Pepper, a dedicated educator, established his homebase website www.metabolism.com in 1996 and has blogged on important topics since then. Not one to be left behind by technology he began podcasting in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic and continues publishing vlogs on YouTube at his channel metabolism123. So whatever your choice in media, you will be gaining fresh insights by tuning in to his opinionated shows or reading his blogs on critical health topics.

Transcript

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 Hey there, welcome back. This is Dr. Gary Pepper, and we're at Dr. Pepper, really.

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 And we are fortunate today to have Julie Rule of the innovative nutrition company Go Coco with us today. And we'll be exploring a brand new innovative app that the company came out with that helps us eat healthier.

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 And that's one of the missions of her company, and she'll be explaining all that.

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 And I want to mention though, that this is not a sponsored show, but the good news for listeners is that at the end, if you hang around, Julie will give us information about how you can get her premium version of the Go Coco app, which you'll learn about in one second.

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 So hang around and she'll provide all that information. So welcome, Julie, it's great to have you with us today.

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 Hi, thank you, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

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 Sure, I'm very impressed with your new app and I've been using it and it has surprised me how informative it is and how easy it is to use.

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 So it's gonna be a great advantage to those who are listening to be able to analyze their food consumption and the products that they buy to avoid the hazards.

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 And in particular, I wanted to mention what we're gonna be focused on is ultra-processed food. I wasn't really aware of the hazards of ultra-processed food until recently.

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 And the more I look into it, the more concerned I am about it.

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 And using your app made it really easy to identify these kinds of hazards. So can you explain a little bit more about the mission of Go Coco and your app?

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 Yes, I'd love to. So our mission is simple yet powerful. It's to transform the lives of people by helping them improve their diet.

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 And just to talk a little bit more about that, it's a staggering stat, but unhealthy eating and its related diseases is actually now killing more people per year than smoking. And that's alarming, but it's true. And

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 there's things that we can do about it. So we're on a mission to make spotting unhealthy foods and learning better alternatives easier.

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 We have an app where you can scan any food in the supermarket or take a picture of anything you're eating and get insights about that food. You'll get a health score rating from one to 10 based on nutrition and also the degree of ultra processing, which I know we're gonna talk a lot more about what that means as we go on today.

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 And it also lets you know the percentage of your meal that's fruits and vegetables. And like I said, it gives you actionable advice. So we're not just judging what you're eating, we're actually helping you make better food choices the more you use the app. Great, and as any new technology,

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 I know it's getting better and better. I know it's getting better as you adjust and make improvements. And I've been using it for the past few weeks. And there is just a little bit of a learning curve, but it's really quite easy. And we'll be demonstrating how to use that app in a minute. And as far as the ultra processed foods and their health risks, I came across an article, which was a global international article saying that the higher the amount of ultra processed food in the diet, the increased risk of variety of deaths can occur. So I also came across some information that there's different degrees of ultra processed foods. And maybe can you explain that a little bit?

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 Yes, I sure can. So it is confusing. It's a newer term and it's something that I think people are becoming more aware of and are hearing about more often. And there's definitely confusion around what is it and what isn't it. Surprisingly, over 70% of the products available in supermarkets right now are considered ultra processed. But only 19% of consumers polled say they regularly consume ultra processed foods. So that definitely shows us that there's a little bit of confusion around what that is. So what is an ultra processed food? Well, there's a few ways to identify one. Typically it's something you wouldn't have in your home kitchen and maybe it's something your grandparents wouldn't even recognize as food. There's a difference between processed and ultra processed. Processed is things like frozen or canned vegetables. So very minimally processed things that extend shelf life.

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 Wheat that's been ground into flour for pasta and cereals. Milk that's made into cheese or yogurt. But it becomes ultra processed when we add additives, dyes, preservatives, things that aren't adding any nutritional value or qualities. But they are improving maybe appearance or shelf life or taste. They're generally inexpensive and they can even be a bit addictive. In other words, there's different degrees of ultra processed and clearly the more chemicals and stuff that gets added.

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 The higher the rating, I guess you might say, of the ultra processed food.

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 Is that how it works? Things that are unnaturally shiny, glossy, skittles. You know, they make a rainbow, but none of those colors are coming from nature. Not to pick on just one food company because all of the major food companies are using these dyes and additives. So if it doesn't really look like it would in nature, there's a really good chance that there's ultra processed dyes in that product. So what would be an example of really the highest rating of ultra processed?

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 It would be a food that has a lot of ultra processed markers in there. And when you look at a food ingredient label, you want to see a few ingredients, things that you can recognize and pronounce, kind of going back to things that you'd have in your home kitchen. When you see something that has a really long ingredient list and there's a lot of things you can't pronounce on there and there's a lot of colors and maybe added sugars or artificial sugars, just a really long list of things that you don't recognize as food or you wouldn't cook with. That's a really good clue that there's ultra processed ingredients in that food item. I see. And what comes to mind for me is breakfast cereals, particularly for kids. Would you say that that's a big sore spot in ultra processed?

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 Absolutely. Yeah. So not only is there a ton of processed grains and added sugars in kids breakfast cereals, but there's also a lot of those dyes as well.

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 So it's probably think of a few just right off the top of our head, like tricks and Froot Loops and things like that. Those are not naturally colored.

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 Cereals and those are certainly having a lot of those dyes and additives in there that are in national conversations to potentially ban some of them right now because there are known side effects and behavioral issues linked to children. Right. That's really crucial, right? You want to have your kids start the day with both feet on the ground, not like going haywire because of what's in their breakfast cereal. I think all children have heard breakfast is the most important part of your day. So please eat your breakfast. And then it turns out that they're consuming stuff that really doesn't really

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 interact too well with their bodies. So we really need to know as much as possible about how we can improve the children's foods as well. So I think we would really benefit now if we could demonstrate to our listeners how this app works. And for those of you who are on audio, we're going to try to make it as clear cut as possible. So I have downloaded the app. And in fact, I have it right here in front of me. What a coincidence, right? So let's see now. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to share my screen. And this way, for those of you who are watching, you can actually see what it is that I'll be analyzing with the Go Coco app.

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 And then we'll share that. Okay. Can you see that? I can see it. I think we're good. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go on the app. Here it is. And I'm going to hit the bottom little tab that says track. And now I'm going to go to, let's call it lunch. I'm going to add lunch. And I'm going to actually use the screenshot here. And I know this was your lunch, right? So it's not fake food. Okay, there we go. Okay. So now I choose that. And it's analyzing. Here we go.

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 The brains behind this is now giving me a report. That was quick, right? So wow. You got a score of zero on the ultra process. And fruits and vegetables came out at 60%. And the app is telling me that's great. And the nutritional estimates is that it's 380 calories with 25 grams of carbs. And the ingredients here, arugula, tomatoes, avocado, oil, I don't know how it knew there was oil on it, but there it is. And is it grilled chicken pieces? Yes, there is a grilled chicken in there. Okay, there we go. Grilled chicken. Okay, so then the app allows you to fix the results if I guess it got some of the ingredients wrong, right? That would be very helpful. And so I could add that to my lunch. And now we get a nice little summary of it of meal insights.

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 And now that that's going to be stored. Yes, is that how it will work? So we can keep track. That's how we can keep track of it. And then we can see our progress over a period of time.

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 And even there's an even a button here that says progress, right?

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 So click on the progress button. And you've been logging your meals for a couple of days, it'll give you insights into over the last 90 days over the last 30 days over the last week, it'll tell you how your percentage of ultra processed food has changed, has it gone up, has it gone down, how your fruits and vegetables progress is doing. And you probably noticed in the summary that you saw, it gives you some actionable insights like, this looks like a very healthy lunch next time, consider a piece of fruit on the side to increase your fruit and vegetable content, or maybe it was something that wasn't quite as healthy as a grilled chicken salad. It'll give you some ideas there too. So, you know, the great thing about the app is it tracks your progress over time. So if you click on the progress tab, you can see for the last 90 days, 30 days, one week, what your ultra processed food trend is doing, is it going up, is it going down? Same thing with fruits and vegetables. And it gives you a lot of actionable advices as well. So, you know, for the salad, you probably saw in there, it'll tell you you made a good choice and tell you what's good about it with the arugula with the grilled chicken. And then it might say to complete this meal even more and increase your fruits and vegetables, you can include a side of fruit. Or if you scan something that's a little bit less healthy, maybe a sandwich that I scanned the other day, it gave me the suggestion to use whole grain bread next time to increase my fiber and decrease my ultra processed food consumption. So I really like the feature where it's helping you make better choices over time. So it's your little pocket buddy that keeps track of what you're eating and warns you when you're stepping out of line. Okay. So now can you have a premium version versus the absolutely free initial version? So what does the premium version include? So the free version has some great features. One, you can scan, take pictures of your meals like we just demonstrated. You can also use the scan feature to scan any product in the supermarket and get a rating of the food one through 10 based on its nutritional content and also the degree of ultra processing. With the free version, there's a limit of how many supermarket items you can scan per week. With the premium version, there's no limit. We also have a great feature in the app called lists where you can actually click on a lot of different categories like breakfast cereals, yogurts, milks, milk alternatives, and get the healthiest products by category, but also by store. So if you're shopping at certain supermarkets, you can click on those and see the healthiest products by category there. There's a few of those available in the free version. There's many more of them available in the premium version. So in the free version, we give everybody like the basic features, a little taste of what Go! Go! Go! can do. In the premium version, you'll get more access to unlimited features and it's just a little bit more personalized and tailored when you are able to get the premium version. Very good. So can you tell the audience how to get your coupon for the premium version? Yes, we're going to put a code specifically for this podcast in the show notes. So if you have an iOS or an Android, there's actually two different ways to get the code. So we will put the two different codes in there in the show notes for you and we can put it on the screen here too. Right. So I think we agree that the code will be Dr. Pepper. So yeah, right. So even though it's probably on your list of ultra processed foods, I know there's 23 secret ingredients in Dr. Pepper, but it's one of my favorites I have to admit. So thanks, Julie. This has been really educational for me and I want to suggest to our listeners that they put a like on the show and subscribe to the Dr. Pepper Really channel so that we can continue to bring you more insightful interviews and information. So thanks again. And I hope maybe we can follow up with you in the near future with some success stories. Thank you for having me. Bye. Bye.