Food Scanner

Scan food labels for additives, allergens, and ingredient context.

Lychee helps people inspect packaged foods by translating dense ingredient lists into clearer signals: what is in the product, why an ingredient may be used, and what caveats matter.

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Food Label Signals

What Lychee can help you notice.

Additives

Colorants, preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, flavors, and other ingredient categories that are easy to miss on a long label.

Allergens

Common allergen terms and label clues. Lychee can help you look, but it cannot guarantee that a food is safe for someone with an allergy.

Processing cues

Ingredient-list patterns that can suggest a more processed product, while still leaving room for context such as serving size and overall diet.

Common Use Cases

For shoppers who want the label translated before checkout.

Food labels can be technically correct and still hard to understand. Lychee gives people a faster way to inspect ingredient names, compare products, and decide when they want to read more.

The app is especially useful when a product has unfamiliar additives, a very long ingredient list, or a mismatch between front-of-package marketing and the actual label.

Food Data Limits

Barcode matches are helpful, not perfect.

Packaged food databases may include older product records, missing ingredient lists, incomplete nutrition fields, or regional variations. Manufacturers can also change formulas without changing the barcode immediately.

Lychee's scan should be treated as a decision-support tool: fast, useful, and worth checking against the current physical label.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

Is the Lychee food scanner free?

Yes. Lychee is free to download on iOS and Android, and core barcode scanning works without an account, ads, or subscription.

How does Lychee score packaged food?

Lychee looks at processing level (including NOVA classification signals), additive safety ratings, allergen terms, heavy-metal risk estimates, and blood-sugar impact, then summarizes the result in plain language. Calories are not part of the score.

Can Lychee detect allergens for me?

Lychee highlights common allergen terms on labels, but it cannot guarantee a product is safe. Always read the package and follow your clinician’s advice.

Does Lychee work if a product has no barcode?

Yes. Besides barcodes, Lychee can read ingredient lists directly from the label, which also helps with products that are missing from databases.