The app isn’t even available yet, but people are clamoring to get it!

These days there are all kinds of information about how to stay healthy out there, but one thing that people seem to agree about, at least for now, is that you should try to decrease your consumption of sugar. Eating too much sugar is said to contribute to weight gain; increase your risks of cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and speed up the aging process. And let’s not forget that our dentists have been telling us for years that sugar is bad for our teeth!

One major high-sugar culprit is definitely soft drinks. Sodas, juices, sports drinks, and pre-bottled coffees and teas are all known to have high levels of sugar. Unfortunately, sometimes even a conscientious consumer can find it hard to visualize how much sugar is in a soft drink, even after reading a label. Luckily, there’s an app for that.

Twitter user Daiki Shimizu (@432daiki) developed an app that scans the bar code of a soft drink and gives you a visual representation of how much sugar is in it. In the video above, which he posted on Twitter, he scans the bar code of a popular Japanese soda called Mitsuya Cider. Then after a brief moment, an image of a bottle pops up, and the gauge that shows how much of the drink is sugar climbs higher and higher.

The final product also says how many cubes of sugar is in one bottle of Mitsuya Cider: 13.8, which is quite a hefty amount. When he taps “kakutei/確定 (confirm), 13 cubes of sugar drop from the top of the screen, and, with every movement of his phone, tumble around like they’re inside of a jar. The app then displays “13.8 cubes” in larger numbers, and further specifies that 13.8 cubes of sugar is 229.2 percent of the recommend daily value. Sort of makes you want to put back the soda bottle, doesn’t it?

Shimizu’s video went viral over the course of a couple of days, and he was blown away by all of the positive responses:

“This would be useful for people with diabetes. I hope it gets completed soon.”
“I want a version for salt content!”
“What a terrifying app. The drink companies are gonna come after you.”
“That’s great. I want to download it!”
“This is amazing…I’m trying to lose weight now and was just thinking I could use an app like this.”

Many netizens clamored for the name of the app and where they can get it, but Shimizu says that it was actually an app that he made a year ago and shelved for various reasons, so it’s not currently available for download. But due to popular demand, he decided to upload it to the iPhone App store, where it is currently waiting for approval, and he will likely Tweet when it’s ready to be downloaded.

The app seems to only have Japanese language accessibility, and may not work on beverages that weren’t purchased in Japan. However, since the app itself can read Japanese, it can still tell you how much sugar is in a Japanese drink even if you can’t read the language, and can help you watch your sugar intake while traveling or living in Japan.

Source: Twitter/@432daiki via Togetch
Images: Twitter/@432daiki