Can the Food Compass Point You in the Right Direction?

There’s been a lot of buzz in the food and nutrition industry this month over a newly released food scoring system developed by researchers at Tufts University, called the Food Compass.

We’ve seen scoring systems like this come and go in the past. Perhaps you remember seeing star-ratings or stop-light colors attached to shelves in grocery stores. The goal of these systems is to give consumers a quick and easy way to assess the healthfulness of foods. 

Of course, simplicity always comes with a cost. Food is complex stuff and the ways in which it affects our bodies are even more complex. Trying to reduce these impacts to a simple score is always going to end up being, well, reductionist. In any event, I’m not sure that these scoring systems have ever made a lasting impact on buying behavior.

Pros and cons of nutrient scoring systems

How is the Food Compass Score calculated?

According to the developers, the Food Compass Score improves on these past systems in several important ways. It incorporates a broader range of food principles, applying consistent criteria across multiple food categories, and—unlike some other systems—the methodology used to produce the ratings is completely transparent.

The algorithm assesses foods in 9 different areas—including the nutrient content, nutrient ratios (such as the ratio of fiber to carbohydrate or potassium to sodium), the degree of processing, quality of ingredients, and additives—and produces a score between 1 (least healthy) and 100 (most healthy).

How to use the Food Compass 

Foods that are ranked 70 and higher are encouraged. Foods with a score between 30 and 70 are OK if eaten in moderation. Foods scoring lower than 30 are supposed to minimized.

They rated some 8,000 foods, including everything from fresh eggs to ready-to-eat breakfast cereals to snacks to fully prepared frozen meals. 

Critics have been quick to point out ratings that would seem to throw the validity of this system into question. For example, a nonfat cappuccino rates a 73 (encouraged!) while a grilled skinless chicken breast rates only a 61 (don’t eat too often!).

Watermelon scores a perfect 100 while cheddar cheese is a to-be-minimized 28. Cheerios are a 95 but corn flakes rate only 19. Despite the fact that the degree of processing is heavily weighted in the system, sweet potato chips and cooked whole-grain bulgur both have the same rating (69).

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