The Study
Food Compass 2.0 is an improved nutrient profiling system to characterize healthfulness of foods and beverages
This study looked at what people ate and how healthy they were, and found that people who ate foods with higher Food Compass scores tended to be healthier. But it didn’t make people change their diets to see if they got healthier — so we can’t say the scores cause better health, just that they’re linked to it.
Analysis score
Maximum 0 for a computational/algorithm study.
Where the score came from
Scientists made a new scoring system that rates how healthy each food is, based on its ingredients and how much it’s processed.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 50 / 100
Quality score
Based on clinical experience or non-systematic literature reviews. The lowest level of evidence as they are most susceptible to bias and personal perspective.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — eating foods with higher Food Compass scores is linked to being healthier and living longer, even after accounting for other lifestyle factors.
- 2Foods like seafood and eggs got high scores (up to 81), while sugary cereals and sodas got low scores (as low as 1).
- 3People who ate more high-score foods had 24% lower risk of dying early.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Nature Food
Year
2024
Authors
Eden M. Barrett, P. Shi, Jeffrey B. Blumberg, Meghan O’Hearn, R. Micha, D. Mozaffarian
Related Content
Claims (6)
The Food Compass system rates foods with a single score from 1 to 100 using 54 measurable characteristics grouped into nine categories related to health.
The Food Compass Score assigns lower numbers to less healthy foods like snacks and desserts and higher numbers to healthier foods like legumes, nuts, and seeds, distinguishing between them more precisely than other food rating systems.
People who eat foods rated higher on the Food Compass 2.0 system tend to have lower body weight, lower blood pressure, lower bad cholesterol, lower blood sugar, and lower rates of metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cancer, and lung disease.
Food Compass 2.0 rates minimally processed animal foods like seafood, eggs, and lean meats higher than ultraprocessed plant-based foods, cereals, and sugary drinks, because current evidence shows dairy fat has no significant health impact and added sugar is harmful.
Food Compass 2.0 assigns more distinct scores to foods that are grouped together by other nutrition labeling systems, showing it can better tell healthy foods apart from unhealthy ones in the same category.
People with the highest Food Compass 2.0 dietary scores have a 24% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those with the lowest scores, according to data from nearly 47,100 U.S. adults.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.