Updated Food Compass 2.0 improves food health ratings using new diet data

Food Compass 2.0 redefines how foods and beverages are rated for healthfulness, integrating the latest research on nutrients and diet-health relationships to guide smarter eating choices worldwide.

Study: Food Compass 2.0 is an improved nutrient profiling system to characterize healthfulness of foods and beverages. Image Credit: Adri Yadam Nasir / Shutterstock.com

Food Compass is a nutrient profiling system (NPS) that has been shown to accurately assess the healthfulness of various foods and beverages. A recent Nature Food study updated Food Compass by incorporating new data on recent diet-health evidence and specific ingredients.

NPS and Food Compass

The increasing incidence of diet-related non-communicable diseases emphasizes the need for effective population-level strategies. NPSs have been developed to evaluate the healthfulness of foods and beverages through quantitative algorithms.

To promote healthier eating habits, NPSs are being widely used by industries and governments during the development of menu labeling, eligibility for health claims, and portfolio reformulation targets. Nevertheless, NPSs are associated with numerous limitations, including a lack of assessment of many food ingredients, omission of processing characteristics, focus on primarily negative nutrients, scoring according to food weight, and inconsistent scoring across food categories.

In an effort to address these limitations, Food Compass, which was developed in 2021, provided a more universal and balanced assessment of foods and beverages. Food Compass limits subjectivity, scores mixed foods and meals, increases consistency, and is more closely associated with health risk factors. However, to maintain the advantages of Food Compass, it is crucial to revise this system using new and emerging data and scientific feedback from the community.

About the study

Original Food Compass scores (FCSs) were compared with the updated Food Compass 2.0 for 9,273 unique foods and beverages from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset. Key data updates included information on added sugar in the food ingredient domain, new data on additives like artificial sweeteners, neutral scoring for fruit and vegetable juice as food ingredients, greater scoring weight to dietary fiber and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, and reduced scoring weight for dairy fat as a negative attribute.

FCS scales ranged from one to 100 to reflect the least healthy and most nutritious foods, respectively. Foods with FCSs greater than or equal to 70 are highly encouraged for consumption, whereas FCSs between 31 and 69 represent foods that should be consumed in moderation, and foods with FCS less than 31 must be minimally consumed.

Study findings

The comparison between Food Compass and Food Compass 2.0 indicated similar mean FCSs for some major food groups, including nuts, legumes, and sauces/condiments. However, a mean FCS decline was observed for cold cereals, cereal bars, plant-based dairy, and fruit and vegetable juices. An increase in mean FCSs was observed in beef, pork, seafood, lamb, eggs, rice, and pasta.

Variations in FCSs were also observed within certain food subcategories. For example, a whole fried egg without fat exhibited an increased FCS from 48 to 62, whereas an egg substitute decreased in score from 50 to 45. Most legumes, seafood, nuts, vegetables, and fruits scored 70 or more, whereas minimal scoring items often included those with high added sugars or other additives.

Although NPSs like Health Star Rating (HSR), Nutri-Score, NOVA processing classification, and Food Compass 2.0 exhibit significant overlap, notable differences exist between these systems. For example, products with the highest and lowest FCSs in HSR differed from Food Compass 2.0, whereas more modest intercorrelations were observed between Food Compass 2.0 and NOVA for all categories.

Food Compass 2.0 performed well when the scores of individual food products were extended to score individuals’ daily diets. These scores were correlated with health outcomes.

Utilizing a nationally representative dataset comprising 47,099 United States adults, the energy-weighted average FCSs of foods and beverages consumed by each individual was calculated and referred to as i.FCS. The i.FCS estimates are highly correlated with HEI-2015, thereby validating healthy dietary patterns.

Multiple variables were adjusted, including body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), total cholesterol to HDL-C ratio, fasting plasma glucose, and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). The updated i.FCS was also associated with a lower all-cause mortality.

Conclusions

Food Compass 2.0 successfully characterized food items based on healthfulness and validity against healthful dietary patterns and outcomes.

The validity of Food Compass 2.0 has also been demonstrated in countries like Greece, Korea, and China. Additional collaborations have been established to incorporate Food Compass 2.0 in other regions of the world.