The NutriScore | Clean & Yummy

The NutriScore explained

Nowadays, it is not easy to assess whether you are eating a healthy and balanced diet or not. Most recipes on the Internet are advertised as healthy. The various nutritional styles are declared to be the ultimate, leaving you confused and wondering what is actually healthy. But often these labels are not true, too much salt, too much sugar, too much fat. Usually a single ingredient is advertised as healthy and therefore the entire recipe is declared as healthy. But it's not that simple and that misleads many people. The vision of Clean & Yummy is to show you exactly why each recipe is healthy. To do this, we not only measure ourselves against our own standards, which you can read more in detail under Our Philosophy, but also against modern nutritional science.

Free Stock photos by Vecteezy

Finding the right index

After an extensive research in scientific journals and reports from major international food authorities, we discovered that there are several nutritional indices in the scientific literature. But finding the right index wasn't that easy. It was important to us to find an independent, scientifically developed and recognized formula that we could use to put our recipes through their paces. It is also important to say that these NutriScoredo not prefer or propagate a singular diet type, but show in black and white how healthy a single recipe actually is. That means that because a recipe is vegan and contains a lot of vegetables, it doesn't necessarily have to have a high NutriScore; it is more about an ideal overall distribution of the macronutrients fat, carbohydrates, fiber and proteins and a good supply of micronutrients, i.e. important vitamins and minerals. On the one hand, we want to show the critics and doubters that a balanced vegan diet can provide you with all the healthy nutrients you need. On the other hand, we want to bring light into the darkness of the Internet, which unthinkingly praises recipes as healthy that do not meet these requirements. Incidentally, this also applies to some vegan blogs

The NRF Index

In order to find the perfect formula, we searched the specialist literature for a long time. We were looking for a formula that, on the one hand, takes into account the supply of important macro and micronutrients, and, on the other hand, also considers the upper limits for those dietary elements that are unhealthy in excess. Eventually we found what we were looking for and decided to use the NRF Index (Nutrient Rich Foods Index) which was published in an article in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition¹. This index has a few sub-types that include more or fewer items for analysis, so the correct sub-type must be selected for the purpose. For our Clean & Yummy blog, we use the NRF11.3 Index sub-type. He weighs between beneficial nutrients and questionable elements and calculates a balance, which then represents the actual NutriScore. The following 11 nutrients are included in the calculation formula as positive:

Macro-nutrients:

Protein
Fiber

Micro-nutrients:

Vitamins:

Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Vitamin E
Vitamin B12

Minerals:

Calcium
Iron
Potassium
Zinc
Magnesium

The three nutrients to limit according to the NRF11.3 index are:

Saturated fatty acids
Added sugar
Sodium (1 teaspoon of table salt has 2,325 milligrams (mg) of sodium. That's slightly more than the daily limit of 2,300 mg recommended by health experts²)

The NRF 11.3 is calculated as the “unweighted sum of the daily percentage values for 9 nutrients to be promoted, minus the sum of the maximum percentage values for 3 nutrients to be restricted”¹

The NRF Index successfully ranks foods by their nutritional value and can be applied to individual foods, meals, menus, and even the daily diet. The development of the NRF Index followed scientific guidelines for nutrient profiling and was accompanied by extensive testing and validation¹.

top-view-healthy-vs-unhealthy-concept(1).jpg

Healthy snacks photo created by freepik - www.freepik.com

Nutritional database

In order to be able to carry out the calculations for our recipes, you need reliable data for all the ingredients used. Clean & Yummy uses the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) extensive food composition database for this purpose: "It contains data for various types of food, including the amounts of various vitamins and minerals found in them and macronutrient percentages."³.

As a control measure, we selected some representative ingredients and compared the nutritional information from the USDA with the labels of food from our region in Germany. After comparing the data, we were satisfied that the data provided by the USDA is very accurate and up to date. Of course, you always have to take into account smaller deviations due to different soil qualities and varieties.

Free Stock photos by Vecteezy

NutriScore scale

The NRF11.3 can therefore be calculated for each recipe but also for each individual ingredient based on the nutritional values. The resulting value can then be used to rank that recipe or ingredient in comparison to other dishes. A higher NRF11.3 index means that the product has a higher nutrient density compared to other foods with a lower index. Foods high in nutrients and low in diet concern values like saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium (the ingredient in salt that causes health problems) per 100 calories perform best, making them scientifically proven to be very healthy. To give you a little more concrete idea, here are the NRF11.3 values for a few common ingredients:

Vegetables: NRF11.3 index between 65 and 100.
Fruits: NRF11.3 between 50 and 60.
Sugars, sweets: NRF11.3 lower that -30.

These examples give a simple picture of the ranges between high nutrient dense food groups, such as those found in vegetables and fruits, and at the other extreme, very low nutrient dense foods, such as sweets and sugars, which have a negative value and should be avoided whenever possible. In simple terms, the higher the NRF11.3, the better the nutritional value of a recipe or ingredient.

Clean & Yummy scale and icon

Since this is very scientific and not easy to understand, we decided to translate the index into a more descriptive language. To do this, we plot the calculated NRF11.3 value on a linear scale from 10 to 1. This scale from 10 to 1 is more natural and intuitive to interpret: The NutriScore 10 is given to recipes with the highest nutrient density, i.e. those that provide an extremely high proportion of vitamins, minerals, fiber and proteins per 100 kilocalories and at the same time a minimal amount of saturated fats, added sugars and salt. Accordingly, we award the Nutriscore 1 to recipes that contain almost no nutrients and have no added value for our body. In practice, however, such recipes contradict our vision and cannot be found on our blog.

You will always find the NutriScore below the recipe title. In addition, we have also designed an icon that visually shows you how nutritious this recipe is. Colorful balls are placed in a square, which stand for important nutrients. The more balls there are, the healthier and more balanced the recipe will be. Below you will find an exact definition of all NutriScore values from 10 to 1.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1