Food Compass
Determining the healthfulness of foods isn’t easy, even after reading food labels. Yet, many people want to eat healthy foods. Researchers at Tufts University developed and validated a nutrient profiling system, Food Compass. This system scores 54 attributes across nine health-relevant domains: nutrient ratios, vitamins, minerals, food ingredients, additives, processing, fats, fiber and protein, and phytochemicals. The summed domain scores yields a Food Compass Score (FCS) ranging from 1 (least healthy) to 100 (most healthy) for a wide variety of foods and beverages. For example, savory snacks and sweet deserts had an average FCS of 16, while legumes (beans, lentils) had an average score of 79. Examples of foods with scores of 90 or above include vegetable curry, seafood, garden salad, plain nonfat Greek yogurt, salmon, a dozen different fruits, many vegetables, Cheerios, tomato juice, and celery juice. The FCS distinguished between certain foods and beverages better than other nutrient profiling approaches, such as NOVA, Health Star Rating, and Nutri-Score.
Validation of Food Compass for Health Measures
Researchers at Tufts then validated the utility of an individual person’s Food Compass Score (iFCS) with data from 47,999 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys against the Healthy Eating Index (2015), clinical risk factors, and all-cause mortality. The average iFCS score of 35.5 signified a generally unhealthy diet. iFCS values correlated strongly with the Healthy Eating Index (2015). Each one standard deviation increase in iFCS score (10.9 points) predicted more favorable body mass index (-0.6 unit), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (-0.91 and -0.49 mm Hg), LDL-cholesterol (-2.01 mg/L), HDL-cholesterol (1.65 mg/dL), HbA1c (-0.02 percent), and blood plasma glucose (-0.44 mg/dL). Each one standard deviation increase in iFCS score also predicted lower odds of the metabolic syndrome (15 percent lower), cardiovascular disease (12 percent lower), cancer (5 percent lower), lung disease (8 percent lower), and mortality (11 percent lower). Age, sex, education and BMI minimally affected iFCS scores. Thus, the Food Compass may be a useful tool to encourage healthy eating.
Food Compass 2.0
Researchers at Tufts University developed the Food Compass nutrient profiling system in 2021. The system assessed the healthfulness of over 9,000 different foods (including mixtures of foods) in nine domains on a scale from 1 (most unhealthy) to 100 (most healthy). In 2024, Tufts researchers published Food Compass 2.0, an update of the original Food Compass system to reflect more recent scientific health-diet data. Food Compass 2.0 scores for certain food groups, such as nuts, legumes, and sauces/condiments, were similar to the original Food Compass scores. However, Food Compass 2.0 scores declined notably for other food groups, including cold cereals, plant-based dairy, cereal bars, and fruit and vegetable juices. At the same time, Food Compass Scores increased notably for other food groups, including beef, seafood, lamb and game, eggs, and rice/pasta. Of 44 categories of foods, the top five healthiest, according to both Food Compass and Food Compass 2.0, included green vegetables, berries, citrus, nuts and seeds, and other vegetables. The five unhealthiest foods included cured meats, dairy animal fats, desserts, sweet drinks, and bread. The obvious lesson: Emphasize the healthiest foods and de-emphasize the unhealthiest ones.
Food Compass Score-10
One drawback of Food Compass is the requirement for nutrition information that may not be widely available. Researchers at Tufts University developed and validated the Food Compass Score-10 using data commonly available on foods packages to rectify this shortcoming. Food Compass Score-10 is scaled from 1-10 with 1 denoting the unhealthiest and 10 denoting the healthiest foods. In addition, Food Compass Score-10 scores were categorized as follows: 1) foods to encourage (scores of 7 or higher), 2) foods to consume in moderation (scores of 4-6), and 3) foods to limit (scores of 3 or lower). The Food Compass Score-10 scores correlated strongly with the Food Compass scores. In addition, Food Compass Score-10 placed foods in the three categories similar to Food Compass. Compared to Food Compass, Food Compass Score-10 provides an easier way to identify the healthfulness of packaged foods, while maintaining the structure of the Food Compass system.
Do food labels induce shoppers to purchase healthier foods?
In 2025, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized the rules for front-of-package labeling. The Nutrition Info label includes the percentages of recommended daily values for saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar on a per serving basis, and either a low (most healthy), medium or high (least healthy) rating for each. Researchers at Tufts and elsewhere conducted a randomized clinical trial to compare the purchases of packaged snack foods with respect to no label, the proposed FDA label and the Food Compass label. The study included 275 shoppers with a median age of 55 years at 6 locations of 3 supermarket chains in Massachusetts. Compared to no label, both the FDA and Food Compass label significantly increased the purchases of healthier snack foods (11.2 vs. 6.4 percent). Compared to no label, both the FDA label and the Food Compass label significantly reduced the purchases of unhealthy snack foods (-7.2 vs. -6.3 percent). The Food Compass label (but not the FDA label) significantly increased the odds of no snack food purchase by 4.0 percent (which might alarm food retailers). Both labels accomplished the intended objectives of increasing purchases of healthier snack foods and reducing the purchases of unhealthier snack foods.
What to do
It’s worth your while to take a few seconds when you make a food purchase to gauge its healthiness. At present, you pretty much have to rely on back-of-package N utrition Facts. From what I could learn online, the FDA label won’t appear anytime soon. In addition, food manufacturers and retailers are developing their own nutrient profiling systems. You would be well-served to eat more of the foods that Food Compass identified as the healthiest, namely green vegetables, berries, citrus, nuts and seeds, and vegetables generally.
