User's Guide to EWG's Food Scores

Welcome. We created EWG's Food Scores to help consumers make healthier, greener food choices.

Every product in Food Scores is rated on a scale of 1 (best) to 10 (worst).

We rated more than 80,000 products on three criteria:

• Nutrition. The nutrition scoring algorithm considers multiple factors, including calories, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, sodium, protein, fiber and fruit, vegetable and nut content.
• Ingredient concerns. The ingredient concerns algorithm focuses on factors such as the likely presence of key contaminants, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, and the health implications of certain food additives.
• Processing. The processing score reflects EWG's best estimate of the extent to which a particular food has been processed. Scoring factors include modification of individual ingredients from whole foods and the number of artificial ingredients.

We combine these three scores into a single overall product score. We weight a food's nutritional value most heavily, ingredient concerns next and processing relatively lightly.

Here's how to use the database:

Want to find out more about your food?

• Look up a product. Enter its name in the search bar.
• Search by company. Want to know how a certain company stacks up? Search its name to see how its products rate.
• Search by category. Click on the drop-down menu at the top of the page, pick a category (cereal, baby food, salad dressing, etc.) and view product ratings.
• Find better alternatives. Look for the bar chart on the left side of the search and product pages to explore your options. Click on a specific bar to see other products in that range of scores.

Understanding the ratings

If you click on a product, you'll see dials displaying how it stacks up in each of EWG's three scoring factors: nutrition, ingredient concerns, and processing:

You'll also see a bar chart showing how these three factors are combined into a single overall score.

If you click on the dials, you will find more detailed information about how a particular product's score was determined:

Use the bar chart on the left side of every product page to see how the product rates in comparison to other products in the same category.

If you click on any of the bars, this will bring up a page showing all of the products of the same category that scored in that range, making it easy to find better products.

This is just the beginning of what you can do with EWG's Food Scores. Also consider:

• Reading EWG's Top Findings for a given product, which give you some quick takeaways about a product.
• Using the dynamic function in the nutrition facts panel to personalize the product's percent of Daily Values based on your age, gender and stage in life.
• Limiting your search results by category with the drop-down menu.
• Limiting your search by certifications such as organic or gluten free.
• Changing the layout of the search results page by clicking on the icons next to Views.
• Changing the number of items that show up on a search page.

To read more about how scores are calculated, read the full methodology.

To see a list of Frequently Asked Questions, click here.

Use your buying power to change the market - and help make food healthier and greener for us all.