Nutrition Label Analyzer — Nutri-Score & Food Health Grader

How to Use the Nutrition Label Analyzer

Type any packaged food name in the search bar above — the analyzer suggests matches from a curated database of 60 popular products, then falls back to the live Open Food Facts catalog (3 million+ barcoded items) for anything else. Pick the right product and the analyzer paints the full picture: an A–E health grade modeled on Europe’s Nutri-Score, a NOVA processing classification, a per-100g and per-serving macro breakdown, allergen flags, and a plain-English list of what the food is doing well and badly. Toggle Per 100g versus Per Serving to see both the standardized and manufacturer-declared numbers side by side.

Nutri-Score Explained: How the A–E Grading System Works

Nutri-Score, created by the French public-health agency Santé publique France and now adopted by seven European countries, translates a nutrition label into one colored letter by weighing negative points (calories, saturated fat, sugar, sodium) against positive points (protein, fiber, fruits/vegetables/nuts content). The exact formula assigns 0–10 negative points per nutrient, 0–5 positive points, subtracts the positives, and maps the final score to a letter: an overall score under −1 is an A (dark green), 0 to 2 is B, 3 to 10 is C, 11 to 18 is D, and 19+ is E (dark red). A plain yogurt scores an A. A sugary breakfast cereal typically lands at D. A frosted toaster pastry is almost always an E. The analyzer uses a simplified implementation of this algorithm when a product’s official score isn’t available from Open Food Facts.

NOVA Classification: Why “Ultra-Processed” Matters

NOVA, developed by Brazilian researcher Carlos Monteiro, groups foods by how much industrial processing they’ve been through, not how many calories they contain. It’s a different lens from Nutri-Score — a food can be Nutri-Score A but still NOVA Group 4 (think: sugar-free soda or low-calorie ultra-processed bars).

• Group 1 — Unprocessed or minimally processed: an apple, raw chicken, milk, dried beans.
• Group 2 — Processed culinary ingredients: olive oil, butter, salt, sugar.
• Group 3 — Processed foods: canned vegetables with salt, artisan bread, cheese.
• Group 4 — Ultra-processed foods: industrially formulated products containing ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen — high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, protein isolates, emulsifiers like carrageenan or polysorbate 80, and artificial colors.

The 2019 BMJ study by Srour and colleagues linked each 10% increase in ultra-processed food consumption to a 12% higher risk of cardiovascular disease, independent of the overall nutrient profile. The point isn’t that every ultra-processed food is “bad” — it’s that the pattern of an ultra-processed-heavy diet is associated with measurable downsides that a calorie count alone cannot capture.

The Five Nutrition Numbers That Actually Matter

If you only have 10 seconds to evaluate a label, look at these five lines in order. Each targets a specific chronic-disease risk that most Americans meaningfully miss or exceed.

1. Sodium: the FDA daily value is 2,300 mg. Anything over 600 mg per serving is a red flag — that’s a quarter of your daily limit from one food. Canned soups, frozen meals, and deli meats are the usual culprits.
2. Added sugars: the FDA cap is 50 g/day on a 2,000-calorie diet. The WHO recommends half that — 25 g. A single 12 oz soda delivers 39 g, already blowing through the WHO target before breakfast is over.
3. Saturated fat: target under 20 g/day. Look for under 5 g per serving for most single foods — a few exceptions like whole-milk Greek yogurt or cheese can reasonably exceed this.
4. Fiber: target 25–30 g/day. The US population average is around 15 g. A food with 3 g+ of fiber per 100 kcal is earning its keep.
5. Protein: look for at least 10% of calories from protein, ideally more. A food with 6 g protein per 100 kcal qualifies as a solid source; under 3 g per 100 kcal is protein-poor regardless of marketing claims.

Why “Healthy” Packaged Foods Often Fail the Grade

A food can be labeled “natural,” “organic,” “heart healthy,” or “made with real fruit” and still score a D or E on Nutri-Score. Granola is the archetype: the USDA reports the average commercial granola contains 12 g of sugar per 50 g serving, more than most chocolate breakfast cereals. Flavored yogurts routinely pack 15–20 g of added sugar in a tiny 150 g cup. “Healthy” snack bars often list a sugar-alcohol or brown-rice syrup as the third ingredient. The Nutri-Score grade exposes the math the front-of-pack marketing obscures, which is why European regulators have pushed to make the score mandatory — something the US food-labeling system still has not adopted at the federal level.

How to Read an American Nutrition Facts Panel

The FDA’s 2020 label overhaul added two critical lines: a larger calorie count and a separate Added Sugars row. Use them. The “% Daily Value” column is anchored to a 2,000-calorie reference diet, which is roughly right for an adult woman and too low for most adult men — so adjust mentally. A quick rule: 5% DV or less is “low,” 20% DV or more is “high.” The serving size is the single most manipulated field on the panel. Cookie manufacturers love to declare a serving as “one cookie” even when the box is clearly marketed to be eaten by one person in one sitting. Always multiply.

Allergens, Additives, and the Ingredient List

US law (FALCPA, 2004) requires the top nine allergens — milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, and sesame (added in 2023) — to be declared in plain English, either in the ingredient list or in a separate “Contains” statement. Beyond allergens, the ingredient list is sorted in descending order by weight, so the first three items tell you what the product mostly is. If the first ingredient of a “strawberry” fruit bar is corn syrup, you’re eating corn syrup with strawberry flavoring. The premium ingredient decoder flags the additives with the strongest research concerns: partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats), high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors (Red 40, Yellow 5), TBHQ, BHA, and BHT — all legal in the US but restricted or banned in several EU countries.

Using the Grade in Real Life

An A or B food can be a regular staple. A C is a “sometimes” item — fine occasionally, problematic as a daily habit. D and E foods should be special-occasion or small-portion. The goal isn’t to eliminate the D and E categories from your life; it’s to make sure the bulk of your grocery cart sits in the A–C range. Use the side-by-side comparison to swap a D-grade staple for a B-grade alternative in the same category — swapping a D-grade breakfast cereal for a B-grade one is a small decision made 365 times a year, which is how nutrition actually compounds.