EWG Launches New Consumer Tool to Rate 80,000 Foods

28 Oct 2014 --- The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released Food Scores: Rate Your Plate, an easy-to-use food database and mobile app that will house ratings and a vast array of other information for more than 80,000 foods from about 1,500 brands in a simple, searchable, online format.

The new tool is the most comprehensive food-rating database available to consumers, EWG said. Its scoring system factors in not only nutrition, but also ingredients of concern, such as food additives, and contaminants. It also estimates the degree to which foods have been processed.

“When you think about healthy food, you have to think beyond the Nutrition Facts panel,” said Renee Sharp, EWG’s director of research. “It doesn’t always tell the whole story. EWG’s Food Scores shows that certain foods that we think are good for us may actually be much less so because they contain questionable food additives or toxic contaminants.”  

EWG’s Food Scores aims to guide people to greener, healthier, and cleaner food choices. Users can find an overall score, from 1 (best) to 10 (worst), for every product in the food database. EWG’s product profiles include highly detailed information on how each food stacks up in terms of nutritional content and whether they contain questionable additives, such as nitrites or potassium bromate, or harmful contaminants, such as arsenic and mercury, and which foods have the lowest and highest processing concerns. They also identify meat and dairy products that are likely produced with antibiotics and hormones and highlight the fruits and vegetables that are likely to be contaminated with pesticide residues.

The food database also has a unique, interactive function that allows users to customize each product’s Nutrition Facts panel by their age, gender, and life stage, including pregnancy. Users can also limit their searches to find only certified organic, GMO-free, or gluten-free foods.

EWG also released its first full analysis of the more than 80,000 foods in the database. It represents a snapshot of products that carry a barcode in a typical grocery store, from bagged spinach to yogurt to tortilla chips. Overall, EWG found that only about 18 percent of products scored best (1-3.5), 57 percent scored in the middle range (4-7), and 25 percent scored worst (8-10).

While we know that Americans are eating too much sugar, EWG’s analysis shows how truly ubiquitous added sugar is across supermarket shelves. Nearly 60 percent of the foods in EWG’s database contain at least one form of added sugar, and in some food categories added sugar is shockingly pervasive. For example, EWG found that 92 percent of granola and trail mix bars in the database contain added sugars. In some cases, almost a third of the bar’s weight is sugar.

Other food categories with surprisingly high percentages of added sugar include stuffing mixes (100 percent), stuffing (96 percent), deli meats (74-98 percent, depending on type), salad dressings (86 percent), peanut and other nut butters (68 percent), and crackers (63 percent).

“We developed EWG's Food Scores in recognition of two trends," said Ken Cook, EWG's president and cofounder. "First, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about excessive amounts of sugar, salt, fat and other unhealthy ingredients in supermarket food. Second, they no longer trust big food companies or popular brands to put health before profits, not even the health of our kids. With EWG’s Food Scores, shoppers can quickly see what food companies are really putting into their food."

EWG’s Food Scores is built on data gathered by LabelINSIGHT, an independent product label database and analysis platform, which provides details on packaged foods that carry a barcode.

EWG's Food Scores is available as a free mobile app for iPhone users. Click here to download the app. With the app, consumers are able to scan barcodes of products with their smartphones to get rating information while they are grocery shopping. They are able to compare a product's score to that of similar products, right at their fingertips, and find comparable products with better scores.

"Whether they’re making a shopping list or using a smartphone to scan items in the store, EWG's Food Scores will empower people to shop for healthier products and reward the companies that make them," added Cook. "We feel confident that this tool will drive the marketplace towards greener, simpler and healthier products, just as hundreds of millions of product searches in EWG's Skin Deep database have changed the market for cosmetics and personal care products.”

EWG’s Food Scores is funded through dedicated support from the GRACE Communications Foundation and the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, the Cedartree Foundation, individual donors, and online donations from our more than 1.6 million supporters.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) claimed that the food ratings are severely flawed and will only provide consumers with misinformation about the food and beverage products they trust and enjoy.

“The methodology employed by EWG to develop their new food ratings is void of the scientific rigor and objectivity that should be devoted to any effort to provide consumers with reliable nutrition and food safety information. Their ratings are based almost entirely on assumptions they made about the amount, value and safety of ingredients in the products they rate. Adding insult to injury, EWG conducted no tests to confirm the validity of any of their assumptions.”

“Not only will the EWG ratings provide consumers with inaccurate and misleading information, they will also falsely alarm and confuse consumers about their product choices. Embedded in the ratings are EWG’s extreme and scientifically unfounded views on everything from low-calorie sweeteners to the nutritional value of organic foods.

“The addition of EWG’s rating scheme to the already crowded landscape of subjective food rating systems underscores the importance of fact-based sources like the government regulated Nutrition Facts Panel and ingredient list as consumers’ best source for consistent, reliable information about food and beverage products.

“The best advice for consumers seeking to achieve and maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle is to follow the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which include eating a variety of foods as recommended by ChooseMyPlate.gov combined with regular physical activity to create an overall healthy lifestyle.

“When it comes to the safety of our products, food and beverage manufacturers adhere to extremely stringent food safety standards and our industry is also highly regulated by experts at the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture. Food safety is our number one priority and we devote enormous resources to ensure that our products are safe.”

Examples of Assumptions and General Concerns about EWG “Food Scores”

Overall:
•    All conventionally produced products automatically penalized despite significant evidence that nutrition value of organic and conventional products are comparable.

Nutrition:
•    Makes assumptions about the proportion of added sugars contained in a product.
•    Cites isolated studies that purport that added sugars are processed differently by the body than naturally-occurring sugars; not reflective of consensus science.
•    Cites isolated studies about possible negative impacts of low-calorie sweeteners for rationale to treat as a negative factor in nutrition score; not reflective of consensus science.
•    Cites “Tiny serving sizes” as a negative factor in nutrition scoring without acknowledging that serving size is determined and regulated by FDA, not food manufacturers.

“Ingredients of Concern”:
•    Factors in the “ingredients of concern” algorithm are weighted arbitrarily. No explanation is given for how or why the algorithm factors are weighted the way that they are.
•    No consideration given to the amount of an ingredient contained in a food product. EWG assumes that all products contain the ingredient’s Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) amount (amount that can be ingested daily over a lifetime without appreciable risk), despite fact that most products contain less than ADI. When an ADI is not available, EWG assumes an acceptable value three times smaller than the standard used by the FDA and other leading world health agencies.
•    The concentration of contaminants was not determined by analytical methods, only estimated from online sources. No consideration given to factors such as where the product was sourced (e.g. rice from Texas typically has higher levels of arsenic than rice from California).
•    No analytical support provided for the pesticide residue estimates claimed for fruits and vegetables. Assumes if conventionally grown, contains pesticide and does not account for growing environment, washing, peeling, etc.

“Degree of Processing”:
•    As EWG acknowledges, this entire rating is based on EWG guesses about how a product and its ingredients were made.