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  • Matters Arising
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Matters Arising: Food Compass novelty and NOVA category assignments

Nature Food volume 3, pages 581–583 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 11 August 2022

The Original Article was published on 14 October 2021

arising from D. Mozaffarian et al. Nature Food https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00381-y (2021)

The Food Compass Score (FCS), recently introduced in Nature Food1, is a nutrient profiling system used to assess the healthfulness of foods. As described by its authors, the FCS is unique in that it applies the same evaluation criteria across different food groups, incorporates both positive and negative elements, and can be applied to all foods and beverages, using the same algorithm and scoring thresholds1. Another reported innovation was to calculate total scores per 100 kcal, rather than per gram, which can be strongly influenced by water content1. The FCS face validity was confirmed by comparing it to the Health Star Rating and to the Nutri-Score front-of-pack labels1.

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Fig. 1: Per cent of foods in the FNDDS 2015–16 (n = 8,032) classified as minimally processed, culinary ingredients, processed and ultraprocessed by food group or food category.
Fig. 2

References

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  1. Center for Public Health Nutrition, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Adam Drewnowski

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  1. Adam Drewnowski
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A.D. was responsible for the conception and design of the work and for the analysis and interpretation of data previously published as supplemental data in Nature Food. A.D. has reviewed and approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to Adam Drewnowski.

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Competing interests

A.D. is the original developer of the Naturally Nutrient Rich and the Nutrient Rich Food (NRF) indices. That work was supported at the time by the Nutrient Rich Coalition whose members were The Beef Checkoff Program through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, California Avocado Commission, California Kiwifruit, California Strawberry Commission, Egg Nutrition Center, Florida Department of Citrus, Grain Foods Foundation, National Dairy Council, National Pork Board, United States Potato Board, Wheat Foods Council and Wild Blueberry Association of North America. A.D. is a member of Nestlé Scientific Advisory Board and has received grants, contracts and honoraria from these and other entities both public and private with an interest in nutrient density metrics and nutrient profiling of foods.

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Nature Food thanks Mike Rayner and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Drewnowski, A. Matters Arising: Food Compass novelty and NOVA category assignments. Nat Food 3, 581–583 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00556-1

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