Are Lucky Charms healthier than Steak?

Navigating the grocery store, the restaurant menus and the information overload of the internet can be confusing and frustrating to say the least. If you weren’t confused enough, Tufts University released the “Food Compass” to make things easier but its numerous oversimplifications and arbitrary point allocations miss the mark in many ways leading to wild conclusions.

Should it really take a team of elite scientists years of research to compile a complex mathematical algorithm to determine if a food is good for you? ?How has it come to be that we need ‘science’ to inform us about whether sugar coated cereal is a better choice for breakfast than pastured eggs? ?This is absurd and any 2nd grader could tell you that.

What is the Food Compass

The food compass is a food rating system developed by Tufts University that evaluated just over 8,000 foods and combined meals using 9 domains to generate a score between 1-100 where 100 is the healthiest choice.

• Foods that ranked >70 are encouraged.
• Scores between 31-69 are to be consumed in moderation.
• Scores ≤ 30 are to be minimized.

On the surface, this seems simple and logical enough but as you start to look through the data, you might start to second guess the methods.

The food compass ranks Frosted Mini Wheats, Honey Nut Cheerios, nonfat frozen yogurt, canola oil, calcium-fortified orange juice, and chocolate-covered almonds >70, to be encouraged while ancestrally consistent staples of human life such as whole eggs, white rice, pickles, ground beef, lamb, coconut milk, coconut oil, and butter are ranked < 30, to be minimized.

Even pepperoni pizza from school lunch ranks in at 48 which is higher than bison at 36, a wholesome food consumed by humans for as long as we have existed.

While it is possible that these researchers set out with good intentions, it is clear that this nutrient profiling system does not accurately reflect the current body of evidence on nutrition and ultimately makes things MORE confusing for those attempting to navigate the world of corrupt marketing and devious lobbyists.

We now live in a world where 88% of adults are metabolically unwell and more than ?67% of adults and 40% of children are overweight or obese. ?

Lucky charms and orange juice is NOT a better choice for breakfast than pastured eggs and bacon. ?Canola oil is NOT a better choice than grass-fed butter and coconut oil. ?These new ultra processed foods are destroying our guts, our minds, and our waistlines and studies like these are just contributing to the problem.

Food Compass Pitfalls

The shortcomings of the Food Compass are many but let’s just highlight a few.

1. Significantly overlooks the deleterious effects of ultra processed foods (UPFs) despite the growing body of evidence to support the association between increased consumption of UPFs and obesity and chronic disease. (1, 2)
2. Exaggerates the potential risks associated with animal-sourced foods despite being unprocessed or minimally processed, and awarding no positive points for the profound nutrient density and bioavailability of commonly deficient nutrients like vitamin B12, iron, zinc, and essential amino acids. (3, 4, 5, 6)
3. Always attributes negative points to dietary cholesterol despite the fact that dietary cholesterol has no direct influence on plasma cholesterol. (7)
4. Makes no distinction between minimally processed and reconstituted whole grains or between fortified and naturally occurring nutrients despite differences in bioavailability and absorption.
5. Does not adjust for the differences in bioavailability of minerals which can vary widely nor does it address anti-nutrients found in many foods.

This list is far from exhaustive to the many pitfalls of the Food Compass but it starts to give you an idea of the preposterousness of its conclusions.

If you’re confused, it’s understandable! But I would love to help you navigate the muddied waters of nutrition and it’s just a phone call away. Schedule your free consultation and get started to better health today.