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Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington

What if you could rank food by ‘healthiness’ as you shopped? Nutrient profiling systems use algorithms to simplify picking healthy groceries

Certain amounts and types of food processing can diminish the nutritional value of the original ingredients. Deanna Kelly/Moment via Getty Images

Imagine a world where food on grocery store shelves is ranked by its healthiness, with simple, research-backed scores. In some countries, that world already exists.

Nutrient profiling systems, or NPSs, support clear front-of-package labels that assess food quality based on nutrient content. Nutri-Score in France is a rainbow-colored system grading foods from A to E. Health Star Rating in Australia is a five-star system rating foods in half-star increments. And the Traffic Light System in the U.K. labels nutrient levels as green, yellow or red.

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