What is Food Quality?
The Food Quality feature shows you how different foods affect your health and how they should generally be treated as a part of your diet. We consider whether the food is highly processed, if it's likely to spike your glucose, and its nutritional quality to give you a more complete picture of how eating that food affects your metabolic health.
Food Quality is taken into consideration in your Meal Score. Learn more about your Meal Score here.
Keep in mind that Food Quality is based on peer-reviewed research on dietary patterns and trends and is meant to provide general guidance only. It does not endorse a specific diet or lifestyle.
Food Quality categories
Enjoy – Foods in this category are whole foods you can feel good about using as the base of your diet. They’re nutritionally dense, unprocessed, and high in vitamins and minerals. Examples of “Enjoy” foods are fresh fruit, vegetables, legumes, fish, and lean poultry.
Moderate – Foods in this category are ok to eat in moderation but likely should not be the foundation of your diet.
These foods contain some beneficial macronutrients and micronutrients but may also be processed or contain added sugar or sodium. They may affect glucose levels depending on portion size and individual glucose tolerance. Examples of foods in this category include certain dairy products, grains, red meat, and some packaged foods.
Avoid – Foods in this category should typically be avoided in your day-to-day life. These foods are highly processed and high glycemic, meaning they are low in nutritional quality and will likely have a negative effect on blood glucose.
They are typically high in calories, trans fats, added sugars, and/or salt, which can increase the risk of developing health problems such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Examples include processed snacks, sugary drinks, fried foods, candy, pastries, and sweet desserts.
Where to find Food Quality
Tap on a meal, then scroll down to the ingredients. Each ingredient will be labeled with a category of enjoy, moderate, or avoid. Click on the individual ingredient to learn more about why it received the grade it did, as well as the macronutrient makeup of the food.
Does this affect my meal score?
Yes, Food Quality does affect your Meal Score. Read more about how it works here.
How do I use Food Quality effectively?
Food Quality aims to provide you with general guidance on how to treat individual foods as a part of your daily diet, it is not a definitive ranking of foods. Logging individual ingredients or food groups gives you the most insights into your dietary composition with Food Quality.
When you log a mixed meal, like “pizza,” for example, Food Quality can’t tell if it's homemade, store-bought, frozen, etc. To get the most out of Food Quality, be specific when logging meals.
Learn more about meal logging here.