Food scoring
A score should mean what it says it means.
A score is only as good as its context. POWR runs eighteen methodologies, each tuned to the kind of thing it's scoring. A banana, a soda, a protein bar, and a bottle of water all get judged on their own terms.
The pipeline
From food entry to explainable score.
01
Input
Nutrition facts, ingredients, claims, and serving context come in.
02
Route
The item is routed to the right policy: whole food, packaged, restaurant, supplement.
03
Score
Penalties and credits applied per route. Caps prevent gaming the number.
04
Explain
Output explains why, not just what. The number carries its evidence.
Context matters
Why one rule doesn't fit all.
A banana and a protein bar might have similar carb counts. They shouldn't be judged by the same rubric.
POWR's scoring engine separates whole foods from packaged foods so processing signals, additives, and ingredient quality are weighed appropriately for the item type.
Whole food
Organic banana
Packaged food
Chocolate chip protein bar
How a score is built
No black box. Every rule, visible.
Ingredients
Every name on the label is read. Dyes, seed oils, emulsifiers, sweeteners, gums, gels, glazes.
Banned compounds and active recalls set a hard ceiling no good number can lift.
Nutrients
Sugar load, sodium density, fiber-to-carb ratio, protein quality.
Every vitamin and mineral comes back with the verdict, not buried inside it.
Processing
How much human work happened between the field and the package.
Whole foods start generous. Ultra-processed signals stack quickly.
Source
Where the food came from and how it was raised, when the label can prove it.
Grass-fed, wild-caught, organic, and third-party tested earn real credit.
Contamination
Heavy metals, PFAS, mercury class for seafood, the things you'd never want on the plate.
A real safety signal forces a ceiling. No other credit can lift it.
Confidence
How sure we are sits next to the score, never folded into it.
A verified label beats OCR. OCR beats a visual guess.
Reference
Eighteen methodologies, three families.
Five are entry routes for how a food shows up. Ten are food subcategories with rules tuned to that class. Three are water. All run on the same engine.
Entry routes — 5
Core concept
An apple, a salmon fillet, raw oats. One real food, no ingredient list.
When to use
When the thing on the plate doesn't have a label to read.
Technical focus
Whole foods start from a generous baseline. The score weighs nutrient density and what the food actually brings to the day. Real harm signals still drop the score; nothing about being whole excuses what's in it.
A banana should not be judged like a protein bar.
Core concept
Anything with a barcode and a nutrition label. The clearest evidence we get.
When to use
When there's a nutrition label, ingredient list, or barcode-backed product record.
Technical focus
Penalties stack across ingredients, additives, nutrients, and processing. Caps stop a high-protein number from rescuing a heavily processed product. Banned ingredients, classified carcinogens, and active recalls force a hard ceiling no credit can override.
Where the most goes into the score because the most is on the label.
Core concept
Restaurant menus and fast food, scored together. Lower confidence on purpose.
When to use
Sit-down menus, chain nutrition info, or anything from a drive-through.
Technical focus
More conservative than packaged because the data is. The classic fast-food combo — deep-fried, processed meat, heavy sodium — gets a hard ceiling no credit can lift. Confidence is shown next to the score, never inside it.
Don't fake exactness when the evidence is thin.
Core concept
Something you cooked from a few different things, where the exact oils and amounts are guessable but not certain.
When to use
When the big components are obvious but the seasoning and portions aren't.
Technical focus
We score the parts we can identify, then weight them by how much of each is on the plate. Confidence reflects how much we actually know, not how much we'd like to.
Useful guidance without faking precision.
Core concept
Powders, capsules, gummies, electrolyte mixes. They get their own rules so a vitamin doesn't get judged like a snack.
When to use
Anything you'd find in the supplement aisle.
Technical focus
Looks at sweeteners, sugar, excipients, additives, and how honest the label is. A protein powder and a multivitamin don't follow the same checklist.
A supplement score doesn't mean the same thing as a food score.
Food subcategories — 10
Routed to from the entry layer when an item matches a category with its own evidence axes.
Meat and seafood
Raw or prepared. Processed meats take a real hit.
Produce
Fruits and vegetables. Whole-food rules apply.
Eggs
Chicken, duck, quail. The yolk is treated as the food, not the enemy.
Dairy products
Cheese, yogurt, butter, cream. Fermented dairy gets credit where it earns it.
Milk
Cow, goat, sheep. The kind of milk and how it's processed both matter.
Plant-based milk
Almond, oat, soy. Strict on added sweeteners.
Drinks and beverages
Sodas, juices, kombucha, energy drinks. Total sugar counts, not just added.
Tea products
Loose, bag, bottled. Independent heavy-metal testing earns credit; sweetened bottled tea takes a hit.
Sweeteners
Ranked from whole-food sweeteners down to the artificial ones we'd avoid.
Bread products
Whole grains earn credit. Refined flour costs you. Bromated flour stops the score cold.
Water domain — 3
A separate domain so water scores are never compared to food scores.
Bottled water
Contaminants, materials, source, certifications. We don't reward water for being premium; we flag harm.
Tap water
Municipal and well water. Detected lead or PFAS forces a hard ceiling.
Water filters
Filters are a tool. We grade them as one.
Read deeper
Where this connects.
See it in the app. For yourself.
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