The bar, in the open
Every other app grades food on a curve or keeps its criteria secret. We don’t. Here’s exactly how a product earns — or loses — its place.
Gold
Whole-food ingredients only. No additives, no gums, no refined isolates, not ultra-processed.
Trusted Good
Clean by how shoppers actually think: no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, or synthetic preservatives, and no hidden “natural flavors.” Benign functional naturals (citric acid, vitamin E, sea salt) are allowed.
Not Trusted Good
Contains at least one hard disqualifier (below). Added sugar is shown as a warning — never an automatic fail, because clean doesn’t have to mean sugar-free.
What fails the bar
Artificial colors / dyes
fd&c, fd & c, red 40, red no. 40, red #40, allura red…
Artificial flavors
artificial flavor, artificial flavour, artificially flavored, artificially flavoured, artificial flavoring
"Natural flavors" (undisclosed-ingredient loophole)
natural flavor, natural flavour, natural flavoring, natural flavouring, naturally flavored with other natural flavors
Artificial / sugar-alcohol sweeteners
aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame, ace-k, saccharin, neotame…
Synthetic preservatives
bha, butylated hydroxyanisole, bht, butylated hydroxytoluene, tbhq, sodium benzoate…
Other industrial additives
high fructose corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated, hydrogenated, monosodium glutamate, msg…
Ingredient data comes from Open Food Facts and the brands’ own labels; we re-verify on a schedule and flag changes in the Downgrade Watch. Found something wrong? That’s the point of showing our work — tell us and we’ll fix it.