The UK Department of Health has produced a Nutrient Profiling model and calculation intended to assess foods, taking into account both healthy and unhealthy aspects.
This model already forms the basis of Nutri-Score, although a few amendments have been made to the rules by Santé Publique France.
In the UK, the Profile is used in assessing foods to check that they meet certain criteria in marketing. A food scoring 4 points or more and a drinks that scores 1 point of more is classed as 'less healthy'. The expression HFSS (high fat, sugars and salt) is also widely used. However, the Nutrient Profile does not assess fat, only saturated fat.
The model uses the values for energy (kJ), saturates, sugars and salts and awards positive points. It also awards negative point for fibre, protein (usually) plus the content of fruit, vegetables and nuts (FVN).
The values for the nutrients are already calculated by NutriCalc. For FVN, many items in the main NutriCalc catalogue have been labelled as FVN and will be included in the calculation. For the user's own 'My ingredients' however, these need to be marked as eligible if they are.
How do I set a fruit, vegetable or nut ingredient as eligible?
- Find the ingredient in the Ingredient center and click View
- Select the Details tab
- Check the box Eligible for Nutrient Profile
- If the ingredient is a dried or concentrated product, example: tomato paste 28/30, check the box for Is Dried/Concentrated Fruit or Vegetable tick-box
- If the ingredient is only partly fruit, vegetable or nut, eg honey-coated cashews, add the % of the FVN contained in the ingredient in the % Eligible for Nutri-Score/Nutrient Profile field.
Note: you can not add a % eligible figure for a dried/concentrated ingredient. It will untick the tick-box if you do.
How can I see the Nutrient Profile?
In the recipe Reports tab, select the Nutrient Profile Report.
A list of points awarded for each nutrient and also FVN is shown, together with the total score.