[AnotherGoodName]

I personally love the star ratings au/nz have on food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Star_Rating_System

It’s a raw calculation between 0 to 5 stars on how healthy the food is. It’s basically calories (with some bias to the type of calories) divided by fibre+protein. These days you don’t see products in supermarkets or chain restaurants without the stars shown on the front of the box. It’s become an expectation of customers. Even snacks like tim tams clearly show .5 stars on the front indicating they are high in calories for how filling they are.

It works well. A high protein and high fibre food can indeed have high calories and score well. But you know what? High protein and high fibre foods are extremely filling. So fair enough!

Obviously any such system is high level and misses all the micronutrients etc. but in general calories divided by fibre+protein provides a reasonable guide. One behavioural thing i’ve seen come out of this is parents allowing children to pick snacks and cereals themselves provided it’s 4+ stars. This usually leads to kids adding wheat bran cereals and muesli bars to the cart by their own choice. Kids love freedom and guidelines that it must be 4+ stars give that freedom without overly sugary crap being allowed. It’s also great for adults wanting to spot clearly unhealthy food for their own goals. Setting a guideline of only 4.5+ foods in the cart is so simple. You can still find good snacks, it’s just that they’ll undoubtedly be very filling too.

[OptionOfT]

The EU has nutri-score which looks like this, but less information.

I quickly skimmed to the article you linked. I couldn't find anything as to whether it pertains to cooked or uncooked food?

For example, in the EU frozen pre-fried French fries have an A score (best), but that isn't correct, as no-one eats them like this. You fry them again in your home fryer.

Whereas smoked salmon is D or E because of the higher fat content, and the salt used for drying.

[AnotherGoodName]

It's meant to be 'as prepared' but as the above notes there's trickiness in certain brands claiming "our guidelines say to prepare it with skim milk" while everyone adds ice cream.

Still while no system is perfect and there's a need to call out brands that claim it's prepared with skim milk when it's clearly not i still think it's pretty damn great.

[dzhiurgis]

Smoked salmon probably derated because of smoke. Smoked meats are considered cancerogen in EU, shouldn't be sold at all.

[dzhiurgis]

I'll try this parenting hack. Thanks. I always assumed stars system are just another fraud.