How Scoring Works

1. What the score is

The score is an informational quality rating. It summarizes how well a food or product aligns with widely accepted nutrition principles: whole-food content, degree of processing, added sugar, sodium, beneficial nutrients, and, for supplements, the quality of the formulation.

The score is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment recommendation. It is not a health claim about any product. Decisions about your diet and your supplements belong with you and a qualified health professional.

2. Where the data comes from

Scores are built from what is printed on the product: the ingredient list and the Nutrition or Supplement Facts panel, obtained by scanning a barcode, photographing a label, or looking the product up in a verified database. Values are cross-referenced against authoritative sources such as USDA FoodData Central.

Where AI is used, it applies a fixed scoring rubric, and its results are checked against the data on the label rather than against estimates.

Once a product has been read, its scanned record is shared so that the same product returns a consistent score for everyone. Those records describe the product only, never you.

3. Grocery and food scores

Packaged foods receive two scores.

Standard score

Identical for every user. It weighs processing level, ingredient quality, added sugars, sodium, saturated fat, fiber, protein, and nutrient density, using FDA conventions for serving size and daily value.

Personal score

Your standard score adjusted for the health goals you have set. The adjustments are deterministic arithmetic, not an opinion, and these are the rules in full:

Blood sugar

Penalties for sugar. Bonus for fiber.

Heart health

Penalties for sodium and saturated fat. Bonus for fiber.

Weight management

Penalty for sugar. Bonuses for protein and fiber. There is no calorie rule.

Muscle and bone

Bonuses for protein.

Digestive health

Bonuses for fiber.

Adjustments are summed and capped at plus or minus 20 points, and the result is kept inside the 0 to 100 range. Personal scores are computed on your device and are never written to the shared database.

Some goals, such as sleep, skin, or stress, receive no adjustment at all. A nutrition label cannot honestly answer them, so we leave the score alone. We would rather say nothing than invent relevance.

4. Supplement scores

Supplements are scored in two layers, kept deliberately separate.

Quality score

An objective assessment of the product itself, identical for every user. It rewards bioavailable ingredient forms, coherent evidence-based formulation, clean excipients, and reputable manufacturing or third-party verification. Points are deducted for fillers, artificial additives, subtherapeutic doses, questionable ingredients, proprietary blends, regulatory actions, and miracle claims.

The maximum quality score is 95, and it is reserved for products with independent third-party verification.

Personal fit score

How well a supplement lines up with the goals you have set, when you have set them. The quality score acts as a ceiling: fit never exceeds quality. Fit is computed for you individually and is never written to the shared database.

These scores evaluate formulation quality and goal alignment. They do not evaluate therapeutic efficacy, and they do not account for interactions with medication you take. Professional medical guidance remains essential.

5. Consistency and corrections

A given product returns the same standard score to every user. In the shared database, verified label data outranks estimates, so when a product is read from its actual panel the better data wins and the correction shows up in future scans.

6. Questions

Write to help@clearwaterroadstudios.com with any question about how a score was reached, and a person will answer.