What is TrueFood The Science of Ultra-Processed Food Disclaimer About Us
TrueFood is a user-friendly interface designed to unveil the degree of processing of food products, powered by GroceryDB, a comprehensive database. GroceryDB is part of a research project [Prevalence of Processed Food in Grocery Stores, Nature Food, 2024], that provides the data and methodologies necessary to quantify food processing and analyze ingredient structures within the U.S. food supply. By integrating large-scale data on food composition with machine learning, TrueFood offers valuable insights into the current state of food processing in the U.S. grocery landscape, highlighting distributions of food processing scores and the variability in product offerings across different grocery stores.


Disclaimer and terms of use.

How does TrueFood work?
Choose two cheesecakes available in your store
Mini No Sugar Added Cheesecake, 3 oz
EDWARDS® Desserts Original Whipped Cheesecake, 24.00 oz
TrueFood starts from the nutrition information provided by the manufacturer
Mini No Sugar Added
Nutrients in 100 grams
(all units are in grams)
Calories
Sugar
0.0
Fiber
24.71
Total Fat
0.29
Sodium
5.88
Protein
5.88
Carbs
0.14
Choleste
rol
15.29
Sat. Fat
0.06
Calcium
0.0
Iron
nan
Vit. A
nan
Vit. C
EDWARDS® Desserts Or
Nutrients in 100 grams
(all units are in grams)
Calories
Sugar
0.0
Fiber
18.82
Total Fat
0.28
Sodium
2.35
Protein
2.35
Carbs
0.02
Choleste
rol
10.59
Sat. Fat
0.03
Calcium
0.0
Iron
nan
Vit. A
nan
Vit. C
Differences in the List of Ingredients
We identify ingredients and additives, allowing the consumer to compare them.
Mini No Sugar Added
EDWARDS® Desserts Or

Ingredient Tree

Ingredient List

Cream Cheese (Pasteurized Milk and Cream, Salt, Stabilizers [Carob Bean Gum and/or Xanthan, Locust Bean, and Guar Gums], Cheese Culture), Maltitol, Eggs*, Lemon Juice*, Vanilla., *Non-GMO Ingredient

Ingredient Tree

Ingredient List

sour cream (cultured cream, modified food starch, sodium tripolyphosphate, locust bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan), sugar, wheat flour, water, shortening (palm oil and soybean oil), milk, cream cheese (pasteurized milk and cream, cheese culture), hydrogenated palm kernel oil, corn syrup, contains 2% or less: modified food starch, baking soda, salt, carob bean gum, natural flavors, mono- and diglycerides, sodium caseinate, maltodextrin, xanthan gum, cheese culture, dextrose, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate, guar gum, sodium citrate, citric acid, soy lecithin, malic acid, potato maltodextrin, whey protein concentrate, colored with beta carotene and apocarotenal.
Based on the nutrition facts and machine learning, TrueFood assigns each product a single score, that varies between 0 (minimally or unprocessed) and 100 (highly ultra-processed) compared to all other cakes.
Mini No Sugar Added
Cakes | WholeFoods
EDWARDS® Desserts Or
Cakes | Walmart
What does compared to all other cakes mean?

We are reporting the percentile position of the food processing score (FPro) for each food within its category.

In this example the Mini No Sugar Added Cheesecake is at the 3rd percentile among all cakes, meaning if we have 100 different cakes on a shelf then 97 of them are more processed than the Mini No Sugar Added Cheesecake.


Similarly, the color of hexagons for sugar and calories shows how much sugar or calories an item has compared to all other items in its category.
Calories
Sugar
Calories
Sugar
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