Healthy Food Choice Powered by Natural Ratios, Carb to Fiber

Introducing an innovative food quality calculator and soon to be released smart app that empowers individuals to make informed dietary choices and optimize their health. By evaluating nutrient values and ratios like carb to fiber, it computes a comprehensive score, facilitating effortless comparison and selection of the highest quality foods for optimal nutrition and well-being.

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Type Food & Add (+) A guilty pleasure?
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Sort the Results (🔘) Ranked by score

Natural Ratios in Whole Foods

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Powered by Natural Nutrient Ratios like Carb to Fiber

  • On-the-go translation of nutrition labels
  • Better-for-you food suggestions & pairings
  • Customizable filters: Keto, Vegetarian, Mediterranean

The Score

Maximize green, moderate yellow, and minimize red scoring food combinations in both amount and frequency. Use ratio subscores to provide insights on how to synergize and supplement foods. Then see how you feel. More full, greater energy, better mood?

  • Green (100-70): Maximize
  • Yellow (69-60): Moderate
  • Red (59-0): Minimize

The Design

The calculator algorithm incorporates below literature evidence on nutrient ratios, additives, and bioactives to inform an overall food quality score. It references the USDA’s FoodData Central for nutrient values of individual foods. Quality scores of 70-100 and ratio subscores of <2 correlate largely with whole foods. Very much welcome your early feedback in the comments section below.

The Evidence

Modern food processing has disrupted the natural ratios present in whole food matrixes concentrating for simple carbohydrates, saturated fats, sodium, and additives while limiting fiber, unsaturated fats, potassium, and bioactives. Some of the latest research is suggesting that disrupted ratios that involve both concentrated and insufficient nutrients are important contributors to the rising rates of gut, metabolic, cardiovascular & neurologic disease.[1,2]

Nutrient ratios that provide a composite score of carb, fat, and micronutrient quality have been associated with a lower odds ratio for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and lung disease as well as higher odds ratio for optimal cardiometabolic health.[3,4]

Carb quality (i.e. favorable carb to fiber ratio) is associated with better health[5]: lower depression[6], smaller waist[7], lower diabetes rates[8–10], and less heart disease[11,12]. Fiber slows the absorption of carbs and is converted by the microbiome to factors like butyrate that help to efficiently process them once absorbed.  For more information on fiber please follow this link.

Fat quality (i.e. favorable total fat to unsaturated fat ratio) is also associated with health: improved blood lipids and glycemic control.[13] For more information on fats please follow this link.

Micronutrient quality (i.e. sodium to potassium ratio) has been associated with lower blood pressure[14] and interventions have lead to decreased blood pressure and stroke.[15]  

Bioactive quality (low harmful additives and high bioactives). Some unnatural additives like certain sugar alternatives[16], trans fats[17], and some emulsifiers[18] have been linked to poor health markers or outcomes while other natural bioactives like polyphenols/phytochemicals[19] and short chain fatty acids (e.g. acetic acid[20], butyrate[21]) have been linked to better health outcomes.

This resource is intended to be a dietary guide. Please consult your physician for any questions pertaining to medical advice.

1. Fardet A, Rock E. Chronic diseases are first associated with the degradation and artificialization of food matrices rather than with food composition: calorie quality matters more than calorie quantity. Eur J Nutr. 2022;61: 2239–2253. doi:10.1007/s00394-021-02786-8

2. Mozaffarian D. Dietary and policy priorities to reduce the global crises of obesity and diabetes. Nature Food. 2020;1: 38–50. doi:10.1038/s43016-019-0013-1

3. Mozaffarian D, El-Abbadi NH, O’Hearn M, Erndt-Marino J, Masters WA, Jacques P, et al. Food Compass is a nutrient profiling system using expanded characteristics for assessing healthfulness of foods. Nature Food. 2021;2: 809–818. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00381-y

4. O’Hearn M, Erndt-Marino J, Gerber S, Lauren BN, Economos C, Wong JB, et al. Validation of Food Compass with a healthy diet, cardiometabolic health, and mortality among U.S. adults, 1999–2018. Nat Commun. 2022;13: 1–14. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-34195-8

5. Mozaffarian RS, Lee RM, Kennedy MA, Ludwig DS, Mozaffarian D, Gortmaker SL. Identifying whole grain foods: a comparison of different approaches for selecting more healthful whole grain products. Public Health Nutr. 2013;16. doi:10.1017/S1368980012005447

6. Makhani SS, Davies C, George KA, Castro G, de la Vega PR, Barengo NC. Carbohydrate-to-Fiber Ratio, a Marker of Dietary Intake, as an Indicator of Depressive Symptoms. Cureus. 2021;13. doi:10.7759/cureus.17996

7. Sawicki CM, Lichtenstein AH, Rogers GT, Jacques PF, Ma J, Saltzman E, et al. Comparison of Indices of Carbohydrate Quality and Food Sources of Dietary Fiber on Longitudinal Changes in Waist Circumference in the Framingham Offspring Cohort. Nutrients. 2021;13: 997. doi:10.3390/nu13030997

8. AlEssa HB, Bhupathiraju SN, Malik VS, Wedick NM, Campos H, Rosner B, et al. Carbohydrate quality and quantity and risk of type 2 diabetes in US women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2015;102: 1543–1553. doi:10.3945/ajcn.115.116558

9. Hashimoto Y, Tanaka M, Miki A, Kobayashi Y, Wada S, Kuwahata M, et al. Intake of Carbohydrate to Fiber Ratio Is a Useful Marker for Metabolic Syndrome in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Cross-Sectional Study. ANM. 2018;72: 329–335. doi:10.1159/000486550

10. AlEssa HB, Ley SH, Rosner B, Malik VS, Willett WC, Campos H, et al. High Fiber and Low Starch Intakes Are Associated with Circulating Intermediate Biomarkers of Type 2 Diabetes among Women. J Nutr. 2016;146: 306–317. doi:10.3945/jn.115.219915

11. Fontanelli M, Sales C, Liu J, Micha R, Mozaffarian D, Fisberg RM. The ≤ 10:1 carbohydrate to fiber ratio to identify healthy grain foods and its association with cardiometabolic risk factors in Brazil. Proc Nutr Soc. 2020;79: E309. doi:10.1017/S0029665120002578

12. AlEssa HB, Cohen R, Malik VS, Adebamowo SN, Rimm EB, Manson JE, et al. Carbohydrate quality and quantity and risk of coronary heart disease among US women and men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2018;107: 257–267. doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqx060

13. Schwingshackl L, Zähringer J, Beyerbach J, Werner SS, Heseker H, Koletzko B, et al. Total Dietary Fat Intake, Fat Quality, and Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review of Systematic Reviews of Prospective Studies. Ann Nutr Metab. 2021;77. doi:10.1159/000515058

14. Binia A, Jaeger J, Hu Y, Singh A, Zimmermann D. Daily potassium intake and sodium-to-potassium ratio in the reduction of blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Hypertens. 2015;33. doi:10.1097/HJH.0000000000000611

15. Neal B, Wu Y, Feng X, Zhang R, Zhang Y, Shi J, et al. Effect of Salt Substitution on Cardiovascular Events and Death. N Engl J Med. 2021;385. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2105675

16. Suez J, Cohen Y, Valdés-Mas R, Mor U, Dori-Bachash M, Federici S, et al. Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance. Cell. 2022;185. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.016

17. Mozaffarian D, Aro A, Willett WC. Health effects of trans-fatty acids: experimental and observational evidence. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009;63: S5–S21. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602973

18. Naimi S, Viennois E, Gewirtz AT, Chassaing B. Direct impact of commonly used dietary emulsifiers on human gut microbiota. Microbiome. 2021;9: 1–19. doi:10.1186/s40168-020-00996-6

19. Del Bo’ C, Bernardi S, Marino M, Porrini M, Tucci M, Guglielmetti S, et al. Systematic Review on Polyphenol Intake and Health Outcomes: Is there Sufficient Evidence to Define a Health-Promoting Polyphenol-Rich Dietary Pattern? Nutrients. 2019;11: 1355. doi:10.3390/nu11061355

20. Valdes DS, So D, Gill PA, Kellow NJ. Effect of Dietary Acetic Acid Supplementation on Plasma Glucose, Lipid Profiles, and Body Mass Index in Human Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2021;121. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2020.12.002

21. Amiri P, Hosseini SA, Ghaffari S, Tutunchi H, Ghaffari S, Mosharkesh E, et al. Role of Butyrate, a Gut Microbiota Derived Metabolite, in Cardiovascular Diseases: A comprehensive narrative review. Front Pharmacol. 2022;12. doi:10.3389/fphar.2021.837509

One response to “Carb Fiber Ratio & Food Quality Calculator”

  1. Chris Damman, MD, MA Avatar

    The above calculator demonstrates the power of the algorithm. The above app will make it practical. Still a work in progress and welcome your feedback.

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