How food scores are calculated and personalised
There are many different factors that go into calculating your ZOE food scores.
We look at the nutritional composition of each food item and your personal scores to predict how different foods will interact with your unique biology.
This is because we’ve seen through our own research that our responses to food vary hugely between different people. These responses also change as we get older, and differ between men and women.
The predicted impact is then translated into an easy-to-understand numerical ZOE food score, giving you a quick way to gauge how well a food may suit your body's needs.
Sub-scores
Food is complex, and it would be hard to always eat foods or meals that have excellent blood sugar, blood fat and gut health impacts.
Moreover, just because something scores poorly in one (or more) of these areas doesn't mean that it is 'bad' for you in general. This overall impact is reflected in the overall food score.
The overall ZOE food score takes all of the individual sub-scores into account and should be thought of as the overall ZOE recommendation.
While the blood sugar response, blood fat response, and gut health impacts displayed for any particular food aim to demonstrate the impact of the food in these different ways, the overall food score takes into account all of these effects and their importance for you.
We would advise you to consider the overall score as the recommendation and use the sub-scores as a source of additional information and context.