Glossary
The words this site uses for its numbers, in plain language. Each is the same text as the “?” beside it on the page.
- Agencies and databases
EFSA is the European Food Safety Authority, which sets many of the limits. Health Canada and the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) measure what is in food in Canada, and the US FDA does the same in the United States. IARC is the International Agency for Research on Cancer. For nutrient amounts: USDA FoodData Central (its Foundation Foods and SR Legacy releases), the CNF (Canadian Nutrient File) and CoFID (the UK’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset).
- Breadth
The share of its scored nutrients (of the 22) that a food supplies in a worthwhile amount: at least a tenth of a day’s need, per 100 calories (per serving, counting at most 100 calories, for the Everyday score).
- Category default
A hazard worked out from a food’s category (rice and inorganic arsenic, swordfish and mercury) rather than measured in that food. Only imported foods carry one: the hazard follows the category whichever food it is, so it says what to watch for in that kind of food, and any figure with it belongs to the category, not to this food.
- Daily value (%)
The share of one day’s need that a serving gives, set against Health Canada’s daily amount for the nutrient. 20% or more reads “a lot”, 10% or more “some”, 2% or more “a little”, the same for every nutrient.
- Density
How much of a day’s need a food supplies, on average, over those of the 22 scored nutrients it has a value for. Each nutrient counts at most 100% of a day’s need, so one standout can’t carry the rest.
- Density cap
The most one nutrient can add to a food’s density: each nutrient counts for at most this share of a day’s need, so one standout can’t carry the rest. The Method page shows the value used.
- Derived
Worked out from a formula or an assumption, not measured in this food. On the calcium card, an absorption figure is derived when the amount shown is more than twice, or less than half, the dose the study tested, because the share that gets in changes with the dose. It is not the same as listed (what a database says a food contains) or absorbed (what a study measured in people).
- Goals
A goal (Everyday, Lose weight, Gain weight) is a recipe: the same ingredients of a score, density, breadth, protein, fibre and energy, in a different mix. Foods are ranked within a goal, never across goals.
- Grades
A, B or C: how close the evidence is to this food. A was measured in this food; C is the general figure, with nothing closer.
- Grams to the limit
Where an agency sets a health-based limit, this is the grams of the food that would take an average adult to it within the limit’s own window, counting what an average diet already brings where an agency has measured that (if that alone reaches the limit, the page says so and counts from zero). Fewer grams means more caution.
- How often you can eat it
A badge on a hazard row says how a serving of that food compares with the agency’s limit. It starts with the same words a food page uses, from “Limit it: weekly or less” (the most cautious) to “Nothing to watch: under the limit”. Hazards with no safe level, and rows not rated by dose, wear other badges.
- Listed and absorbed
A listed amount is what a national food database says the food contains. An absorbed amount is what a human study found your body takes in, which can be far less.
- Margin of exposure
How far the dose at which studies found harm, usually in animals, sits above what people actually eat of a contaminant. Foodtopsy uses it where no intake is known to be safe, so there is no limit to count grams up to. For one contaminant, a bigger margin is more reassuring, and a margin of 1 would mean people already take in the dose that caused effects. The agencies that use it say what size counts as a concern for each contaminant.
- Men and women
Where Health Canada gives men and women different daily amounts, the percentage and the word (“a lot”, “some”, “a little”) are read against the higher amount, so a serving never looks better than it is for the sex that needs more. A food page prints both shares and its word follows the smaller; a nutrient page ranks every food against the higher amount and says whose it is.
- mg and µg
A milligram (mg) is a thousandth of a gram, and a microgram (µg) a thousandth of a milligram: 1,000 µg make 1 mg.
- Per serving, per 100 kcal, per 100 g
Per serving is Health Canada’s reference amount for one sitting. Per 100 kcal compares nutrients for the same calories. Per 100 g is for when you set the amount yourself.
- Reference intake (RDA, AI)
The daily amount of a nutrient that health authorities set for adults. The RDA (recommended dietary allowance) meets the needs of nearly all (97 to 98%) healthy people of a given age and sex; the AI (adequate intake) is used where the evidence can’t support an RDA, and is expected to meet or exceed the needs of most. Foodtopsy uses Health Canada’s tables, the higher of the male and female amounts for ages 19 to 30.
- Reviewed and imported
Reviewed foods are checked by hand against their sources, and only they are ranked. Imported foods are the amounts the national databases list, as published; we haven’t checked them.
- Scaling anchors
Two numbers for each ingredient of a score, a low and a high. A food at or below the low scores 0 on that ingredient, at or above the high scores 1. For the lose-weight and gain-weight goals they are fixed, so adding a food does not change another food’s score. For the Everyday goal they are the lowest and highest values among the reviewed foods and are recalculated when that set grows, so adding foods can move every Everyday score.
- Scores
A number from 0 to 1 that puts reviewed foods in order for one goal. It asks: for its calories, how much of what a body needs does this food bring? It ranks foods against each other; it is not a verdict that a food is healthy or unhealthy.
- Tolerable intake (TDI, TWI)
The amount of a contaminant an agency says a person can take in every day (TDI) or every week (TWI) for life without harm expected. It is a long-term average, not a ceiling for one meal.
- Toxic equivalents (TEQ)
A way to add up dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, which differ in strength, into one figure: each is weighted by how toxic it is compared with the most toxic dioxin. The figure is the amount of that reference dioxin it would equal. WHO2022-TEQ is the 2022 set of weights.
- Verdict words and badges
“Limit it”, “Go easy”, “Worth knowing”, the “nothing to watch” lines, the badges on hazard rows and the small labels on the indexes (“Watch”, “Closest”, “Stands out”, “Most”, “More than anyone eats”, “Shown, not rated”) each have one meaning. They are all listed on How to read this site, as the pages print them.