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How We Grade

Every Gator Grade comes from a published formula, built on rules from regulators and researchers. Here is each one in plain English, with where the rules come from.

One scale on every shelf

Every product gets a score from 0 to 100. The letter comes from the same cut points everywhere.

A
85–100
B
70–84
C
55–69
D
35–54
F
0–34

If we don't have what a formula needs, like an ingredient list, the product gets no grade rather than a guess.

Food

  • 40% Nutrition (Nutri-Score 2023)
  • 35% Processing (NOVA)
  • 25% Additive risk
  • Nutrition: the Nutri-Score 2023 method, the European nutrition score, applied to the product's own nutrition panel.
  • Processing: the NOVA group, worked out from the product's own ingredient list (see below).
  • Additive risk: each additive is tiered by its published safety evidence. On the card, additives are colored by that tier: red, orange, purple or green.
  • No nutrition panel? The grade uses 58% processing and 42% additive risk. No ingredient list? No grade.

NOVA: the four processing groups

NOVA, developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo, sorts foods by how much they've been processed, not by their nutrients.

NOVA 1
Unprocessed / Minimal

Real food, as nature intended

🍎 Fruits · 🥬 Vegetables · 🥩 Meat & Fish · 🥚 Eggs · 🥛 Milk

NOVA 2
Culinary Ingredients

The building blocks of home cooking

🫒 Olive Oil · 🧈 Butter · 🍯 Honey · 🧂 Salt · 🍁 Maple Syrup

NOVA 3
Processed Foods

Simple additions to real food

🥫 Canned Veggies · 🧀 Cheese · 🍞 Fresh Bread · 🐟 Smoked Fish · 🥜 Salted Nuts

NOVA 4
Ultra-Processed

Industrial creations — not real food

🥤 Soft Drinks · 🍫 Candy · 🍪 Cookies · 🍕 Frozen Pizza · 🌭 Hot Dogs

See every additive and its tier on the Additives page.

Fast food

  • 40% Nutrition (Nutri-Score 2023)
  • 35% Processing (NOVA)
  • 25% Additive risk
  • The same formula as food, applied to each menu item.
  • It uses the chain's own published nutrition and ingredient guides.
  • If a chain doesn't publish the full nutrition or the full ingredient list for an item, that item gets no grade.
  • Allergens the chain lists are shown on the item. They don't change the grade.
  • Better choices are like-for-like: soup for soup, sandwich for sandwich.

Beauty & personal care

  • 50% Restricted ingredients
  • 30% Fragrance allergens
  • 20% Hidden fragrance mix

Restricted ingredients set a ceiling. The most serious ingredient on the label decides the highest grade the product can get, however clean the rest is:

  • Prohibited in EU cosmetics (EU Cosmetics Regulation, Annex II): F at best
  • On California's Prop 65 list: D at best
  • Restricted in EU cosmetics, allowed only under limits (Annex III): C at best

Fragrance allergens: the scent ingredients EU law requires to be named on the label because some people react to them. More of them lowers the grade. They count half as much in rinse-off products like shampoo or body wash.

Hidden fragrance mix: "fragrance" or "parfum" can legally stand for a mixture that isn't disclosed, so it can't be checked.

These are facts about EU and California law, not a verdict on safety. US and EU rules sometimes disagree.

  • Red: prohibited in EU cosmetics
  • Orange: restricted in the EU or on the Prop 65 list
  • Blue: fragrance allergen
  • Purple: not disclosed (fragrance mix)

Cleaning

  • 75% What it can do to you
  • 25% Full disclosure

The letter is about you. Harm to water life is shown separately and never changes the letter.

The maker's own Safety Data Sheet comes first. When we have it, its hazard classification of the whole product, as sold, decides the grade. "Causes eye irritation" is shown, but it doesn't lower the grade.

No sheet? Each ingredient is checked against the EU's official (harmonised) hazard classifications, and the most serious one sets a ceiling:

  • Severe hazard (for example "causes severe skin burns"): F at best, but only when the label's own percentage proves it. Otherwise, because that hazard is for the pure ingredient, the product is held at D.
  • Serious hazard (for example "causes serious eye irritation"): D at best
  • Milder hazard (for example "causes skin irritation"): C at best
  • When the label gives a percentage below the legal limit for that hazard, it doesn't count.

Full disclosure: one ingredient the label doesn't name keeps the product from an A. Two or more hold it at C.

Down the drain, shown under the letter: "Very toxic to water life", "Can harm water life" or "No water hazard found", from the same EU classifications.

  • Red: severe hazard code
  • Orange: hazard code
  • Purple: not disclosed
  • Green: maker's sheet: no hazard class

Pet food

Coming soon

Pet food grades will use only what can be proven from the bag: additives, whether the label names its animal sources, and ingredients that are toxic to pets. The label's AAFCO nutrition statement will be shown on every food.

Supplements

Coming soon

Supplement grades will check each nutrient against the adult Upper Limit published by the NIH, and whether the label hides amounts inside a "proprietary blend."

Watching / Avoiding

Turn these on in Settings, and Gator gives you a heads-up whenever a product you scan contains them. They're your rules: they never change the grade. Added sugar, sodium, seed oils and high-fructose corn syrup only check food, so "sodium" doesn't go off on a cleaner's "sodium hydroxide."

Food (dyes, sweeteners and caffeine also check every other shelf)

  • Added sugar
    Catches: sugar, cane sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, glucose syrup and other added sugars
  • Sodium
    Catches: salt, sea salt, sodium, MSG (monosodium glutamate), brine
  • Seed oils
    Catches: canola, soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, grapeseed and rice bran oil
  • Artificial dyes
    Catches: Red 40, Red 3, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, "artificial color", titanium dioxide
  • High-fructose corn syrup
    Catches: high-fructose corn syrup, HFCS, glucose-fructose syrup
  • Artificial sweeteners
    Catches: aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), neotame, advantame
  • Caffeine
    Catches: caffeine, coffee, espresso, green or black tea, matcha, yerba mate, guarana, kola nut

Beauty & personal care

  • Parabens
    Catches: methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben and the other parabens
    Source: FDA
  • Phthalates
    Catches: any phthalate, including DEP and DBP (also on cleaners)
    Source: FDA
  • Sulfates (SLS/SLES)
    Catches: sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, ammonium lauryl sulfate
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • Fragrance / parfum
    Catches: "fragrance", "parfum", "perfume" (also on cleaners)
    Source: FDA
  • Formaldehyde releasers
    Catches: DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15, bronopol
    Source: Washington State law
  • Oxybenzone
    Catches: oxybenzone, benzophenone-3
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • Talc
    Catches: talc, talcum, CI 77718
    Source: FDA
  • PEGs
    Catches: PEG-100 stearate and other PEGs, polysorbate 20/80, ingredients ending in "-eth" (laureth-4)
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • Silicones
    Catches: dimethicone, cyclopentasiloxane and other siloxanes
    Source: PubChem (NIH)

Cleaning

  • Chlorine bleach
    Catches: sodium hypochlorite, bleach, chlorine, hypochlorous acid, chlorine dioxide, dichloroisocyanurate
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • Ammonia
    Catches: ammonia, ammonium hydroxide
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • Quats
    Catches: benzalkonium chloride, didecyldimethylammonium chloride and other quaternary ammonium compounds
    Source: PubChem (NIH)
  • 2-Butoxyethanol
    Catches: 2-butoxyethanol, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, butyl cellosolve
    Source: PubChem (NIH)

Pet foodComing soon with the shelf

  • Xylitol
    Catches: xylitol, birch sugar (also on supplements and beauty)
    Source: FDA
  • Unnamed meat by-products
    Catches: "meat by-products", "animal digest", "meat and bone meal"
    Source: AAFCO
  • Corn, wheat & soy
    Catches: corn, cornmeal, wheat, soy
    Source: AAFCO

SupplementsComing soon with the shelf

Questions about a grade? Tell us. We'd rather fix a rule than defend a wrong one.