Nutrition Quality Score

How it's calculated

The score is a weighted average of 7 components, each scored 0–100. Components that have a bigger impact on long-term health carry more weight.

Component	What it measures	Weight
Calories	Whether your energy intake is within a healthy range (1,200–3,000 kcal, ideal 1,800–2,200)	1.5x
Protein	Whether you're getting enough protein (ideal 45–120g)	1.5x
Fibre	Whether you're reaching the 25–30g daily target	1.5x
Saturated Fat	Penalises intake above 10g — the lower, the better	1.0x
Sugar	Penalises free sugar intake above 30g	1.0x
Salt	Penalises intake above 2g — NHS recommends <6g/day	1.0x
Macro Balance	Whether your carbs/fat/protein ratio is balanced (NHS Eatwell: 45–65% carbs, 20–35% fat, 10–35% protein)	1.5x

Components marked 1.5x have the greatest influence on your overall score.

Score scale

Nutrition Quality vs Diet Compliance

Nutrition Quality measures whether your food is nutritionally balanced according to general NHS/WHO health guidelines. It applies to everyone regardless of diet.

Diet Compliance measures how well you're following the specific rules of your chosen diet (e.g. Keto, Vegetarian, High-Protein). The targets change based on your diet selection.

It's possible to score high on one and low on the other. For example, a keto diet may have excellent compliance but lower nutrition quality if fibre is too low.

How to improve your score

Increase fibre — eat more vegetables, wholegrains, beans, and fruit. Most people get half of what they need.

Reduce saturated fat — swap butter for olive oil, choose leaner cuts of meat, and limit cheese and pastries.

Cut free sugars — reduce sugary drinks, sweets, and processed snacks. Check labels for hidden sugar.

Watch your salt — avoid adding salt at the table and check processed food labels. Herbs and spices add flavour without sodium.

Balance your macros — aim for a mix of protein, healthy fats, and complex carbs at each meal.

The two headline scores

Mealiv shows two primary scores. They answer different questions and are calculated independently.

Score	The question it answers
Diet Compliance	Did I follow the plan and targets I chose? Measured against your diet and goals, so a keto day is judged against keto targets.
Nutrition Score	Was the food itself nutritionally sound? Judged against general UK guidance, whatever diet you follow.

They are deliberately separate. You can eat a nutritious day that ignores your plan (high Nutrition Score, low Diet Compliance), or follow your plan precisely on food that isn't very nutritious (the reverse). Merging them into one number would hide whichever answer was more useful.

The Nutrition Score is a weighted measure of your calorie band, protein floor, fibre, saturated fat, sugar, salt and overall macro balance, adjusted for your goal.

Diet Compliance compares the day against the targets attached to the diet you selected — the targets change when your diet does.

How the thirteen indicators relate to them

This is the part most people assume incorrectly, so it is worth stating directly:

The supporting indicators do not add up to the headline scores. They are not ingredients of them, and averaging all thirteen will not reproduce either number.

The indicators exist to explain the headline scores and to generate useful actions. When your Nutrition Score drops, the indicators tell you which part of your eating moved — low fibre, high free sugar, thin plant variety. That is why they sit behind expandable rows and are never shown as equals to the two main scores.

The same day is always scored by the same code wherever you see it, so your Today page and your Progress page can never disagree about a number.

The thirteen supporting indicators

Alongside the two main scores, Mealiv tracks thirteen supporting indicators. They exist to explain why your scores moved and to suggest useful actions — they are never as important as the two main scores, which is why they sit behind expandable rows.

Each is a weighted average of its components. Where a component has no data it is left out and the remaining weights rebalanced — never scored zero. If there isn't enough information, the indicator reports unknown rather than a low score.

Indicator	What it looks at
Diet Quality	How processed your food is, the share of whole foods, nutrient density, variety and preparation. Frozen, canned and dried foods are not penalised — frozen spinach is spinach.
Macro Balance	Protein (in grams per kg of body weight), carbohydrate and fat against the shape of the diet you chose. A keto or low-carb day is scored against keto or low-carb targets.
Sugar Quality	Free sugars as a share of your day's energy — not total sugar. See the sugar section below.
Micronutrients	Twelve priority vitamins and minerals against UK reference intakes, each capped at 100% — exceeding a reference intake is not better than meeting it.
Gut Support	Fibre, plant variety, pulses and wholegrains, fruit and vegetables, fermented foods. A measure of what you logged — not of your microbiome.
Heart Support	Fat quality, plant foods, fibre, sodium, free sugar, fish and processed meat — alignment with a heart-supporting eating pattern, not a measure of your heart.
Workout Recovery	Protein amount and spread, carbohydrate availability, energy and hydration. Targets scale with the type of training, and it reports "not applicable" on a rest day rather than a low score.
Hydration	Drinks you logged against a personalised target (baseline 1.8 L, adjusted for body size and exercise). Alcohol is tracked but does not count towards fluid. No drinks logged means unknown, not dehydrated.
Bone Support	Calcium, vitamin D, protein, magnesium, vitamin K and weight-bearing exercise. Swimming and cycling are excellent exercise but are not weight-bearing, so they are credited elsewhere.
Brain Support	Alignment with a Mediterranean-style pattern: fish, leafy greens, berries, wholegrains, pulses, nuts and unsaturated fat. Not a measure of cognition or dementia risk.
Satiety Support	An estimate of how filling your day was: protein and fibre density, processing, solid versus liquid, and meal spacing.
Plant Variety	Distinct plants across the week, read from ingredient lists as well as names. Spinach logged three times is one plant. The 30-a-week figure is an engagement target, not a clinical requirement.
Healthy-Fat Balance	Unsaturated share of fat, saturated fat against the guide, omega-3 sources, and fat as a share of energy.

Indicator bands: 85+ Strong · 70+ Good · 50+ Building · under 50 Needs attention. A day under 500 kcal isn't scored — most mornings are legitimately incomplete.

How Mealiv treats sugar

UK and WHO recommendations are written about free sugars, not total sugar. Food databases usually carry only a single total, so Mealiv splits it into four parts:

Part	What it means	Counts against you?
Free	Added sugar, plus honey, syrups, fruit juice and smoothies	Yes
Intrinsic	Sugar inside intact fruit, vegetables and pulses	No
Lactose	Sugar naturally present in plain milk and unsweetened dairy	No
Unknown	Sugar we could not confidently place	No

Whole fruit is never the problem. No part of Mealiv will ever tell you to eat less intact fruit because your total sugar was high.

Unknown stays unknown. We never quietly treat unplaced sugar as added sugar — that would invent a problem. It lowers our stated confidence instead, and Mealiv hedges rather than asserts.

Sweetened versions of a food are not the food they're named after: strawberry yoghurt is not yoghurt, and banana bread is not a banana. Dried fruit is not counted as free sugar, though it does carry a dental-health note.

What these indicators are, and what they are not

These are Mealiv's own nutrition-support indicators, informed by recognised guidance: the NHS Eatwell Guide, SACN, WHO, DASH and WCRF/AICR.

They are not official implementations of published instruments such as HEI, DASH or the Mediterranean Diet Score.

They are not medical tests, diagnoses or disease-risk predictions, and they measure nothing happening inside your body. They reflect the food and activity you logged. Gut Support measures logged fibre, plants and fermented foods — not your microbiome. Heart Support measures dietary pattern — not cardiovascular health.

Because they are built from what you log, they are only as complete as your logging. Every indicator carries a confidence level, and Mealiv states plainly when a figure is estimated or when the data was thin.

Nothing here is a substitute for advice from a GP or registered dietitian, and Mealiv will never suggest changing prescribed medication.