As somebody else pointed out in the other place you quoted that metric, that metric is about the likelihood of food contamination, not about the food’s nutritional value and certainly not about how healthy it is in the long term.
There is not a single thing in there about food additives, under nutrients micronutrient coverage is ridculouslty narrow (only one kind of vitamin and two minerals), fat and fat quality are absent (and the other health-related macronutrient present - sugar - shows very below average scoring), the protein quality criteria seems designs to reward meat-heavy diets (which would’ve been penalized on any fat criteria but, surprise, surprise, that’s not included in that metric) and most of that entry is about “standards” (i.e. talk, not action) - “we know how to do things right” is not the same as “we do things right” when it comes to policy (that whole section is especially hilarious given that none of the best food practices in the World, such as the Mediterranean Diet, are at all the result of having a good “national nutrition plan”).
Oh, and there’s nothing there about long term outcomes, such as obesity rates and life expectation.
This being The Economist I’m not surprised at the model design - they seem to have gone for “measuring only that which is easy to measure” in order to get Worldwide coverage, which would explain things like their weird choice of micro nutrients or looking at national nutrition standards instaead of looking at food related health outcomes (such as obesity or cardivascular diseases).
As somebody else pointed out in the other place you quoted that metric, that metric is about the likelihood of food contamination, not about the food’s nutritional value and certainly not about how healthy it is in the long term.
That’s not true, you can click on a country… It has 4 components, safety is 1 of them
There is not a single thing in there about food additives, under nutrients micronutrient coverage is ridculouslty narrow (only one kind of vitamin and two minerals), fat and fat quality are absent (and the other health-related macronutrient present - sugar - shows very below average scoring), the protein quality criteria seems designs to reward meat-heavy diets (which would’ve been penalized on any fat criteria but, surprise, surprise, that’s not included in that metric) and most of that entry is about “standards” (i.e. talk, not action) - “we know how to do things right” is not the same as “we do things right” when it comes to policy (that whole section is especially hilarious given that none of the best food practices in the World, such as the Mediterranean Diet, are at all the result of having a good “national nutrition plan”).
Oh, and there’s nothing there about long term outcomes, such as obesity rates and life expectation.
This being The Economist I’m not surprised at the model design - they seem to have gone for “measuring only that which is easy to measure” in order to get Worldwide coverage, which would explain things like their weird choice of micro nutrients or looking at national nutrition standards instaead of looking at food related health outcomes (such as obesity or cardivascular diseases).