Patent ID: 7974881

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of assigning nutritional value ratings to a plurality of food products of the same and different type, the computer-implemented method using a computer system having (i) a plurality of computer-implemented functions, and (ii) one or more databases, the computer-implemented method comprising, for each food product, assigning a rating by: a) executing a data gathering function and a data filtering function of the computer system that (i) identifies nutritional data for a plurality of nutritional quality attributes of the food product, wherein caloric value is not a nutritional quality attribute of the food product; and (ii) stores the nutritional data in the one or more databases; (b) establishing ranges of nutritional quality attribute values for each nutritional quality attribute; c) assigning a point value to each of the ranges of nutritional quality attribute values to establish the relative importance of each of the ranges, and storing the assigned point values in the one or more databases; and d) executing a scoring function of the computer system that is in communication with the one or more databases that (i) calculates a total nutritional quality score for the food product based on the point values of the nutritional quality attributes for the food product and a scoring algorithm, and (ii) assigns a nutritional value rating based on the total nutritional quality score, wherein each nutritional value rating corresponds to a nutritional quality score or a range of nutritional quality scores, and wherein the same scoring algorithm and rating correlations are used for different types of food products.