An environmental research organization has introduced one of the most comprehensive online databases of food products, containing information on more than 80,000 items sold in U.S. groceries. It offers details of ingredients and nutritional information as well as an attempt to assess how processed the food items are.

“We know that consumers care a lot about what’s in the foods they buy, and we also know that if foods are highly processed, that can have an impact on nutrition in ways that don’t always show up on the information panels on labels,” said Renée Sharp, director of research at the Environmental Working Group, the nonprofit that built the new service.

The Food Scores database, compiled largely from information supplied by food companies through voluntary and mandatory labeling, combined with the group’s research on pesticides and additives, allows consumers to find information like how many products contain brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient or whether a specific product contains added dyes and preservatives.

The Environmental Working Group aims to assign a score from 1 to 10, with 1 being the best, to each product based on how nutritious it is, how many ingredients in it or its packaging raise concerns and an estimate of how processed it is. Factors include whether a product is organically certified, was raised according to various animal-welfare standards or without antibiotics and was exposed to environmental contaminants and pesticides.

“You can see if a product is gluten-free, whether it potentially contains genetically modified ingredients, how it stacks up against its competition,” Sharp said. “The database is only of branded and packaged products.”

Ken Cook, president and a founder of the environmental group, said he anticipated resistance from the food industry. In an email statement, the Grocery Manufacturers Association – the trade group that represents the industry’s interests – criticized the new tool after being briefed on it by the environmental organization.

“The Environmental Working Group’s food ratings are severely flawed and will only provide consumers with misinformation about the food and beverage products they trust and enjoy,” the association said.

It said the scoring system was “not based on sound scientific methodologies” and thus would give consumers inaccurate and misleading information.

Sharp said her group’s methodology was presented in depth on the website, so that consumers could understand exactly how the organization arrived at its conclusions.

“We laid out all of our assumptions and decisions,” she said. “We don’t think anyone is as transparent as we are about what we’re doing.”

On the Net

www.ewg.org/foodscores