El catálogo

Todos los ingredientes que Mortal marca, y lo que te cuestan.

Toda la posición editorial del producto, en público. Cada entrada dice qué es el ingrediente, por qué lo marca una lente, cómo de fuerte es la evidencia y qué sigue en discusión. Nada se esconde detrás del número.

27 entradas en el catálogo

Cómo se construye una puntuación

  1. 1

    Cada ingrediente marcado parte de un peso base, distinto para cada lente. Un cero significa que esa lente no lo marca.

  2. 2

    El peso se escala por la cantidad que lleva, y se vuelve a reducir según la fuerza de la evidencia. Una evidencia floja no puede llevarse todos los puntos.

  3. 3

    Se suma todo. El total cae en uno de cuatro niveles: mínimo, moderado, alto o a saco.

Ingredientes

Glucose-fructose syrup

A liquid sweetener made by converting starch into a glucose and fructose blend. Cheaper and sweeter per gram than table sugar.

Counted as added sugar by all three profiles, and weighted slightly higher by Primal because it only exists as an industrial product.

En discusión: Whether it behaves meaningfully differently from ordinary sugar at equal doses is still argued about.

Standard 4 · Clean 5 · Primal 7

Added sugar

Sugar added during manufacturing rather than occurring naturally in the ingredients — usually sucrose, glucose syrup or fruit juice concentrate.

Every profile treats added sugar as the single biggest reason a packaged product scores points, and weights it higher the stricter the profile.

En discusión: There is broad agreement that added sugar is worth tracking. What is genuinely contested is where the threshold sits for any individual person.

Standard 4 · Clean 5 · Primal 6

Aspartame

A low-calorie sweetener roughly two hundred times sweeter than sugar, used in tiny quantities.

Standard barely flags it. Clean and Primal flag it because it is a synthetic ingredient with a name most people would not recognise on a label.

En discusión: This is one of the most argued-over ingredients in food. Regulators and independent reviewers have reached different conclusions, and the prototype deliberately reflects that disagreement rather than picking a side.

Standard 1 · Clean 4 · Primal 5

Refined wheat flour

Wheat flour with the bran and germ removed, leaving mostly starch.

Barely flagged by Standard and Clean. Primal weights it heavily because refined grain is central to what that profile avoids.

En discusión: How much the refining itself matters, versus what the flour is combined with, is not settled.

Standard 1 · Clean 1 · Primal 5

Sucralose

A synthetic sweetener made by modifying sugar molecules so the body does not absorb them.

Flagged by Clean and Primal on the same "unfamiliar synthetic" basis as other artificial sweeteners.

En discusión: Evidence here is thinner than for aspartame, and much of it comes from animal work that may not transfer to people.

Standard 1 · Clean 4 · Primal 5

Refined sunflower oil

Sunflower oil extracted and refined at industrial scale, usually with heat and solvents.

Only Primal flags this. It is the clearest example of a factor where the profiles genuinely disagree — Standard and Clean treat refined seed oils as unremarkable.

En discusión: This is a live and unresolved argument. Mainstream guidance and ancestral-eating communities reach opposite conclusions from overlapping evidence.

Standard 0 · Clean 0 · Primal 5

Refined rapeseed oil

Rapeseed (canola) oil processed and deodorised for a neutral taste and long shelf life.

Flagged by Primal only, on the same industrial-processing basis as other refined seed oils.

En discusión: Same unresolved argument as sunflower oil. Reasonable people disagree here.

Standard 0 · Clean 0 · Primal 5

Allura Red AC (E129)

A synthetic red-orange colourant used to make drinks and sweets look more vivid.

Flagged by every profile because it is a purely cosmetic ingredient — it changes how the product looks and nothing else.

En discusión: Different regulators have taken noticeably different positions on synthetic colours, including on labelling requirements.

Standard 2 · Clean 4 · Primal 4

BHA (E320)

A synthetic antioxidant that stops fats and oils in a product going rancid.

Flagged by all profiles, and weighted highest by Primal, as a synthetic preservative of last resort.

En discusión: Regulatory positions on this one have diverged more than for most preservatives, and it is periodically re-reviewed.

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 4

Maltodextrin

A starch-derived powder used as a bulking agent, thickener or carrier for flavour.

Flagged by all three profiles as a marker of industrial formulation rather than as an ingredient in itself.

En discusión: Its effects vary a lot depending on which starch it came from and how it is processed.

Standard 2 · Clean 3 · Primal 4

Titanium dioxide (E171)

A bright white mineral pigment used to make products look opaque and uniform.

Flagged by every profile as a cosmetic-only ingredient, and heavily by Clean and Primal.

En discusión: Regulators in different regions have reached opposite conclusions about this one, including on whether it belongs in food at all.

Standard 2 · Clean 4 · Primal 4

Synthetic fragrance (parfum)

An undisclosed blend of scent compounds. A single "parfum" entry can stand in for dozens of individual ingredients.

Clean and Primal flag it heavily because the composition is not disclosed and cannot be checked.

En discusión: Fragrance blends are protected as trade secrets, so the specific mix in any given product is unknown to everyone but the manufacturer.

Standard 1 · Clean 4 · Primal 4

Refined palm oil

A solid-at-room-temperature vegetable fat used to give texture and shelf stability.

Lightly flagged by Clean and more heavily by Primal as a heavily refined industrial fat.

En discusión: Much of the public concern about palm oil is environmental rather than dietary, and the prototype does not attempt to separate the two.

Standard 0 · Clean 1 · Primal 4

Soy protein isolate

Protein separated out of soybeans and dried into a near-pure powder.

Flagged as a heavily isolated ingredient, most strongly by Primal.

En discusión: Isolated plant proteins are studied far less than whole food sources.

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 4

Sodium benzoate

A preservative that stops mould and yeast growing in acidic products like soft drinks.

Clean and Primal flag preservatives as a category; Standard treats this one as minor.

En discusión: Most of the discussion concerns what it can form in combination with other ingredients, not the preservative alone.

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

Quaternary ammonium compounds

A family of disinfectant chemicals used in household cleaners to kill bacteria on surfaces.

Flagged by all profiles in the household category, mostly on residue and ventilation grounds.

En discusión: Most available work looks at occupational exposure, which is very different from home use.

Standard 2 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

Taurine

An amino acid the body makes on its own, added synthetically to energy drinks in gram-scale amounts.

Standard does not flag it. Clean and Primal do, on the basis that the added dose is far above what food normally provides.

En discusión: What the added dose actually does alongside caffeine is not well characterised.

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

Caramel colour (E150d)

A dark brown colourant produced by heating carbohydrates with ammonia and sulphite compounds.

Cosmetic-only ingredient, so Clean and Primal both flag it; Standard weights it lightly.

En discusión: The four caramel colour classes differ from each other and are often discussed as if identical.

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

"Natural flavouring"

A catch-all label covering flavour compounds derived from natural sources. The actual composition is not disclosed on pack.

Clean and Primal flag it purely because it is undisclosed — not because of anything known about what is in it.

En discusión: By definition nobody outside the manufacturer knows what this contains, so it cannot be assessed properly. That is the entire objection.

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

Mono- and diglycerides (E471)

Fat-derived emulsifiers that stop oil and water separating and keep texture consistent.

Flagged as a formulation additive, lightly by Standard and more by stricter profiles.

En discusión: Emulsifiers as a class have only recently been studied in their own right.

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

Phenoxyethanol

A preservative used in cosmetics to keep water-based formulas from growing bacteria.

Flagged by Clean and Primal as a synthetic preservative; Standard does not flag it.

En discusión: Concentration limits differ between regions, which tells you the picture is not fully settled.

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

Potassium sorbate

A widely used preservative that extends shelf life by inhibiting mould and yeast.

Flagged only by profiles that penalise preservatives as a class.

En discusión: Considered one of the less contested preservatives, which is why the weight is low.

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 2

Nutrición

High sodium content

Sodium levels per serving that sit in the upper band for this product category.

The one factor all three profiles weight identically — this is about as close to consensus as the model gets.

En discusión: Individual sensitivity to sodium varies widely, so a single threshold suits nobody perfectly.

Standard 3 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

High-dose caffeine

A stimulant occurring naturally in coffee and tea, here added in a concentrated dose well above a typical espresso.

All three profiles flag concentrated doses, mostly because of how easy it is to stack several servings without noticing.

En discusión: Tolerance varies enormously between individuals, so a dose that is unremarkable for one person is a lot for another.

Standard 2 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

Procesado

Ultra-processed formulation

A product built mostly from refined substances and additives rather than recognisable whole ingredients.

All profiles flag it; the weight rises with strictness.

En discusión: The classification itself is contested — reasonable people put the same product in different categories.

Standard 3 · Clean 4 · Primal 5

Industrially processed dairy

Dairy that has been pasteurised, homogenised and standardised at industrial scale.

Only Primal flags this. Standard and Clean treat processed dairy as entirely ordinary, which is exactly the disagreement the profile system exists to expose.

En discusión: The evidence base here is thin and the position is largely philosophical rather than empirical. Weighted low for that reason.

Standard 0 · Clean 0 · Primal 3

Envase

Single-use PET bottle

A lightweight plastic bottle designed to be used once and then recycled or discarded.

A packaging factor rather than an ingredient one. All profiles flag it lightly; this is the only factor in the model that is not about what you swallow.

En discusión: Work on what migrates from plastic packaging into contents is early and moves quickly. Weighted low on purpose.

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

Los Death Points son ficticios. Son una puntuación gamificada basada en el perfil de preferencias que elijas: no miden salud, esperanza de vida ni riesgo médico, y no son consejo.