Every ingredient Mortal flags, and what it costs you.

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.

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

Standard 4 · Clean 5 · Primal 7

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

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

Standard 1 · Clean 1 · Primal 5

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: Same unresolved argument as sunflower oil. Reasonable people disagree here.

Standard 0 · Clean 0 · Primal 5

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.

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

Standard 2 · Clean 4 · Primal 4

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.

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

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 4

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.

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

Standard 2 · Clean 3 · Primal 4

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: 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

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

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

Still contested: Isolated plant proteins are studied far less than whole food sources.

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 4

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.

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

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

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.

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

Standard 2 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

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.

Still contested: What the added dose actually does alongside caffeine is not well characterised.

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

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.

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

Standard 1 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

Still contested: Emulsifiers as a class have only recently been studied in their own right.

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

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.

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

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 3

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

Flagged only by profiles that penalise preservatives as a class.

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

Standard 0 · Clean 2 · Primal 2

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.

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

Standard 3 · Clean 3 · Primal 3

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.

Still contested: 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

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

All profiles flag it; the weight rises with strictness.

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

Standard 3 · Clean 4 · Primal 5

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.

Still contested: 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

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.

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

Standard 1 · Clean 2 · Primal 3