As Vegan Bamboo Bar we introduce an indicator with the figure of 0 to 10 that really takes into account the health aspects of the ingredients of our dishes and products:
Our health indicator differs from Nutri-Score, which is not a health indicator, but an indicator of certain aspects of nutrition such as the number of calories and the amount of sugar, salt, fat, protein, fibre, fruit, and vegetables.
We are convinced that more than 90% of chronic diseases can be prevented by eating well. Every cell in your body renews between less than a day and 15 years depending on the type of cell. This means that after 15 years your body is almost entirely made up of new cells. For this process, your body needs building materials and those building materials consist of what you eat. If you eat badly, your body can consist of cells with weak cell membranes, your veins silt up, your body cells refuse sugar leading to high sugar levels in the blood, and your immune system is constantly working at full capacity to fight and clean up contaminants. It barely has the capacity left to fight diseases like coronavirus, causing you to succumb faster. However, if you eat quality food, your body will consist of robust, sturdy cells and your immune system has almost nothing to do, and therefore the maximum capacity to fight diseases. With a coronavirus infection, you would survive with ease, unless you have a rare gene, such as the ACE2-gene.
Therefore, it is important to indicate how healthy the food is that we serve. However, at this moment, there is no formal, generally accepted indicator that indicates how healthy a dish or product is.
The closest possible measure is the Nutri-Score, devised by the French government. However, no consensus has been reached within the food industry. We think that it is impossible to have a real health indicator that the food industry as a whole will approve. We expect that too many compromises would have to be made which would weaken the value of the health indicator.
Nutri-Score, for example, is not a health indicator, but an indication of certain aspects of nutrition such as the number of calories and the amount of sugar, salt, fat, protein, fiber, fruit, and vegetables.
Nutri-Score is still better than nothing. For example, it indicates how much sugar is in a product, and that is good. In the current food industry, sugar is added in large quantities to many products without it being known to the public.
Vegan Bamboo Bar introduces an indicator with a value of 0 to 10 – with 10 being best – that takes into account the health aspects of the ingredients of our dishes and products. With this indicator, we consider the following:
Below we explain the grades with some examples.
| Category | Health Score | Examples Ingredients | Examples of products |
| Eat abundantly | 10 | Organic vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, tea, spices, and fruits | Jars containing vegetables, frozen vegetables, salad or plant-based dishes that are organic |
| 9 | Non-organic vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, tea, fruits, olive oil, and spices | Jars containing vegetables, frozen vegetables, salads or plant-based dishes that are not organic | |
| 8 | Sweet potato, sweet fruits, unsweetened plant-based yogurt and milk | Oatmeal, vinegar, sauerkraut, smoothies mostly out of vegetables | |
| 7 | Small fatty fish | Most vegan burgers, sardine, mackerel, herring, anchovies, and wild salmon | |
| Eat in moderation | 6 | Potato, coconut oil, brown rice, sushi rice | Potato salad, sushi, canned vegetables, smoothies mostly out of fruit |
| 5 | Medium-sized fish, dates, rice, sweet fruit juices | Tilapia, shrimp, crab, Beyond Meat burger, unsweetened yogurt, freshly squeezed orange juice, air-popped organic popcorn, mustard | |
| 4 | Whole grain, grass-fed meat, organic chicken | Whole grain bread, farmed salmon, grass-fed meat, organic chicken | |
| Eat as little as possible or avoid | 3 | Refined vegetable oil, heated starchy products, large fish | Sunflower oil, cake, breakfast cereal, white bread, sweetened yogurt, tuna |
| 2 | Diet soft drinks, beer, farmed fish | Cola light, milk, hamburger with organic beef, cow meat, pork meat, chips (crisps), chicken meat, eggs, cake with refined sugar, ketchup, mayonnaise | |
| 1 | Heated meat, non-organic meat, alcohol, processed foods | Hamburger, sausages, hot dogs, cola, cookies, refined sugar, doughnuts, snickers, mars | |
| 0 | non-foods | Cigarettes, drugs, medicine |
Below we highlight several examples and explain their rating: