This is the bar. All of it.
Version 2.2, September 4, 2026. Every criterion we check, how a verdict is decided, and what each verdict means. It is our own opinion about what belongs in food, published in full so you can hold us to it.
The Standard is HigherBar's bar, and nobody else's.
"Does not meet the Standard" means a product does not meet our bar. It is not a safety claim, a legality claim, or a health claim, and it does not mean any regulator agrees with us. Plenty of food that does not meet our Standard is legal to sell and safe to eat by every official measure.
Three possible answers, the same for everyone.
Every product gets exactly one verdict, and two users always see the same one. Personal preferences layer on top as a separate fit line; they never change the verdict itself.
All ten checks resolved from this label, and every one of them is met, from the regulatory floor to added sugar.
At least one criterion is not met. The product's scorecard names the exact label ingredients behind every such row.
At least one required check could not be resolved from this label: the label could not be read, nothing on it could be identified, or a check has no data to run on. A missing added-sugars line counts, unless the total-sugars line on the same panel is at or under the limit, which bounds added sugar from above. We say so plainly instead of guessing.
How a verdict is decided.
The scorecard comes first; the verdict is read off it, in this order. There is no score, no weighting, and no tie-breaking.
Version 2.2 added the middle line. Before it, a product could carry "Meets" while a required check sat unresolved, which contradicted this page. It no longer can.
Ten checks, applied to every product.
These are our house rules. They apply to every product by default, and every product's scorecard shows how each one came out.
- No prohibited ingredientsAnything with a published prohibited or withdrawn status in a registry we track. This floor is not relaxable.
- No refined industrial oilsCanola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, corn, grapeseed, rice bran, palm, and palm kernel oils, and unspecified vegetable oil.
- No high fructose corn syrupHigh fructose corn syrup in any form, including isoglucose.
- No added corn syrup or refined fructoseCorn syrup, corn syrup solids, and crystalline fructose.
- No artificial dyesRed 40, Red 3, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3.
- No artificial sweetenersAspartame, sucralose, saccharin, and acesulfame potassium.
- No synthetic preservativesBHT, BHA, and TBHQ.
- No carrageenanCarrageenan.
- No brominated oilsBrominated vegetable oil.
- Added sugar within limitMore than 4g of added sugar per serving, using the label's added sugars line. When that line is missing, a total sugars line at or under 4g resolves the check, because added sugar cannot exceed total sugar. When neither line is there we say so instead of guessing.
You can relax any rule except the regulatory floor in your own preferences. Doing so changes your personal fit line and how your scorecard is annotated; the universal verdict stays the same for everyone.
Seven registries set the floor.
An ingredient with a published prohibited or withdrawn status in any registry we track means the product does not meet the Standard. This is the one part of the bar no preference can relax.
- United States (FDA)
- European Union (EFSA)
- United Kingdom (FSA)
- Codex Alimentarius (JECFA)
- Japan (CAA)
- Australia & New Zealand (FSANZ)
- Canada (Health Canada)
Only published, evidenced registry rows count, each retained with its source. A missing row means no data, never "not authorized"; and "prohibited" is not the same as "not authorized", so we never collapse the two.
Preferences sit on top, not inside.
Some ingredients are allowed by the Standard but matter to individual people. Those live in your personal preferences: exclude any of them and your fit line says so, while the verdict stays universal.
- Nitrates and nitrites
- Natural flavors
- Sugar alcohols
- Allergen avoidance and dietary presets
- Custom ingredient exclusions
Example: sodium nitrite is permitted by the Standard today, by our explicit decision. If you exclude nitrites, a cured product shows "Conflicts with your preferences: nitrites" as your own labeled line under our chip, marked in amber rather than red, and its verdict does not change.
What we do when we don't know.
Every scorecard carries an honesty row: "Ingredients identified: N of M", listing tokens we could not identify. It never changes the verdict; it exists so you can see the limits of the check.
Missing data is reported as missing. No invented zeros, no filled-in guesses, no treating absence of evidence as a clean bill. Where one label line bounds another, we say which line we used: total sugars at or under the limit resolves the added sugar check, because added sugar cannot exceed total sugar. Total sugars never fails a product.
The Standard changes only in the open: version 2.2, published September 4, 2026. Any change to the criteria bumps the version and re-scores the whole catalog, so a verdict always traces to the exact bar that produced it.
Hold your own pantry to it.
Paste any ingredient list and get the same ten checks, criterion by criterion, with every source named.