How to use this calculator

Estimate how many meals in a typical week use each cooking method, how many servings of red or processed meat you eat, and whether you usually marinate meat in something acidic (lemon juice, vinegar) before high-heat cooking.

What your result means

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) form when foods — especially fatty, protein-rich foods — are cooked with dry, high heat (grilling, frying, roasting, broiling); moist-heat cooking (boiling, steaming, stewing) forms far fewer at the same doneness (Uribarri et al., 2010). This gives a relative load score, not an absolute lab measurement — actual AGE content varies enormously by specific food and exact cooking time/temperature, which this tool does not attempt to model precisely.