TABLE 3.

Original and operationalized GDQS cutoffs and cube size, by food group¹

GDQS food group	Cutoff range	Cube number	Cube side size (mm)	Original cutoff (g)	Operationalized cutoff (g)
No group (cube added at the beginning)	NA	1	18	NA	NA
Whole grains	Low/middle	2	22	4	8
Nuts and seeds	Low/middle	2	22	4	7
Processed meat	Low/middle	2	22	8	9
Refined grains and baked goods	Low/middle	2	22	7	7
Eggs	Low/middle	2	22	7	6
Deep orange vegetables	Low/middle	2	22	10	9
Legumes	Low/middle	2	22	10	9
Red meat	Low/middle	2	22	12	9
High fat dairy: hard cheese	Low/middle	2	22	35	9
Dark green leafy vegetables	Low/middle	3	27	10	13
Poultry and game meat	Low/middle	3	27	12	16
Sweets and ice cream	Low/middle	3	27	11	13
Cruciferous vegetables	Low/middle	3	27	11	13
Deep orange tubers	Low/middle	3	27	14	12
Purchased deep fried foods	Low/middle	3	27	10	9
Fish and shellfish	Low/middle	3	27	16	14
Whole grains	Middle/high	3	27	16	13
Nuts and seeds	Middle/high	3	27	16	13
Citrus fruits	Low/middle	4	32	18	24
White roots and tubers	Low/middle	4	32	25	27
Juice	Low/middle	4	32	35	36
Other fruits	Low/middle	4	32	26	27
Processed meat	Middle/high	4	32	31	30
High fat dairy: hard cheese	Middle/high	4	32	140	28
High fat dairy: other	Low/middle	4	32	35	35
Low fat dairy	Low/middle	4	32	35	33
Other vegetables	Low/middle	4	32	26	23
Deep orange fruits	Low/middle	4	32	28	25
Refined grains and baked goods	Middle/high	5	38	28	33
Deep orange vegetables	Middle/high	5	38	39	45
Eggs	Middle/high	5	38	28	32
Sugar sweetened beverage	Low/middle	5	38	52	57
Legumes	Middle/high	5	38	39	42
Red meat	Middle/high	5	38	48	46
Dark green leafy vegetables	Middle/high	5	38	39	37
Poultry and game meat	Middle/high	5	38	48	44
Sweets and ice cream	Middle/high	5	38	45	37
Cruciferous vegetables	Middle/high	5	38	44	36
Fish and shellfish	Middle/high	6	46	63	71
Purchased deep fried foods	Middle/high	6	46	40	45
Deep orange tubers	Middle/high	6	46	57	63
Citrus fruits	Middle/high	6	46	74	69
White roots and tubers	Middle/high	7	52	100	107
Juice	Middle/high	7	52	141	144
Other fruits	Middle/high	7	52	106	107
Low fat dairy	Middle/high	7	52	139	132
High fat dairy: hard cheese	High/very high	7	52	734	114
High fat dairy: other	Middle/high	7	52	140	143
Other vegetables	Middle/high	8	55	106	114
Deep orange fruits	Middle/high	8	55	114	123
Sugar sweetened beverage	Middle/high	8	55	207	180
High fat dairy: other	High/very high	9	89	734	734
No group (cube added at the end)	NA	10	100	NA	NA

¹When using the application, respondents use a set of 10 cubes in a range of predetermined sizes as visual aids to determine if the quantity consumed per GDQS food group was below, equal to, or above food group–specific cutoffs established in grams. Because there is only a total of 10 cubes (for practical reasons) but as many as 54 cutoffs for the GDQS food groups, the operationalized cutoffs differ slightly from the original GDQS cutoffs presented for the validation of the metric (3). For operationalization purposes, the high fat dairy group was divided into “hard cheese” and “other”, with “other” including mainly milk, yogurt, and soft cheese. This means that in practice, during data collection, the number of GDQS food groups temporarily increases to 26 and that of cutoffs to 54. The application asks about the consumed volume of hard cheese and other high fat dairy separately, but the 2 are combined again when reporting the GDQS results to align with the metric as originally validated with 25 food groups. GDQS, Global Diet Quality Score; NA, not applicable.

²For each GDQS food group, the values below the smallest cutoff in grams were defined as “low”, values falling in between the smallest and largest cutoffs were defined as “middle”, and values above the largest cutoff were defined as “high”. The high fat dairy group had an additional cutoff compared with the rest of the food groups and value above the largest cutoff in grams were defined as very high. See Table 3 in Bromage et al (3).