Why are the flavor quantum numbers of different quarks (including isospin I and its projection I3, as well as S, C, B*, and T, a total of six) different and cumbersome? Why are flavor quantum numbers not conserved under weak interaction? Why is hypercharge Y a combination of baryon number and some flavor quantum numbers, but appears alongside I3 in the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula? Starting from the consideration of these questions, the fermion quantum number F was proposed. F is a flavor-related additive quantum number for fermions (including quarks and leptons), conserved under weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions, and the relation Q/e = (F0 + F)/2 (where F0 is the unit electroweak charge, including baryon number and lepton number) applies to all fermions, making it more universal than the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula (which applies only to quarks). The selection rules of weak interactions were previously only empirical, but now they can be derived from F conservation, and previously undetected selections can be explained by F non-conservation. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that F/2 and F0 are equivalent to weak isospin (Iw3) and weak hypercharge (Yw) in electroweak theory. Thus, for flavor-related additive quantum numbers in electroweak and strong interactions, only two are needed, namely F and F0, and the Lagrangian has been reformulated using F and F0.