A Look at NuVal, Nutrition Made Easy April 23, 2010

The next time you do your grocery shopping at Hy-Vee, instead of roaming through the aisles on auto-pilot, check to see if there is a little sticker next to the price tag on the shelf.  You’re looking for a blue, double-decker molecule of sorts which will have a number in the center.  These stickers are part of the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System; a newer way for consumers to weigh their nutritional choices.  The concept is pretty cool, and pretty simple.  Foods are given a score between 1 and 100.  The higher the number, the better the nutritional value. 

 Who Thinks of This Stuff:

Seriously, I wish I was smart enough to think this up.  This involves some seriously heady math.  According to the website, an independent, diverse group of panelists (smarties from such prestigious institutions as Yale, Baylor College of Medicine, American Cancer Society and Albert Einstein College of Medicine) developed this patent-pending, mathematical equation called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI).  This complicated algorithm looks like something the smart kid in your calculus study group would have come up with.  It weighs healthy nutrients and unhealthy nutrients using recommendations by the FDA, USDA and the Institute of Medicine’s Dietary Reference Intakes.  Things like the type of fat, quality of the protein and the caloric density are also figured in.  Both the numbers from the good nutrients (vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, Omega-3 fatty acids) and the “bad” nutrients (trans-fats, saturated fats, cholesterol and sugar) are entered into the equation, and the NuVal number pops out.  This is literally nutrition by the numbers.  As far as I can tell, this is utterly objective; there are no statistics to manipulate to make something look better or worse than it is.  Now if I lost you at the word “algorithm”, have no fear.  The science behind the score can be found at the NuVal website.  And if offers a much better explanation that I gave here, so check it out if you feel you need the information.  http://www.nuval.com/Science/

 Where Can I Find This:

The Des Moines area Hy-Vees have had this in place for about a year.  Some Hy-Vees provide store walk-throughs to introduce the consumers to this new system.  Not all foods are scored yet, but the overall list is continually being updated.  Both nation-wide brands and store brands are being scored.  I don’t believe this is available through Dahl’s or Fairway. 

 Why I Like This:

Believe it or not, I’m kind of a numbers person, and this system is numbers HEAVEN!  How much simpler do you need it to be?  No more looking at food labels.  No more worrying about misinformation provided by the manufacturer.  No more getting sucked in by marketing propaganda.  You do not need to be a dietitian to figure this out.  If you’re trying to decide between 2 different types of peanut butter, just go with the higher number.  I can’t wait for all the labels to be posted online so I can finally have a more objective answer to, “Which is better, butter or margarine”.  I want to know if the trans-fats in margarine weigh heavier than the saturated fat in butter.  The NuVal website indicates that an online score posting is in the future.

 Why I DON’T Like This:

As a numbers person, I like looking at how statistics are manipulated to see if something is reported to be better or worse than it really is.  Since this is supposed to be completely objective, the way the algorithm is set up, weighing the good nutrients against the bad, some of the scores seem odd.  Keep this in mind:  Fresh broccoli was awarded the perfect score of 100.  A boneless, skinless chicken breast, a food that I would consider mighty healthy, has a score of 39.  Now, as a protein, the chicken’s vitamin and mineral content is not nearly as good as that of the broccoli.  But broccoli has virtually no protein, while the chicken is chock full of high biological value amino acids.  Also, Fanta, a brand of pop (soda) has a low, low score of 1 while “Monster Khaos”, a brand of energy drink, (a product I would consider near the root of all evil, worse than pop), scored a 23.  I would imagine this is because energy drinks have B-vitamins and protein added.  I, however, a nutrition professional, consider energy drinks a poor choice because of the amount of caffeine and sugar in them. 

 The website is quick to point out that humans need a well-balanced diet with a diverse group of foods.  But the way the math works, not all food groups will have a member with a perfect score, i.e. meat.  The “fresh meats” category averages scores in the 40’s.  Atlantic Salmon scores an 87. 

 Also, the website mentions that toxin potential (i.e. Salmonella and E.coli) is not weighed into the score, nor is there any evidence as of yet to provide organic foods with an automatically higher score just for being organic. 

 Overall, I think this is brilliant.  I would love it if they would score the State Fair Foods this year.  It’s no secret that picking out healthy foods is challenging.  So if you’re in the store and wondering if one brand of breakfast cereal is going to be better than the other, pick the one with the higher score.  Just keep in mind that if you use the NuVal scoring system, you can’t eat a perfect score of 100.