NuVal: Worth the Hype?

I first heard about NuVal Nutritional Scoring System through a webinar at work. NuVal scores foods using some complex algorithm, taking into account a variety of nutritional factors and dividing the good by the bad. According to the website and the beginning of our webinar, foods are place on a 1 - 100 scale. These numbers will eventually make their way into grocery stores and be listed by the price tag. Right now, they are only in select stores (mainly in southern Minnesota) but more are on their way. Since it's located next to the price tag, you can also figure out which food is the better value. If both bags of chips are a 24 on the NuVal scale, you then look at the price per ounce and get the cheaper one. I was SO excited about this system as healthy food purchasing can be a nightmare for people who don't have nutrient knowledge. I even have the knowledge, and it takes me 20 minutes to pick out a new cereal.

Like I said, I was excited. Then we got about 3/4 through the webinar and the following numbers showed up.

Bread 2-81
Canned Vegetable 2 - 100
Cereal 4-100
Cookie 1-40
Cracker 2-87
Egg and egg substitute 26-67
Frozen Vegetables 22-100
Produce 24-100
Meat/Poultry 24-53
Milk 4-91
Pasta 11-91
Salty Snack 1-52
Seafood 36-89
Juice 1-82
Snacks/Granola 1-42
Yogurt 22-99


That's right folks, not all the foods are scored on a scale of 1 -100. Seriously, they made this great tool and then confused it all up! I had originally thought, "Great, I'll just go to the store and have all my groceries be a 70 or higher, that should be healthy and easy. No such luck. Thank goodness I'm in the know. I will now have to take my little cheat sheet in with me to the store when it comes to my area. I have emailed the folks at NuVal as to why this is, though I have yet to receive a response.