NuVal is a new nutritional value scoring system that rolls all nutrients into one score.  No more looking at calories, sugar, fat, fiber, etc. and trying to guess the overall nutritional value of the foods you buy. It allows us to easily see the overall nutritional value that foods have by giving them a score from 1-100. And, because NuVal uses the same criteria for all foods, you can not only compare foods within the same category (vegetables), but you can also compare across categories (veggies vs. veggie burgers)!

The scores are found on the shelf labels of foods, look like the logo above, and are rapidly being added across our local Meijer stores.  I saw them all over the produce section this past Tuesday while shopping.  For example, in the fruit category, strawberries kick mango butt with scores of 100 and 93, respectively. Wow - according to NuVal, the banana is NOT the perfect fruit, coming in at 91!  Of course, the goal is not to eat only foods with scores of 100, but NuVal makes it easier to compare foods quickly.

Here is a quote from their website, www.nuval.com:

Q: What factors contribute to how a food’s nutrition quality is scored?
A: The ONQI algorithm considers more than 30 different nutrients and nutrition factors, including:

Numerator Nutrients: Nutrients considered to have generally favorable effects on health are placed in the numerator, where higher values increase the NuVal™ Score.

• Saturated fat
• Trans fat
• Sodium
• Sugar
• Cholesterol

In addition to the numerator and denominator nutrients, the NuVal™ System takes into account other key factors that measure the quality and density of nutrients, as well as the strength of their association with specific health conditions.

Currently, not every single food has been evaluated, but they have added new foods since I last visited their website 2 weeks ago.  This seems like a valuable tool for consumers - I chose strawberries because they had a higher score than blackberries, so it influenced my buying decision.  So far, I only saw the scores in the produce section at Meijer, but I'm told they will be adding more.

Look for the blue labels the next time you are in Meijer, and let me know what you think!  Oh, and I have heard recently from a few people that they don't like or shop at Meijer - what's up with that?