Do You Need a Cheat Sheet for Healthy Eating?

Well guess what, someone finally figured out how to simplify the federally mandated food labeling system that we all find so confusing!

Yup, it only took 15 scientists from Yale University-Griffin Hospital Prevention Research Center to figure this one out. Dr. David Katz from Yale University-Griffin Hospital and his team have come up with a new easy to read food labeling technique called the NuVal scoring system which is based on an algorithm called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI). It's kind of like a cheat sheet for eating healthy.

The ONQI evaluates foods using a complex algorithm:

"The Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI) is an algorithm designed to generate a single, summative score for the "overall nutritional quality" of a food based on its micronutrient and macronutrient composition and several other of its nutritional properties (e.g., energy density). The ONQI is further designed to stratify foods into a rank order of relative nutritiousness both universally (i.e., across all food categories) and within specific food categories (e.g., breads, cereals, frozen desserts, etc.), while avoiding the characterization of any food as "good" or "bad" in absolute terms."

Simply put, the ONQI system will evaluate 'all foods' in a grocery store on a scale of 1-to-100, with 100 being the healthiest. The ONQI system does the complex calculations for consumers, crediting foods for such things as vitamins, fiber and whole grains while debiting them for such ingredients as salt, sugar and heart-unhealthy trans fats.

The theory is that this system will be a simplification over the nutritional labels required by the government and the plethora of logos and slogans meant to signify good nutrition. It's intention is to help consumers weed through the marketing, slogans and claims plastered throughout the grocery store intending to make the consumer believe products that may not be of any nutritional value are 'healthy.'

The ONQI system will strive to define the nutritional quality of a food based on its influence on overall dietary goals not the claims of the manufacturer.

Below is a sample list of foods rated using the ONQI system recently published in National Geographic magazine:

So, does this mean we don't need to read labels anymore? Well, keep in mind that the ONQI rating system doesn't take into consideration the possible additives and preservatives, like MSG, aspartame etc. found in many processed foods. So reading labels is still a good idea.

Although this rating system may be interesting and some may find it useful, using a simple rule of thumb is all you need to eat healthy. What's the simple rule of thumb? 'Stay Away from PROCESSED FOODS!' Rating system or no rating system, if you eat mostly fresh organic fruits and vegetables and organic meats, you won't need to worry about counting numbers!

If you are looking for a great guide to help you work through the maze of information about what is and what isn't healthy, consider reading What to Eat by Marion Nestle.

Nestle walks readers through every supermarket section--produce, meat, fish, dairy, packaged foods, bottled waters, and more--decoding labels and clarifying nutritional and other claims (in supermarket-lingo, for example, "fresh" means most likely to spoil first, not recently picked or prepared), and in so doing explores issues like the effects of food production on our environment, the way pricing works, and additives and their effect on nutrition.

Knowledge is indeed power, and Nestle's lively, witty, and thoroughly enlightening book will help its readers become completely cognizant about food shopping.

It's a must for anyone who eats and buys food and wants to do both better.

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