No. 208 - NuVal

I don't count calories. But I do try to eat healthy. Everything in moderation, nothing in excess. I have occasionally glanced at the nutritional information on a food package. My eyes would gloss over. It's like information overload. Fat. Saturated Fat. Cholesterol. Sodium. Dietary Fiber. Who really takes the time to understand all that information?

Today I learned about a system that simplifies the nutritional information into one number. It's called NuVal.

NuVal is a nutritional scoring system. Their website says:

NuVal Scores summarize comprehensive nutritional information in one simple number between 1 and 100.  Each NuVal Score takes into account more than just the nutrition fact panel. It considers 30-plus nutrients and nutrition factors – the good (protein, calcium, vitamins) and the not-so-good (sugar, sodium, cholesterol). And then it boils it down into a simple, easy-to-use number; a number you can trust to make better decisions about nutrition in just a few seconds.

I like this for its simplicity. See Post No. 155. One. Number.

So when you are walking down the fruit and vegetable isle you can quickly see the scores on fresh blueberries (100), fresh broccoli (100), strawberries (100), tomatoes (96), bananas (91), and iceberg lettuce (82).

And when you are walking down the cookie isle you can also easily see the scores on Nabisco Mini Teddy Grahams Honey Snack Cookies (24), Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies (10), Nabisco Nilla Wafers (8), and Nabisco Chips Ahoy Chewy Real Chocolate Chip Cookies (1).