Hy-Vee Inc. this week became the first company in the Midwest to introduce a program that helps customers understand the nutritional value of the food they buy. The program is good news for shoppers trying to improve their diets.
Hy-Vee tested the NuVal ™ Nutritional Scoring System in its Des Moines-area stores in the fall and is now rolling it out to its entire operating territory across seven Midwestern states. "When we're in a position to make a difference in people's lives, we should,"said Hy-Vee CEO Ric Jurgens. "This program has the potential to improve the health of our nation."
Consumers have long complained that nutrition labels are difficult to decipher. The clutter of manufacturers' health claims on packages adds to their confusion. The NuVal system easily translates nutrition information into one easy-to-understand number between 1 and 100. The higher the number, the more nutritious the food.
Nuval scores are obtained through a powerful algorithm known as the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI). The procedure was developed over a two-year period by an independent group of nutrition and health experts, led by Dr. David Katz, chairman of Griffin Hospital's Yale Prevention Research Center. The ONQI analyzes 30 nutrients—those that are important to a balanced diet and those that can hamper it—to score products across all food and beverage categories. Fiber, vitamins, sugar, cholesterol and fat are among the factors considered.
"You really shouldn't need a PhD in nutritional biochemistry to figure out which kids' breakfast cereal is more nutritious,"said Dr. Katz. "If people want to make good decisions about the foods they buy and eat, then we should give them nutritional information they can understand."
Dr. Katz convened a group in direct response to the alarmingly increasing rates of obesity and health-related diseases in both children and adults. The Center for Disease Control reports that 34 percent of adults are classified obese based on acceptable measurements of body mass index (BMI). The Journal of American Medicine reports that 32 percent of children and adolescents 2 through 19 years are in the top 15 percent of the BMI-for-age growth charts.
At the launch of the program, more than a dozen food categories will be scored in the company's stores, including fresh produce, frozen and canned vegetables, cereal, juice, crackers and cookies. Categories will be continually added as scores become available;it is expected the great majority of food will be scored by early in 2010.
