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Imagine your great great grandmother stepping into a supermarket today. How many products would she recognize? Aside from the produce, meats, some bread and dairy, what would she think of all the packaged foods? What about cardboard boxes, plastic trays in huge freezers, and cans as far as the eye can see? Frozen pizzas, 50 kinds of potato chips, an entire aisle for  breakfast cereal, Instant this, instant that?

What would granny say? Heaven or hell? Treat or trick?

Granny could say that this is an absolute god send. Finally she can detach herself from the kitchen. Instead of cooking 4 hours a day, she is now free to start a career, engage in hobbies, and spend more quality time  with her children. Coming home from work, she’ll pop the frozen “meat n’ potatoes” meal into the microwave, infatuated with an oven that prepares food in 2:30 minutes.

But then would come the taste test. Would this meal pass? After all, granny has eaten home cooked fare all her life?

Taking a closer look at the package of her “breakfast cereal”, would granny read the ingredient list and nutrition label? What would she think are high fructose corn syrup, yellow 5, BHT? Would she understand how vital omega-3 is to her well-being? Or would she just dig for the plastic toy at the bottom of the bag?

The comforts of our modern life are fabulous. A supermarket stocked with 40,000 food items from every corner of the world is an amazing achievement for humanity. Being able to choose from so many eating options with such ease would seem inconceivable just 100 years ago. The food industry should be commended for constantly growing the selection of products we can buy and providing us with such convenience.

However, many of the items in the supermarket are not what granny would call “real food”. And there’s a price our body is paying when we mindlessly fill our carts and mouths with overly processed foodstuff that she wouldn’t recognize.

So next time at the grocery store, take a look at what you’re buying. When you  reach for the sugary cereals, frozen meals, and snacks, take a minute to see what’s inside the box. Perhaps a better, healthier choice is on the shelf nearby. Try to find products less processed, with fewer ingredients. Buy fresh and process the food yourself, in the kitchen, the old fashioned way.

Yes, you’ll have to spend time preparing your dinner. No, it’s not as convenient as heating up a ready meal. But it’s healthier and tastier (beginners – find someone to help you cook). Will you notice a difference in your wellness this week or next? Probably not. But let’s meet again in 20 years…

PS – Happy Halloween everyone. Enjoy the bounty of tonight’s neighborhood follies, and be thankful for the abundance, variety and choice we are offered in this great country. (Hmm…That’s also a good ending for the upcoming Thanksgiving post.)

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Have you ever wondered what’s inside that tasty TV dinner, instant pudding, or granola bar? How healthy, or not? Theoretically, we can learn a lot about a packaged food item just by reading its nutrition panel. Unfortunately for many of us, the nutrition information, ingredient list, and health claims on the package tend to confuse more than elucidate. As a result, consumers make misinformed purchase decisions. Several labeling initiatives have recently launched with a mission to simplify the nutrition information for consumers. (For some background, check our post about the history of food labels.)

A few days ago we reviewed the brand new Smart Choices Program. Today, a look at another front of package labeling system – NuVal (Nutritional Value Scoring System). NuVal was announced in late 2007 as ONQI (Overall Nutritional Quality Index). It is a scoring system that rates food on a scale of 1-100. The higher the score, the more nutritious the product.

The proprietary system consists of an algorithm that inputs values of over 30 different nutrients (i.e. protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, and minerals), and outputting a single score. The system looks at “nutrients to encourage”, such as fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as “nutrients to avoid” such as saturated fat and sodium.

The NuVal score is displayed at the supermarket on shelf tags and aisle signage, but not on the product package itself. NuVal was supposed to launch earlier this summer with several grocery chains. After a slight delay, Hy-Vee, a midwestern chain out of Iowa, was recently announced as a partner. Price Chopper has joined in the North East. Both are limited launches though – only several stores and several product categories are offered now.

NuVal / ONQI is the brainchild of Dr. David Katz, a Professor of Public Health Practice, and a nationally recognized expert in the fields of weight control and nutrition. He was previously Director of Medical Studies in Public Health, at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Katz assembled a top notch team of researchers to create the ONQI system, and it took them 2 years to do it. The grading algorithm itself has not been disclosed to the public.

NuVal LLC is  a joint venture of Yale university’s Griffin Hospital and Topco Associates, a privately held cooperative of food retailers and wholesalers. Unlike “Smart Choices”, food manufacturers are not part of this initiative, although the ONQI score requires additional information from manufacturers that is not found on food labels.

The good:

1. Simplicity. Everyone can relate to a numeric score of 1-100.

2. Uniformity. A single scoring system across all products enables consumers to compare apples to oranges, literally. (not that it would make any sense – both are nutritious and tasty).

3. Depth. A NuVal score of 1-100 provides more breadth to a product’s healthfulness than a Yes/No benchmark that appears only on selected items. Assuming all products in a supermarket will carry a NuVal score, consumers will readily compare between items in a category and choose the one with highest ranking.

4. Independence. Although not mentioned explicitly, it seems that food manufacturers were not directly involved in defining the NuVal scoring algorithm. Hopefully this sets a higher rating standard, more in favor of consumers than in the interests of manufacturers.

The not so good:

1. Mystery Scoring. NuVal is not disclosing its scoring mechanism. Smart Choices posted their criteria online, and those interested can understand exactly why one product is eligible for a check mark, and the other is not. According to NuVal, its algorithm is patent pending (which means it will be published by the US patent office once it is approved). If so, why not publish it now so consumers can be confident in their choices?

2. Manufacturer Buy In. Some of the nutrients used by the NuVal algorithm do not uniformly appear on food nutrition labels (i.e. omega-3, Total bioflavanoids, vitamin B12).  This means either the algorithm can’t calculate scores uniformly within a product category, or that all manufacturers need to provide additional nutrient information to NuVal, a third party. The chances for that happening are slim, especially for those already comitted to Smart Choices.

3. Retailer Buy In. What happens if best selling products in the supermarket get low scores? Will retailers willingly want to lose sales of soda pop and salty snacks because of their single digit score? Or are they betting that customers won’t care?

4. Placement. This may seem trivial, but in those supermarkets where price is displayed on the shelf instead of on the product, there are always mismatches. Put NuVal indicators on the shelves and you’ve added another level of complexity to bleary eyed associates stocking shelves at 4am. With Smart Choices, the approval seal is on the product package itself.

5. No personalization. This is an issue with Smart Choices as well. A middle aged diabetic has different dietary needs than a healthy teenager or a senior suffering from hypertension and trying to reduce sodium intake. How can a low-fat fruit yogurt have the same score for each of them? Ideally, a person would see a personalized score for each product.

Conclusion:

The teams behind NuVal and Smart Choices have made good headway in simplifying a very complex nutrition label and boiling it down to very simple indicator for consumer decision. Both systems sport some flaws, but having them at a supermarket seems to be better than not having them at all.

As the goal of both Smart Choices and NuVal is to become a nationwide standard, it will be interesting to see how the imminent competition between the two systems will play out. Also interesting to look for are the FDA’s actions. Will the FDA choose to create some sort of uniform benchmark like the UK’s Food Standard Agency Traffic Lights?

What do you think? Comments below.

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The non profit state agency First 5 California, recently polled California preschoolers and was pleasantly surprised to discover that children are aware fo what’s healthy for them, and actually like to eat fruit and vegetables :

“The research found the common belief that it’s an uphill battle to get young kids to eat healthy foods like broccoli or carrots is false,” said Kris Perry, executive director of state agency First 5 California. “We were thrilled to see preschoolers express real enthusiasm for a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as healthy drinks like milk.”

Read the Press Release…

Granted, this study is very limited, only 100 preschoolers were interviewed. Nevertheless, it should be an encouragement to any parent to know that kids may actually like to eat real food.

What you need to know:

Fewer than half of California’s children ages 2 to 11 eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetable servings daily (5 or more servings), according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Further, almost 25 percent of them eat two or more servings of cookies, candy, doughnuts or popsicles every day.

What to do at the supermarket:

In California, a healthy cook booklet called  “Yummy for Your Tummy” is available at www.first5california.com. and soon at Albertsons. At the supermarket, load up on fresh fruit and vegetables, and if you can’t find what you want, get it frozen. Canned fruits and vegetable  pack in lots of sugar and salt, so take a good look at the nutrition label before buying.

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We recently wrote about the soup war raging between Campbell’s and Progresso. Could the following be another battle for consumer mindshare?

Campbell Soup Company has reformulated its product line specifically for schools, lowering salt and fat content to meet the nutrition standards of an alliance set up to fight childhood obesity. Campbell Soup Company announced this week that their Foodservice division will provide healthier reformulated soups and snacks to schools. Some soups got cheaper too. Here’s a rundown of the healthier products:

* lower-sodium Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup
* lower-sodium versions of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet
* Campbell’s Mega Noodle soup
* four varieties of Campbell’s Healthy Request soups
* Goldfish Snack Crackers in Cheddar, Parmesan and Whole Grain Cheddar
* Flavor Blasted Goldfish Snack Crackers in Kickin’ Ranch and Hot and Spicy Cheddar
* Giant Goldfish Grahams in Chocolate and Cinnamon
* Goldfish Physedibles(R) Animal Crackers in Strawberry, Lemon and Vanilla

According to Campbell’s, The reformulation meets nutrition standards of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation – a partnership of the American Heart Association and The William J Clinton Foundation (President Clinton) – which is fighting childhood obesity. The soups have less than 480mg of sodium per serving (at the supermarket sodium levels can be twice as high). And of course, no MSG.

What to do at the supermarket:

Unfortunately these 50oz supersize soup packs are only sold to schools and organizations. Hopefully Campbell’s will expand their health drive to adults as well. At the supermarket, do look for low sodium alternatives when visiting the soup aisle. And if you can, try to make your own soup at home, where you control how much salt goes in.

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The 2008 American Dietetic Association’s annual Food and Nutrition Expo and Conference is over, and we’d like to end our coverage on a high note. From the survey conducted earlier this year, and presented at the conference, there are some encouraging signs that people are starting to make better food choices. You can listen to a webinar presentation or download the slides here.

Some highlights from WebMD:

* Consumption of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits is up.
* Trans fat, beef, pork, and dairy consumption is down.
* More Americans have a good attitude toward diet and exercise and say they’re doing their best to eat healthfully.

Here are the top five foods or nutrients that survey participants say they’ve increased during the past five years:

* Whole grains: 56% say they’re eating more
* Vegetables: Half of participants say they’re eating more vegetables
* Fruits: 48% say they’re eating more fruit
* Low-fat foods: 48% say they’re eating more low-fat foods
* Omega-3 fatty acids: 38% say they’ve boosted their consumption

Let’s hope the trends accelerate.

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The Smart Choices food label program launched this weekend at the American Dietetic Association’s annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo. In a previous post, we briefly outlined the history of food regulation and labeling.

Today we’ll explain the background for Smart Choices, what it’s doing right, and where it can improve.

Background:
Starting with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in 1990 (NLEA), The USDA and FDA have required food manufacturers to disclose the following information on their food packaging: ingredient list, allergy warnings, and nutrient information. The information must be displayed in a uniform standardized manner. In return for this effort, manufacturers were allowed to publish health claims prominently on the front of the product package.

Consumers embraced the nutrition information that became available, and began making more educated purchase decisions. However, many became confused with the information overflow. Cryptic ingredient names and Daily Value calculations presented new challenges to shoppers. If the FDA hoped through nutrition labels to encourage a healthier consumer, quite the opposite transpired in the past two decades, as obesity rates and diet related illnesses have shot up .

So recently, manufacturers stepped up individually to the challenge, and began offering their consumers healthy choices within their product families. Several manufacturers launched marketing campaigns promoting their “better for you” brands. In 2004, PespiCo introduced SmartSpot seals on some of its reduced fat/sugar/sodium products. In 2005 Kraft launched a similar Sensible Solutions, and several other manufacturers followed suit. And then there’s the American Heart Association Heart Check Seal.

However, all these programs have added to, not decreased, the public’s confusion over what to buy and eat. Consumer groups have called upon the FDA to step in and create a uniform benchmark for all food manufacturers that will become a standard for front of package nutrition information. To date, the FDA has not. This is where the not-for-profit Keystone Center stepped in and helped bring together industry leaders and academic nutrition experts to find a solution. Sensing that if the food industry doesn’t figure out a way to handle front of package label standardization, the FDA will, rival manufacturers finally banded together to self-regulate and create a single “Smart Choices” standard.

Smart Choices includes a BIG GREEN CHECKMARK for eligible foods, as well as calorie count and number of servings in the package. A product can display the seal only if it meets all the required nutrition criteria as defined by the “Smart Choices” roundtable. Several industry titans have stated they will be in the program, set to roll out mid-2009, including Unilever, Kraft, General Mills, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, and Wal-Mart.

Why Smart Choice is good:

1. Simplicity. Consumers get a quick answer to their question “is this food healthy?”

2. Uniformity. assuming all manufacturers join in, “Smart Choices” creates a uniform language in the supermarket and lets consumers quickly identify the less fattening products.

3. Calories. By presenting calories upfront, people immediately get the most important data point without having to search for it in small print on the nutrition label in the side or back panel.

How could Smart Choices be better:

1. Self regulation doesn’t work. Just look where it has gotten our financial system recently. It’s really simple to explain: Food manufacturers need to show growing profits. to do that, they need to sell us more food, not less. To sell more food, we need to buy more products. We’ll buy more products that we beleive are good for us. Therefore, manufacturers would like as many products as possible to be eligible for a Smart Choice seal. Thus, they will not adopt a benchmark that is too stringent. As Michael F. Jacobsen, executive director of nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest writes: “A disinterested funder and committee of experts free of conflicts of interest likely would have rated the healthfulness of foods differently from the ‘better for you’ Smart Choices Program adopted by the roundtable.”

2. Not really a standard. Not all food manufacturers and retailers will join. There are competing industry standards vying for the same success. Guiding Stars has been in use at Hannaford Brothers Supermarkets for the last 2 years. NuVal has just launched at Hy-vee.

3. “Worse for you”. Systems such as UK’s Traffic Lights point out the bad, not just the good in a product.  A product which is low in sugar but high in saturated fat will get a “green light” for sugar, but a “red light” for the fat. The consumer gets a better picture.  A benchmark system such as Smart Choices does not point out products that may be “worse for you”, full of sodium, sugar, and fat. No sane marketer would ever want something negative to be prominently displayed on her products. It only happens when the government thinks it’s important. Just look at the long fought battle of the cigarette industry with the FDA until cigarettes/cancer messages were placed on every pack. That will probably not happen with food, not even the lowliest junk food.

4. Black and white in a gray world. The Yes/No message dichotomy oversimplifies food to a point of being ineffective. If you’re standing in front of a supermarket shelf and have to choose between two similar spaghetti sauces, both with a Smart Choices seal, which is better? What about two frozen pizzas without a seal? The NuVal system (not perfect either) grades each product from 1-100, giving consumers a much better picture of each product’s relative and absolute “nutrition value”.

5. Lenient Criteria. Some of the criteria chosen by the food industry seem a bit too lenient. For example, 12 grams of sugar per serving is more than 2 teaspoons worth. Yet a sugary breakfast cereal toting this amount is a Smart Choice, as it is fortified with vitamins and minerals.

6. Different strokes for different folks. A middle aged diabetic has different dietary needs than a healthy teenager or a senior suffering from hypertension and trying to reduce sodium intake. How can the same exact products be “better for” all of them?

Conclusion:

“Smart Choices” will not solve our obesity epidemic. But it does attempt to give some guidance. Not all the problems we pointed to can be addressed immediately, but at least there are advances in the right  direction. Hopefully consumers will use the information provided to them and start making better decisions.
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The American Dietetic Association’s Annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo is a launchpad for companies’ new nutritional products and findings. Here are two additional announcements.

Beech-Nut, the baby-food underdo, has pledged it’s commitment to babies’ nutrition and health by rebranding it’s labels and messaging. Strict standards include 3 pillars:

— All natural: all natural ingredients, no added sugar, no artificial colors or flavors, no preservatives, no trans fats, no modified starches, and no harsh spices.

— Essential nutrition: A balanced ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fats for optimum nutrition, along with the enrichment of vitamins and minerals as needed for healthy development.

— Proactive nutrition: Enhanced benefits to support learning, growth, brain and eye development, and digestive health, including nutrients such as DHA omega-3 and prebiotics.

Con-Agra wants to make sure we are aware that canned tomatoes may help us ward off heart disease. They  funded a 5 year study with 14,000 adults to prove it (previous studies have shown that tomatoes in almost any form are high in nutrients that can help fight various diseases). And of course Con-Agra’s Hunt’s Canned Tomatoes should be a part of everyone’s diet.

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From WebMD:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today launched the “My Pyramid for Preschoolers” Web site today in Chicago at the American Dietetic Association Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo.

My Pyramid for Preschoolers is geared to the parent or other caregiver who makes most of the food choices for children aged 2-5.

Read More…

What you need to know:

Children as young as 2 years old can, and should be encouraged to, eat the same foods as their parents (with a few exceptions such as nuts). Starting early and exposing them to “adult food” will lessen the risk of “addictions” to specially formulated (ie sweetened) foods for kids. This of course assumes that the parents are eating healthfully.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here is a handy chart from the MyPyramid website with suggestions for more nutritious choices at the grocery store.

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A quick roundup of this morning’s news from the American Dietetic Association’s Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo in Chicago this week.

Eating Whole Grains Lowers Heart Failure (HF) Risk, According To New Study:
In a new study researchers observed over 14,000 participants for more than 13 years and found that whole grain consumption lowered HF risk, while egg and high-fat dairy consumption raised risk. Other food groups did not directly affect HF risk.

New dual action Iron pill launches today.  Bifera to be Available in Select Stores in Early 2009. From the press release:
New, dual action iron supplement pill with virtually no gastrointestinal side effects for people who need the energy and nutritional benefits from iron to be available without prescription

The Latest Pistachio Study (Sponsored by…the Western Pistachio Association) reveals that consuming pistachios may reduce the risk of heart disease.

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According to the US Dietary Guidelines, we’re supposed to get 5 servings of vegetables a day, but most of us fall short. A new study presented this weekend at the annual ADA convention has found a solution. Drink your veggies:

University of California-Davis researchers say drinking vegetable juice is an effective way to help people increase their vegetable intake.

Study author Carl Keen says seven out of 10 adults fall short of the daily vegetable intake recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. The researchers studied whether drinking vegetable juice could be a simple behavior change to help boost the intake of vegetables to “strive for five,” or eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

Read more…

What you need to know:

There’s great variation in the nutritional content of vegetables. Most contain small amounts of fat and protein, and large amounts of fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. The variation is important, as each color represents different nutrients found in the plant. Here’s a brief color code  breakdown:

Red – tomatoes (especially cooked) – lycopene. Protection from prostate cancer as well as heart and lung disease.

Purple – beets, eggplant, red cabbage, red peppers – anthocyanins – good for the heart.

Orange – carrots, winter squash and sweet potatoes – alpha carotene, beta carotene.

Yellow/green – spinach, collards, corn, green peas, avocado – lutein and zeaxanthin – good for the eyes.

Green – broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale and bok choy – sulforaphane, isocyanate – inhibit the action of carcinogens.

White/green – garlic, onions, leeks, celery, asparagus – allicin and other antioxidants – antitumor properties.

source: The Color Code book

What to do at the supermarket:

When buying vegetable juice, look at the label to see what you’re getting. An 8oz serving of V8 is loaded with salt (480mg / 20% of recommended daily intake). The low sodium version has less than a third of that amount.

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