US stores introduce nutritional scoring system

The Overall Nutritional Quality Index scores food’s nutritional value out of 100 in consideration of more than 30 different nutrient factors. Higher scores have greater nutritional value.

A group of 12 scientists led by Dr David Katz, associate professor, adjunct of Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine, developed the system.

A company called NuVal has been created to bring the system to market.

NuVal president Nancy McDermott said the company’s aim is to research all US-markets and score all 40,000 products available in the average grocery store by September 2009.

The Food Standards Agency in the UK promotes the traffic light system, which unlike the more complex American system, assesses food by four factors, fat, saturates, sugars and salt.

However, UK supermarkets have adopted the traffic light system, Guideline Daily Amounts system or, in some cases, a hybrid of the two.

The FSA is currently assessing these systems and will report its findings in March next year.

A FSA spokesman said the ONQI system was “not any better, it’s not any worse, it’s just different”.

Jane Holdsworth, director of the GDA campaign addded that under the NuVal scheme foods typically consumed in small quantities, such as raisins and cheese, are labelled as unhealthy “when in fact, they can play an important role in a balanced diet”.

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