The Nuval Scoring System: How does your breakfast score?

Hi guys!

Recently one of my favorite bloggers started working for a company that really interested me. I’m sure most of you are familiar with her blog, Carrots N Cake . Tina works for a pretty cool company called Nuval.


What is Nuval exactly?

From the Nuval Website:
“Fact panels, package labels, nutrition reports. There has to be a better way to make decisions about the foods you eat. Now there is: the NuVal™ Nutritional Scoring System.

The NuVal System does the nutritional heavy lifting so you don’t have to. The System helps you see – at a glance – the nutritional value of the food you buy.

How? The NuVal System scores food on a scale of 1-100. The higher the NuVal Score, the better the nutrition. It’s that simple. And it’s coming to every aisle of your favorite grocery stores – right there on the shelf tag. Now you can compare overall nutrition the same way you compare price. You can even compare apples and oranges.

How the Scoring Works

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, and 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.”

Obviously, the NuVal Scores are designed to help the everyday consumer make healthier choices while out grocery shopping.

As an example, I’ll compare two different breakfasts using NuVal scores to show you how I made a better breakfast choice. First up, the easiest go-to breakfast in the world; cereal. I love making myself a bowl of dry cereal with a piece of fruit and some yogurt.

Cereal of choice?
General Mills Whole Grain Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal.



Seems harmless enough right? But unfortunately my beloved Cheerios only score a 34 with the NuVal Scoring System.

A good alternative?

Post Healthy Classics Shredded Wheat 'N Bran Regular which scores a 91 with the NuVal Scoring System. And here’s a link to Post’s website It makes perfect sense why the shredded wheat and bran scores higher than a bowl of cheerios. The Post cereal has a whopping 57 grams of whole wheat per serving while Cheerios packs in “at least 16 grams per serving.”
Plus the shredded wheat N bran has 8 grams of fiber compared to Cheerios’ 2.5 grams per serving.
(Even more surprising to me was how low the NuVal score on Kashi Strawberry Fields cereal. I would have thought at least 50 but guess what? It clocks in at 11!)

For fruits, I usually choose bananas which score high at 91 but blueberries score even higher at 100!!





I always knew blueberries were a superfruit!

As far as yogurts go, a plain non-fat Chobani greek yogurt scores a 91 while a yoplait non-fat strawberry yogurt scores at 60!

Unfortunately for me, NuVal scores aren’t found in my grocery stores yet. But they are expanding and I can’t wait to see them in stores. Until then, I will check out the NuVal site and Tina’s new blog, Trading up Downtown

Check out the Nuval site. You will definitely be surprised with the scores!