Know your food's NuVal number

Ansonia, Conn. (WTNH) - Want to eat more nutritiously this holiday season without having to really think hard about it? There's a new way to do it and it was developed in Connecticut. It comes down to knowing your NuVal number .

Taking the guesswork out of eating more nutritiously could come down to shopping at grocery stores like at the Big Y in Ansonia. Look closely at most food signs and check out the NuVal number.

“It’s just like GPS,” explained Dr. David Katz . “With GPS, everyone’s a navigation expert. It doesn’t tell you were to go; it just helps you get there. NuVal does that with nutrition.

Dr. Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, led a team of experts to develop the NuVal rating score .

"The idea was to have the experts in nutrition and public health do the heaving lifting so that finding the more nutritious food -- if you're a busy mom dashing through the supermarket, or a busy dad or just a busy person -- would be easy for you,” he continued.

They came up with a complicated formula weighing in factors like calories and fiber. Food is rated from one to one-hundred. The higher the number is the more nutritious it is.

And with Thanksgiving kicking off the holiday eating, it comes in handy. For instance, green beans start at 100.

"If you salt them and put them in the can, the score falls. If you put a sauce over them with butter and salt or cream and salt, the score plummets."

Most choices in the produce section rank high on the list. Still there' can be a difference in nutritional quality.

The big winner on the Thanksgiving Day table is turkey. "Turkey breast, for example, where it’s lean, white meat scores in the mid 40s, which is actually higher than almost all other meats,” said Dr. Davis Katz.

But shoppers are just learning about NuVal. The higher the number, the better it is for you. “It makes sense,” said a Big Y customer.

Fifteen top nutritionists and public health scientists worked for two years to develop the NuVal rating that is now in about 1,000 stores and counting throughout the country.

It was funded by Griffin Hospital in Derby.