• Choosing the Healthiest Foods for Your Family

    Welcome! I am a mom of a busy 8 year old and an adventurous 6 year old. I also happen to work for a great company called NuVal. NuVal is a nutritional scoring system that rates foods on a scale of 1-100, based on how nutritious they are. We are implementing NuVal in grocery stores around the country.

    NuVal may not be in your area yet. But I see the scores while they are "hot off the press" and because of that I am able to make better decisions about what to feed my family.

  • Sign up for email updates here!

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

  • Contact Me

    I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me.

    You can also follow me on Twitter @MelisaNutrition and my RSS feed.

  • Disclaimer

    I am not a registered dietitian. I am just a mom who happens to work for NuVal. I am also an AFAA-certified Group Exercise Instructor. NuVal is a system designed to lead customers to the most nutritious food choices. It is not a diet or weight-loss plan. Before starting a diet, you should always consult your personal physician. The opinions expressed in this blog are the opinions of the writer and not the opinions of NuVal LLC.

Breaking News: Cheerios’ Score Increases!

Monday, June 21, 2010 at 06:53 AM

Indeed, this is Breaking News.  General Mills Cheerios, which previously received a NuVal score of 34, now get a 37!  While a three point difference might not seem like much to some, it is a great step in the right direction for children’s cereal.  Cheerios has been the shining star of the Cereals that Kids Will Eat Without Complaint.  No other children’s cereal got quite such a high score – with one exception:  Cinnamon Toast Crunch with 75% Reduced Sugar gets a score of 40.  However, I have yet to find that cereal in any of my local supermarkets.  So, Cheerios has been the most-quoted children’s cereal.

This score change is a big deal to us at NuVal.  We have score changes all the time because manufacturers change their recipes and we re-score their products so that consumers have up-to-date information right there on the store shelf.  However, there is not an employee at NuVal who can’t rattle that Cheerios score off the tip of their tongue.  We use the Cheerios example all the time when explaining how the system works.  This means that this week I will be making changes in lots of our educational and promotional materials.  Find 34 and replace with 37!

So, why did Cheerios get a better score?  Because the smart folks at General Mills reduced the amount of sodium in their product.  Those are the kind of steps that we at NuVal are hoping the food manufacturers will make:  reduce the bad stuff, increase the good stuff and make more nutritious food products.  You can read more about the less salty Cheerios in this blogpost from one of my favorite blogs, Fooducate.  Hooray for General Mills for making this change.

Now, I am off to get working on editing all those presentations.  I should start my day with a bowl of Cheerios!

Posted by: Melissa 12 comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Tags: , ,

12 Comments on “Breaking News: Cheerios’ Score Increases!”

  1. #1 Joanna Sutter
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 7:36 am

    Awesome! I hope NuVal inspires more and more consumer packaged goods to make changes in a healthier direction with stories like this.

  2. #2 Catherine
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 7:52 am

    I LOVE IT!!! That makes me so happy, this is JUST the kind of response we need from each manufacturer–they improve their score by improving their nutrition: no loop hole so no way to get a better score by taking out one bad thing and replacing it with another because it wouldn’t fool NUVAL!–and so everyone wins! good for General Mills! May many others follow in their footsteps and improve the American diet one brand at a time! YES FOR NUVAL!!!

  3. #3 c neroni
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 8:18 am

    That is fantastic! I hope other food companies follow. Ever since hearing about Nuval I don’t focus as much on the calories but look at the sugar and sodium content.

  4. #4 Heather
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 9:46 am

    Awesome!! I just dropped my girls off at childwatch at the gym with two bags of cheerios!

  5. #5 kalli@fitandfortysomething
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 9:51 am

    oh i love this! hope this inspires other companies too!

  6. #6 Arlene
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 12:17 pm

    This is great – I’m not a child, but when I want to snack on something simple and easy, I will choose Cherrios as a snack.

  7. #7 Barbara
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    My husband likes Cheerios so this is a good thing.
    By the way….last weeks post on Father’s day cookouts, I checked at the Stop & Shop deli counter and Saugy franks are not 12 gms of fat but 15 !!! I thought my 12 gms was incorrect.

  8. #8 Melissa
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    Yet another reason why I don’t like Saugy hot dogs. Bleeech!

  9. #9 Nicole, RD
    on Jun 21st, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    A baby step in the right direction!

  10. #10 Laura
    on Jun 25th, 2010 at 7:53 am

    Thank you General Mills! My favorite cereal just got better!

  11. #11 Katie
    on Jul 20th, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    Hey Melissa, Katie from Cheerios here. Thank you for sharing the great news about our NuVal score increase! We loved your post so much we wanted to share it with our friends on Facebook. Follow the link to check it out: http://www.facebook.com/Cheerios

  12. #12 elizabeth
    on Sep 15th, 2010 at 1:04 am

    You are correct Saugy’s are 15g, but they are only 170 calories…which some dieters seem to embrace and Saugys are gluten free and has no MSG. Saugys does contain Corn Syrup, but not High Fructose Corn Syrup.
    Also the processing plant is certified in SQF, for Categpry 8, beef and pork processing.

Leave a Comment