• Choosing the Healthiest Foods for Your Family

    Welcome! I am a mom of a busy 7 year old and an adventurous 5 year old. I also happen to work for a great new 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.

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  • 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.

Trade-Up Tuesday: Rock Star Chips

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 06:52 AM

Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, a weekly feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries where I tell you about a Trade-Up I’ve made and give away free stuff. 

Every category has a Rock Star.  In cold cereal, it’s Shredded Wheat with a NuValscore of 91.  In cookies, it’s Kashi TLC Oatmeal Raisin with a score of 40.  And in Salty Snacks (just the title of that category makes my mouth water – I love salt), it’s Garden of Eatin No Salt Added Blue Chips.  They get a NuVal score of 52.  That’s pretty amazing when you consider that the median (half are above it, half are below it) score for salty snacks is only a 13.  I buy these chips all the time now.  There just is no other.  And what I love about them, is that they don’t seem like a healthy alternative, if you know what I mean.  They taste like a chip.  You don’t feel like you’ve sacrificed.

I couldn’t give away chips without something to dip them in, so I picked up some salsa.  In the Healthy/Organic section of my grocery store.  And guess what?  This Green Mountain Gringo Salsa only gets a 9!  This is why I so need NuVal in a grocery store close to my house.  It’s so easy to pick up the wrong thing.  And to think that you’re picking up the right thing.  Because, ya know, it’s in the Healthy/Organic section of the supermarket!  There are some better choices to be made:

  • Ortega Original Salsa, Medium:  35
  • Newman’s Own Chunky Roasted Garlic Salsa, Medium, All Natural:  32
  • Taco Bell Home Thick and Chunky Medium Salsa:  26

And I could have picked those up in the regular old Salty Snack aisle. 

So to make up for the low-scoring salsa, I’m throwing in a NuVal t-shirt too!  Woo hoo!

To Enter:

All you need to do is leave a comment below telling me your favorite Salty Snack.  Easy!  I’ll choose one winner at random.  The contest closes at 11:59 pm tonight, so don’t delay!  Good luck!

Posted by: Melissa 72 comments

Posted in: Trade-Up Tuesday

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