• 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.

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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: Kashi TLC

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 06:57 AM

Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday!  Every Tuesday, I tell you about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away something for free.  Today, it’s all about Kashi TLC.

Kashi, a company that is associated with health and nutritional foods, has some very high-scoring products and some very low-scoring products.  I’ve blogged about Kashi before, most notably in my Adult Rated Cereal  post, where I point out that there are Kashi cereals that score a 91 and then there is one that scores an 11.  My point is that just because the name Kashi is on the label does not mean that it is a nutritional juggernaut.  However, the three products that you see in this photo all have great scores in their categories.

Let’s look at them one by one.

Kashi Organic 7 Grain Tasty Little Crackers score a 27 on the NuVal scale.  When you consider that the average score for crackers is a 16, that is a great score.  Compare it to Keebler Wheatables with a score of 5, and it is a fantastic score.

Kashi Oatmeal Rasin Flax Tasty Little Cookies score a 40 on the NuVal scale.  Compare that to the average score for cookies (a 7), and it is super.  Compare it to Archway Classic Oatmeal cookies with a NuVal score of 3, and it is Super-Duper.

Kashi Tasty Little Chewies All Natural Granola Bars, Trail Mix score a 33 on the NuVal scale.  The average score for Snack Bars and Granola Bars is a 20, so the Kashi TLC do pretty good, right?  You might think that the Cascadian Farm Fruit and Nut Chewy Bars would score better than average too.  Well, they don’t.  They only get a 14. 

So, all three of these Kashi TLC products are superstars in their respective categories.  This summer, I am challenging Moms out there to see if you can get your kids to trade up.  Instead of packing Wheatables for the beach, try some of the TLC crackers.  Send your child to camp with a TLC granola bar instead of one of the “kid” brands.  And serve some Kashi TLC cookies along with a cool beverage at your child’s lemonade stand.  You will feel good knowing your kids are getting better nutrition.

Today’s Giveaway

One lucky reader will win all three Kashi TLC products.  Just leave a comment below telling me your favorite Kashi product.  Leave a second comment with the score of that product and you will be entered twice.  You can search this blog, tradingupdowntown or the NuVal website  for some sample scores.  I will choose one winner at random at 7 am Eastern Time on Wednesday.  Good Luck!

Posted by: Melissa 88 comments

Posted in: Kashi, Trade-Up Tuesday

Tags: ,

Trade Up Tuesday: High Scoring Cookies

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 07:00 AM

TT Cookie GiveAway

Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, a weekly feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries.  Today I am giving away my favorite dessert:  Cookies!  Not just any ordinary cookies – but cookies that get the best NuVal scores I’ve been able to find so far.  For the grown-ups, there’s Kashi TLC and for the kids, Chocolate Teddy Grahams.

I’m a cookie girl.  I have a very hard time saying no to a cookie.  I can say no to cake, to pie, to candy – but cookies are hard for me to resist.  And dark chocolate – but that’s a blog post for another time!

Cookies, as you can imagine, score rather low on the NuVal scale (1-100, 100 is best).  The median score for cookies (1/2 score above it, 1/2 score below it) is only a 3.  Ouch! 

The Uber-Scorer in the Cookie category is Kashi’s TLC (Tasty Little Cookie) Oatmeal Raisin Flax.  It gets a 40.  Wow!  I buy them, but I do like the other Kashi cookie better:  Kashi TLC Oatmeal Dark Chocolate, which gets a 24.  Still great for a cookie and did I mention that I love dark chocolate?

As for my kids, I try to steer them towards Chocolate Teddy Grahams which get a NuVal score of 25.  The Chocolate Chip Teddy Grahams only score a 12.  Chips Ahoy only score a 6.  And lest you think that you might do better with Reduced Fat Chips Ahoy, think again.  They get the same score as regular Chips Ahoy – a 6!

Today’s GiveAway

I am giving away all 3 boxes of cookies so that you can try them out for yourself.  All you need to do is head on over to the NuVal website to check out the scores.  Find something that makes you go hmmmmmmm.  And come back here to comment about it.  One lucky commenter will win my Cookie Trade Up prize.  The contest closes at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight!  Good luck!

Posted by: Melissa 43 comments

Posted in: Cookies, Trade-Up Tuesday

Tags: , ,