Sometime next year, a group of scientists will introduce a new labeling system that rate every food product on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 going to the most nutritious products.
The score will be called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index, or ONQI. The labels will appear on about 40,000 products in Raley's stores in the Bay Area this coming summer.
The goal of the ONQI system is to distill the nutrition information already available into a score that is simple and easy to understand. Ideally, it will help shoppers sort out the real health value of foods currently covered with packaging labeled "low-fat," "fortified," "sugar-free", etc. The ONQI system analyzes the nutritional makeup of a food item and then assigns a score that essentially divides the healthy elements by the unhealthy ones.
The score takes more than 30 nutrients into consideration, including several vitamins and minerals, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids and bioflavonoids.