Guides Make Healthy Choices Simple

By Mary Shedden of The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 11, 2008

Try walking an aisle of the local supermarket without being overwhelmed by all the foods vying for your attention:

LOW FAT! ALL NATURAL! CHOLESTEROL FREE! A GREAT SOURCE OF FIBER!

This information overload — on everything from breakfast cereal to freezer pops — is enough to make shoppers avoid the fine print that breaks down the nutritional value of each and every food.

Yes, Americans currently are obsessed with picking what they believe is nutritious, and almost half depend on labels and packaging for help, research shows. But the reality is that busy, overwhelmed shoppers may not be selecting what's best, nutritionists say.

As a result, dieticians and supermarket chains across the country are teaming up to create simple cheat-sheet systems that take the confusion out of nutrition labels. Locally, two of the area's three largest grocers offer some kind of simplified nutrition guide for shoppers.

"It keeps it simple for families and kids," says Sarah Kreiger, a local nutritionist and consultant for Guiding Stars, a label navigation system launched by Tampa-based Sweetbay Supermarket in September 2006.

Guiding Stars looks at the detailed ingredients of more than 28,000 food products it sells, and judges each one's nutritional value on a scale of zero to the best possible ranking of three stars. The rating system credits foods with vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and whole grains. Scores take a hit if the food contains trans fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, salt or added sugars.

Only 24 percent of the tested foods earned a star and the Guiding Stars badge — a bright green price tag on the store shelf featuring vivid yellow stars, Sweetbay spokeswoman Nicole LeBeau says.

"We're not doing it for our vendors. We do it for our customers," she says.

Sweetbay shopper Trudi Segal started reading labels when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The guiding stars speed up her shopping time.

"You can focus on them faster," the Tampa resident says. "It makes shopping easier."

Both Sweetbay and Publix Super Markets' Nutrition Facts program base their results on the Food and Drug Administration dietary guidelines for American adults. Publix highlights more than 2,000 products, spokeswoman Shannon Patten says. Publix tags don't assign a score. They simply state whether a product is low in or free of calories, fats, cholesterol, sugars or sodium.

The area's other major grocer — Wal-Mart — does not offer a comparable program.

At Sweetbay, few customers are surprised to find that all of the fresh fruits and vegetables earn stars, or that dry pastas make the list. But the ratings on other products, such as peanut butter, can show how brands can vary ingredients. Reese's brand peanut butter, with labels nearly identical to the iconic candy, gets a better rating than Skippy, a brand trusted by moms for generations.

Also, cottage cheese — a dieting staple — is out. It contains too much sodium. Ricotta cheese, on the other hand, earns praise and two stars for its high-protein, low-sugar contributions. Kreiger, who bemoans how people focus on calories or fat content, says the stars promote good nutrition.

"It's not a weight-loss system. It's a nutrition navigation system," says Kreiger, who added that entire menus can be planned around foods earning the Guiding Stars badge. "If they lose weight, that's great, but it's about nutrition."

Kreiger, the mother of two young children, says there's an additional benefit to these nutritional beacons. Battles in the cereal aisle can be more easily resolved by making the kids pick a box that's earned a gold star.

"It takes the argument out of shopping with your kids," she says.