Nutritionomics: College seniors sum up their grocery buying habits

By Marni Newell
They’re relatively inconspicuous: the two hexagons connected in a diagonal on the shelf sticker labels. NuVal is written in the bottom hexagon and a number, 1-100 is in the top. It wouldn’t be noticeable to someone running in to Meijer just to buy bread or milk every week or so, nor would the pamphlet perched on a clear plastic holder on the shelves, apparently, because no one so far seems to have heard of it.
NuVal is short for Nutritional Value, the nutritional scoring system developed by the tan Dr. David Katz of Yale University/Griffin Hospital. The system gives a score from 1-100 based on the overall nutrition of the food “Included there,” the loop video of Dr. Katz on the NuVal website assures, “are all the things you would expect. Vitamins, of course, minerals and...macronutrients: the quality of the protein, the quality of the fat.”
The team creating the system was “independent of funding or influence by food or beverage retailers or manufacturers,” which explains why a box of Cap’n Crunch with Berries has a rating of only eight, regardless of the green “Smart Choices Made Easy” label on the bottom corner.
“There are so many different guidelines, people get confused,” says fitness trainer Carrie Brankiewicz as she flips through the NuVal pamphlet. “The buzz is nutrition and eating healthy.” But, she’s afraid “companies are trying to prey on people trying to lose weight.”
Not only people trying to lose weight, but since the system is supported at Meijer, it seems the system is targeting price-conscious food shoppers.
Kalamazoo College senior Jillian Regal was open to taking the NuVal system into consideration. “I feel like I need my hand held with stuff like this,” she says. Normally eating mainly carbohydrates like breads and pasta, Regal admits she’s “Way too lazy to cook—even pasta.” This results in eating out a lot which makes her feel she’s wasting her money and disregarding her health.
Regal shops at Meijer, mostly, but sometimes goes to the People’s Food Co-Op, a local grocery store containing mainly organic or local merchandise, but ultimately thinks it’s too expensive.
Senior Vinny Ricciardi came up with a system of shopping at the People’s Food Co-Op, but only spending about $3-$4 per meal. His diet is “almost all local and almost all sustainably farmed.” Although he sometimes shops at Hardings for cheeses, Ricciardi likes to support local foods by shopping at the Co-Op or farmer’s markets. Ricciardi, who eats “tons of fruits, veggies, and nuts” in stir fries and vegetable dishes seems to be on his own nutritional system, “I try to stay away from processed food and refined sugar,” he says.
These processed foods are what annoy Brankiewicz about diet systems. “The biggest problem I have with systems like Weight Watchers and Healthy Choice is it gets people to eat processed foods. It’s way better to teach people to eat whole foods rather than processed crap.”
These processed items tend to score higher on the NuVal system than fresh foods, as seen in the canned chicken noodle soup score of 95 while boneless skinless chicken breast scores only 25. The system tips the scale of nutrients in the soup versus the chicken that only packs protein and nothing else.
Senior Kendra Garchow agrees with this mentality, only buying processed foods like canned mushroom soup as bases for her meals. “I try to make everything from scratch,” Garchow, the self proclaimed “foodie” says. Primarily shopping at farmer’s markets and Hardings, Garchow admits, “I shop sales, definitely.” Shopping once a week, Garchow tries to only spend around $20 per trip and because she tends to make her own pasta sauces and curries from scratch, she finds little need for the NuVal system. “Most times I try to cook healthy to begin with and it’s not as much as a problem because I buy whole foods.”
Garchow and Ricciardi’s whole food decisions fit into Brankiewizc’s guidelines of eating healthy, but she adds exercise in the mix for overall health. “People think it’s all food or all exercise, but it’s definitely a combination of both,” she says.
Senior Keely Houghton takes nutrition and exercise seriously, eating carbohydrates before a workout of “max out” weightlifting, and proteins afterward, which she does three-to-five times a week. Houghton, who shops mostly at Meijer, would take the NuVal system into consideration, but quickly adds, “I look at nutrition already.” Spending around $50 per trip to Meijer, Houghton buys bread, eggs, vegetables, and frozen veggie burgers and burritoes as staples.
Senior Amel Omari eats a vegetarian diet of eggs, breads, vegetables, and veggie burgers. “I prefer to buy organic milk and eggs, but if I’m hard up on cash, I won’t get it,” Omari says. She tries to spend under $50 each trip to Meijer, which happens about every two weeks. Omari admits to buying processed bread, in contrast to Ricciardi who bakes his own, but claims she needs the food to last. Saying she would not take the NuVal system into much consideration since she buys simply the healthy food she can afford, Omari says her nutritional system is “based on what my mom fed me and what I learned in school.”
Although Brankiewicz is cautious the NuVal system favors some foods and labels, she ultimately doesn’t see it doing much harm. “This is an economy” she says holding up the pamphlet. “It’s trying to make money.” Brankiewicz closes the pamphlet decidedly and sums up her feelings, “If it makes people aware, it will never hurt.”