You could think of it as a report card for potato chips.

Or maybe a produce progress report.

For Sharon Kimbel, NuVal is an invaluable tool.

The Stewartsville, Mo., woman has battled health problems for the last several years and is on a strict diet. So when she found out about NuVal, a nutrition scoring system, she was excited.

"I noticed it in the stores and have been using it for awhile," she says. "I just kind of pay attention to how it works and what I need to eat and what's best for me."

That's exactly how it's supposed to work. Nutritionists, doctors and other scientists developed the system, which scores every item in the grocery store on a scale of 1 to 100. The higher the score, the healthier the food, which is supposed to make shopping for healthy foods easier.

Most produce brings in pretty good marks, between 90 and 100, with spinach topping the list with a perfect score. Things like bacon hang around at the bottom of the grading scale with a one. But even so, Hy-Vee dietitian Sheri Caldwell says that just because some foods score much lower than produce, doesn't mean they can't have a place in your diet.

"We don't want it to be an all-or-nothing kind of thing," she explains. "There's no recommendation specifically saying only eat foods that score 80 or above. They didn't design it that way. They just want it to be a tool that consumers can use to tell at a glance where the food fits overall."

Ms. Caldwell says the program also takes the guesswork out of reading nutrition labels. With nutrition claims like "low-fat" and "low-cholesterol" slapped across product packages, sometimes it's hard to tell if the low-fat version is really better for you. NuVal helps consumers figure it out.

"A classic example is regular peanut butter versus reduced-fat," Ms. Caldwell says. "Regular peanut butter scored higher than the reduced-fat because reduced-fat peanut butter has extra salt and sugar, giving it a lower grade."

In the end, Ms. Caldwell hopes NuVal will help consumers keep a closer eye on their overall diet.

"I hope they'll use it as a tool to trade up. If they're debating between a couple of different brands that they like, then maybe they could pick the one with the higher score. Or if there's one that they've typically purchased that they find doesn't score very high, they could replace it with one that does."

Lifestyles reporter Tamara Clymer can be reached at tami.clymer@npgco.com.