Top Nutrition Scientists Develop Scoring System to Rank Order Foods on Overall Nutritional Quality Conference for Scientists

Top nutrition scientists from throughout North America have developed what is believed to be the world's most sophisticated system to rank order foods on the basis of overall nutritional quality.

The system, aptly called the 'Overall Nutritional Quality Index,' or 'ONQI' for short, uses a simple scoring method designed to be posted on supermarket shelves and on food product packaging to enable consumers to select more nutritious and healthy foods

An exclusive all day preview conference for scientists, policy makers, food industry representatives, regulators and the media providing information about the 'ONQI' will

be held at the Marriott at Metro Center in Washington D.C. on November 30, 2007. The conference will cover both the science behind the ONQI and its practical applications for the consumer and the food industry.

ONQI is the work of a team of 12 leading nutrition experts from the United States and Canada, over a period of roughly two years. The group was convened, and the effort directed, by Dr. David L. Katz, co-founder and director of the CDC funded, Yale University - Griffin Hospital Prevention Research Center, and a nationally recognized authority in nutrition and chronic disease prevention. The project was fully supported independent of all commercial interests by Griffin Hospital, a non-profit community hospital in Derby, CT, where the Prevention Research Center is housed.

The team of consulting experts involved in developing the ONQI includes past presidents of the American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetes Association; the current president of the American Cancer Society; and top academic experts in topics from nutritional biochemistry, childhood diabetes and obesity, to epidemiology, among them the inventor of the glycemic index, and the originator of the traffic light diet guidance system.

The ONQI is designed to generate a single score on a scale of 1 to 100 representing overall nutritional quality, for any food or recipe. Approximately 30 nutrients, both those with favorable health effects such as fiber, and those with unfavorable health effects such as added sugar, are included in the sophisticated ONQI formula, which also includes a variety of weighting coefficients that reflect the importance of various nutrients to health, and their associations with specific health outcomes.

"No question, when you look at the details of the ONQI, it's complex" notes Dr. Katz. "The sophistication of the formula we devised sets it apart from other work on this issue. But the ONQI is a perfectly simple, turnkey system to use. The complexity powers it, just like a rather complex engine powers the cars most of us drive quite easily. Just like with that car, when it comes to using the ONQI, you can basically turn the key and go."

"Given the rising toll of nutrition-related health conditions in the U.S., in particular obesity, it is important to provide consumers with a simple standard regarding food choices that is as reliable as it is easy to understand. The ONQI is a labeling system that can help everyone make healthier choices in every food category quickly and easily," explains Dr. Walter Willett, a member of the ONQI expert panel, and Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"The ONQI is supported by a large volume of independent research. It directly empowers people to make better choices, and yet avoids the 'good food/bad food' label that many in both nutrition circles and the food industry object to," says Dr. Rebecca Reeves, Past President of the American Dietetic Association. "This system certainly can help consumers make healthier choices within any food category. It's important that it is the product of scientists working independently of any commercial interest. It is a source people can really trust."

The ONQI is primarily intended to guide choices within a given food category, by identifying, for example, which bread, or breakfast cereal, or pasta sauce is the most nutritious as compared to other, similar products. But the large amount of nutrition information entered into the formula makes the ONQI universal, so it can compare the nutritional quality of foods across categories as well.

"People can improve their diets, and their health, both by changing the categories of foods they eat most - for example, by eating more fruits and vegetables - and by making better choices within a given category, including snack items and desserts. The ONQI is designed to do both. You can, in fact, compare apples to oranges (oranges win), or apples to marshmallows," Katz noted. But of more practical value you can compare one box of kid's breakfast cereal to another, cut right past all the marketing hype, and get to the truth at a glance."

Griffin Hospital has partnered with Topco Associates to make the ONQI available through thousands of retail grocery stores across the nation beginning in the second-half of 2008. The ONQI will be launched in supermarkets as well as on the Internet in collaboration with one or more of the premier providers of health content on the World Wide Web.

Plans have been developed for an on-line system that will allow consumers to obtain the nutritional score and rank for virtually any food, to generate shopping lists, to access and make-over recipes, and to build and entire meal plan that incorporates personal preferences and health conditions, and is optimized for health.

"Partnering with Topco and its member companies will allow us to bring the ONQI to millions of consumers nationwide," said Patrick Charmel, president and chief executive officer, Griffin Hospital. "Together, we will help Americans make better food choices."

"Today's consumers are often overwhelmed with the number of choices they have in the supermarket, and the number of competing claims about health and nutrition. The ONQI is an easy to use, transparent and credible system to help them make healthy food choices. However, it will only work if retailers and manufacturers elect to adopt a standardized system. If the food industry gets behind a uniform labeling approach and adopts consistent standards, it will make a world of difference for every consumer." says Dr. Keith Ayoob, a nutrition expert at the Albert Einstein Medical College.

Media Note: The press is invited to attend the preview conference and a limited number of seats have been reserved for the media. The conference will begin at 9:00 a.m. and conclude with a reception at 3:00 p.m. at which time Dr. Katz and others will be available for press interviews about the ONQI and its applications. If you plan to attend the conference please contact Dr. Zubaida Faridi (203)732-1330 Ext. 18 for further details.

About Dr. David Katz

Dr. Katz is an Associate Professor (adjunct) of Public Health and Director of the Prevention Research Center at the Yale University School of Medicine. He earned his BA from Dartmouth College, his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health. A board-certified specialist in both Internal Medicine & Preventive Medicine, Dr. Katz has twice been recognized as one of America's Top Physicians in Preventive Medicine by the Consumers' Research Council of America. He is the current (2007) honorary Hunter College Nutrition Fellow, and recently received the Rickett's Award for outstanding contributions to cardiovascular medicine (Monterey, CA). An expert in weight management, nutrition, and chronic disease prevention, he has served as an advisor on obesity control to the US Secretary of Health, the Commissioner of the US FDA, the ministries of health in Canada and Israel, and the National Governors Association.

Dr. Katz is also a leading authority on medicine in the media, serving as a medical consultant for ABC News, a health columnist for the New York Times Syndicate, and a frequent contributor to leading magazines and newspapers around the world. He is on the editorial advisory board of Prevention Magazine, and his blog appears most days at

Top Nutrition Scientists Develop Scoring System to Rank Order Foods on Overall Nutritional Quality Conference for Scientists

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Top Nutrition Scientists Develop Scoring System to Rank Order Foods on Overall Nutritional Quality Conference for Scientists

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