Just when we thought we had covered all the nutrition rating systems out there, here’s a new system being implemented at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. ANDI, short for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, is the brainchild of author, MD, and founder of Eat Right America, Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

The ANDI system is a part of a bigger initiative by Whole Foods, entitled Health Starts Here, which encompasses not just making healthy food available, but also providing education on what to do what with that food (culinary lessons, 28 day programs to jump start healthy eating habits…).

The healthy eating principles WFM is promoting are:

• plant based diet
• whole foods (less processed flours, for example)
• low fat – or the right fats (unsaturated, more from plants and less from animals)
• nutrient dense (that’s where ANDI comes in)

The ANDI score, based on a Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutrient Density Scoring System analyzes many nutrients in a food product

Calcium, Carotenoids: Beta Carotene, Alpha Carotene, Lutein & Zeaxanthin, Lycopene, Fiber, Folate, Glucosinolates, Iron, Magnesium, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Zinc, plus ORAC score X 2 (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity is a method of measuring the antioxidant or radical scavenging capacity of foods).

The data for whole foods such as produce, grains, and legumes is relatively easy to analyze based on USDA databases. It is much more complicated to get accurate info for packaged or processed foods, especially because the ingredients in a processed food interact with each other and change the nutrition profile of a product.

Here is a table with some sample scores. The highest score is 1000, the lowest is close to zero.

This is a very interesting table, especially if one compares it to NuVal ranking which goes from 1-100. Take a look at these 4 healthy products and their scores:

• Kale – 1000
• Orange – 109
• Whole wheat bread – 25
• Olive oil – 9

A naive shopper may be led to believe that kale is the only product worth consuming. But all 4 of the aforementioned are healthy and needed by our bodies. Dr. Fuhrman addresses this:

Keep in mind that nutrient density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health. For example, if we only ate foods with a high nutrient density score our diet would be too low in fat. So we have to pick some foods with lower nutrient density scores (but preferably the ones with the healthier fats) to include in our high nutrient diet.

So wouldn’t it be more practical to create a scoring system that doesn’t require people to analyze a score , the product type, the required nutrients and then decide? The entire point is to simplify life for consumers, not complicate it!

Whole Foods is perceived as a healthier, albeit expensive, grocery retailer. But recently John Mackey, WFM CEO and founder, openly admitted that his chain sells lots of junk food. The Health Starts Here program may be a signal that Mackey is retuning to the roots of what WFM stood for in the seventies when just starting out.

The ANDI scores are an interesting first step in trying to help consumers better choose healthier foods, and it will be very interesting to see consumer response. We expect Whole Foods will continue to introduce and test additional tools to help their customers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t let the Whole Foods health halo confuse you, as organic junk food is still junk food. Stick to the less processed products, of which Whole Foods has copious amounts, including in bulk (cheaper).

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Which is more nutritious – A raw carrot or a cooked one? What about tomatoes? Mushrooms? Cabbage?

If you answered raw to all of the above, you may be in for a surprise. According to the Scientific American, the answer is not so simple. It turns out that some nutrients are actually more available to the body when the veggie is heated.

The most popular example is lycopene, an antioxidant found in the red pigments of tomatoes. Lycopene levels in tomatoes rose 35% after being cooked for 30 minutes at 190 degrees farenheit. Why? Probably because the heat breaks down the thick cell walls of the vegetable, releasing the nutrient that was bound to the wall.

Other nutrients, of course, suffer from heat. The best example is vitamin C, which seems to evaporate from just about anything from the moment its harvested. Luckily, vitamin C is so abundant in fruits, vegetables, and in fortified foods and drinks, that people rarely form a deficiency.

Frying is another story. The high temperature of the oil creates oxidized oil molecules – free radicals – which can then damage cells in our body by intermingling with tem. That’s why everyone is talking day and night about anti-oxidants that recapture the rebelling radicals and prevent them from messing with our cells.

Bottom Line: there’s no clear cut winner. Almost all forms of vegetables are good for you.

What to do at the supermarket:

This is one part of your grocery shopping where you can have your cake and eat it too. There are an infinite number of ways to prepare vegetables and fruits for consumption. Raw, cooked, chopped, diced, juiced, baked, mixed, frozen. Just get more into your diet.

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1. Ketchup, one of the most popular condiments in the US, is a half a billion dollar industry.

2. Ketchup is originally a spicy fish sauce called Ke-Tsiap from east Asia. It was brought west in the 17th century and by the early 1800’s recipes for ketchup as we know it started to appear in cookbooks.

3. H.J. Heinz Company is the world leader in ketchup sales, with a 60% market share in the US. It sells over 600 million bottles of ketchup annually.

4. Nutritionally, ketchup , as well as other cooked tomato products, is a good source of the anti-oxidant lycopene. Lycopenes are beneficial in the prevention of prostate and colon cancers. This is one of the rare cases where cooking a raw vegetable actually improves the bio-availability of a nutrient instead of reducing it.

5. 25% of ketchup is sugar!! Now you know why kids love it, and consider ketchup the main part of a meal, with the rest of the food serving as a condiment.

6. Ketchup is also high in salt. a single teaspoon contains almost ten percent’s worth of the daily maximum recommended value of sodium.

7. The ingredient list for Heinz ketchup is:

Tomato Concentrate , Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Salt, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavoring.

If you were wondering why corn syrup (a cheaper sugar than table sugar) appears twice, a possible answer could be that by splitting the sugar ingredient into 2 separate ingredients, it doesn’t appear in the second place in the list, psychologically reducing the fear of buying the product. We’re still trying to figure out what that Natural Flavor is. Spice too.

8. The FDA strictly regulates what products may be called ketchup; especially important are viscosity and the presence of tomatoes and tomato solids.

9. In 2005, after urging by Heinz and several other tomato product manufacturers, the FDA allowed tomato product labels to tout health claims, due to the aforementioned lycopenes. The ruling includes ketchup as well as tomato pasta sauces and marinades.

10. Squeeze bottle were introduced in the 1980’s to solve the problem of ketchup not flowing out of glass containers.

11. Not everyone is a big fan of ketchup. In the Netherlands, mayonnaise is the condiment of choice with french fries.

What to do at the supermarket:

It seems that ketchup is a staple in every household. If you are concerned about sugar, look for ketchup products artificially sweetened as a way to reduce sweet calories. There are also reduced sodium ketchups available in most supermarkets.

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According to the US Dietary Guidelines, we’re supposed to get 5 servings of vegetables a day, but most of us fall short. A new study presented this weekend at the annual ADA convention has found a solution. Drink your veggies:

University of California-Davis researchers say drinking vegetable juice is an effective way to help people increase their vegetable intake.

Study author Carl Keen says seven out of 10 adults fall short of the daily vegetable intake recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. The researchers studied whether drinking vegetable juice could be a simple behavior change to help boost the intake of vegetables to “strive for five,” or eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

Read more…

What you need to know:

There’s great variation in the nutritional content of vegetables. Most contain small amounts of fat and protein, and large amounts of fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. The variation is important, as each color represents different nutrients found in the plant. Here’s a brief color code  breakdown:

Red – tomatoes (especially cooked) – lycopene. Protection from prostate cancer as well as heart and lung disease.

Purple – beets, eggplant, red cabbage, red peppers – anthocyanins – good for the heart.

Orange – carrots, winter squash and sweet potatoes – alpha carotene, beta carotene.

Yellow/green – spinach, collards, corn, green peas, avocado – lutein and zeaxanthin – good for the eyes.

Green – broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale and bok choy – sulforaphane, isocyanate – inhibit the action of carcinogens.

White/green – garlic, onions, leeks, celery, asparagus – allicin and other antioxidants – antitumor properties.

source: The Color Code book

What to do at the supermarket:

When buying vegetable juice, look at the label to see what you’re getting. An 8oz serving of V8 is loaded with salt (480mg / 20% of recommended daily intake). The low sodium version has less than a third of that amount.

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Purple, high anthocyanin tomatoes and red wild-type tomatoes.

From the Washington Post:

Tomatoes genetically modified to be rich in antioxidants called anthocyanins appeared to extend the life spans of cancer-prone mice, a European study finds.

The modified tomatoes were created by adding two genes (Delila and Rosea1) from the snapdragon flower. The anthocyanins, which belong to the flavonoid class of antioxidants, gave the tomatoes a peculiar purple color.

Read more…

What you need to know:

Tomatoes are naturally rich in antioxidants, which have been show to reduce the risk of cancer. Processing tomatoes by cooking them actually improves their nutritional value, as the heat releases lycopene,  a very powerful antioxidant. Tomatoes provide good amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A,  and a bit of beta-carotene, iron, and folic acid.

The purple tomato, according to the study, has a threefold amount of antioxidant when compared to the regular tomato.

What to do at the supermarket:

It’ll probably take some time until these purple tomatoes are available to the general public, but in the meantime, buy and eat plenty fresh or canned tomatoes. Use in salads, salsas, and pasta sauces.

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