Complex foods reduced to one-dimensional scores: getting smart or dumbing down?

Companies score foods' nutrition for grocers – USATODAY.com: "John Eldredge, the director of brand and business development for Guiding Stars, and Mike Nugent, NuVal's general manager, say their scoring systems make it easy for consumers to evaluate whether a product is healthy. But there is some debate whether the systems are a good solution for a population wrestling with growing obesity rates.
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University who runs the website Foodpolitics.com, said she sees little value in learning whether one potato chip is "slightly better for you" than another.
"I think their purpose is to sell food products," Nestle said. "If you want to encourage people to eat healthy, you want to encourage them not to eat food products. You want them to eat real food."
Many in the food industry say it's unrealistic to think that people are going to replace chips and other processed foods with fruits and vegetables. When consumers replace a low-scoring product with a higher-scoring version in the same category, they are making incremental changes in choosing a healthier diet, NuVal's Nugent said."

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