Researchers also compared ONQI scores for seven days of the DASH diet, designed to lower blood pressure, to a typical American diet. The more nutritious DASH diet consistently logged a higher score, which indicates that choosing foods with higher NuVal scores will help consumers eat a healthier diet overall, the researchers say.

"The value of the index is more for the scientific audience rather than the consumer at this point," said Dawn Wilson, Ph.D., a professor and health behavior researcher at the University of South Carolina. She said that although the authors conducted an extensive review of the literature, had an expert panel and tested the index against other established indices, they did not examine how well the index predicts changes in health outcomes over time.

"A simple nutritional index is not going to keep consumers from buying or eating the foods they like. Dietary behavior changes require a much more sophisticated approach than simply trying to educate consumers about the nutritional quality of foods," Wilson said.

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