Nutritional Value Score: We Rated 289 Foods From 1 to 100 — #1 Will Surprise You | Flaminia Ortenzi

In this episode, nutrition researcher Flaminia Ortenzi—PhD candidate and longtime colleague at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)—joins the show to break down the Nutritional Value Score (NVS), a new food rating system we co-developed and recently published in the Journal of Nutrition that scores foods from 1 to 100 based on both nutrient density and protection from chronic diseases. Flaminia walks through the seven components that make up the score—vitamins, minerals, protein quality, omega-3s, fiber, calorie density, and nutrient ratios like sodium-to-potassium and saturated-to-unsaturated fat—and explains why existing systems like Nutri-Score and Health Star Rating fall short, often giving high marks to sugary cereals while penalizing sardines. We reveal the top-scoring food groups (dark green leafy vegetables, organ meats, and fatty fish), the single food that scored a perfect 100 (it's not what you'd expect), and why both low-carb and plant-based camps have found reasons to disagree with us—which we take as a sign the system is working.

The second half digs into the practical applications and honest limitations. Flaminia explains how the NVS was designed to guide food policy and programs globally—helping organizations decide which foods to promote in markets, supply chains, and consumer awareness campaigns—and how it could be adapted for front-of-package labeling and mobile apps. We discuss the enormous challenge of food composition data gaps, especially for indigenous and traditional foods where the only nutritional data comes from individual papers at local universities. Flaminia also addresses the system's key limitation as a relative score that shifts when the dataset changes, why beef scores a surprisingly solid 59 for different reasons than soy milk's 61, and how using nutritional value as the functional unit in environmental and affordability assessments completely reshuffles the conventional rankings—with fish and even ruminant meat often outperforming legumes and nuts per unit of nutritional value delivered.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Nutritional Value Score (NVS)

02:29 Development and Evolution of NVS

05:30 Components of the Nutritional Value Score

08:21 Tailoring NVS for Specific Populations

11:20 Challenges in Food Composition Data

14:15 Top Scoring Foods and Nutritional Insights

17:28 Lowest Scoring Foods and Dietary Implications

20:27 Applications of NVS in Policy and Programs

23:36 Understanding Nutri-Score and Health Star Rating