Trading Up Downtown

Last Saturday, I had zero plans for the day. It was awesome! Even though I didn’t have a single thing on my calendar, I still had my usual weekend errands to accomplish. So, my husband and I decided to divide and conquer our Saturday To Do list. I was in the mood to clean, so I offered to tackle the house if he did the grocery shopping.

Some women might not trust their husbands with the weekly grocery shopping. Mine’s been known to purchase some seriously low-scoring foods like Pillsbury Refrigerated Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (NuVal score: 1) and Kraft Cheez Whiz (NuVal score: 3). This week, however, only a couple of not-so-nutritious items made their way into the cart!

• Cheez-Its (NuVal score: 13)
• Old-Fashioned Oats (NuVal score: 57)
• Bananas (NuVal score: 91)
• Whole wheat bread
• Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese (NuVal score: 20)
• Chicken broth (NuVal score: 2)
• Vanilla soy milk
• Teddie Unsalted Old Fashioned Natural Peanut Butter (NuVal score: 49)

• Seapak Frozen Tempura Shrimp
• Cucumber (NuVal score: 93)
• Eggland’s Best eggs (NuVal score: 44)
• Siggi’s yogurt
• Tomato (NuVal score: 96)
• Red onion (NuVal score: 93)
• John Morrell Smoked Bacon (NuVal score: 5)
• Van’s Homestyle Frozen Waffles (NuVal score: 25)
• Cucumber (NuVal score: 93)
• Swissrose Gruyere cheese (NuVal score: 23)
• Sliced deli turkey breast

• Broccoli (NuVal score: 100)

• Apples (NuVal score: 96)

Trade

I am planning to make a creamy pasta sauce for dinner later this week, so I traded up the recipe’s Heavy Whipping Cream (NuVal Score: 3) for Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt (NuVal Score: 94).

Save

Ok, so this week’s Save isn’t the most nutritious food in the grocery store, but my husband got his money’s worth! He purchased the Family Size box of Cheez-Its instead the regular size because the unit price was much less, which meant we got more for our dollar.

We receive all sorts of questions here at NuVal, but one of the most common is “why does olive oil score lower than canola oil?” Olive oil scores a 11 while canola oil scores a 24 on the NuVal scale. In case you’re curious, walnut oil scores a bit higher with a score of 27.

Rachel Rodek, NuVal’s Nutrition Communications Manager and Registered Dietitian, provided her expert answer about olive oil versus canola oil:

Liquid oils all have fat profiles with different amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, saturated fat, and monounsaturated fat.  The real differentiator in the scores is omega-3 fatty acid content.  Canola oil has more than 9 grams omega-3 per 100 grams of oil, followed by soybean oil with 6.8 grams, and olive oil with less than 1 gram.  Saturated fat also plays a role.  Canola oil is made of 7% saturated fat where as olive oil is has almost twice as much at 13.5%.

In summary:  Canola oil has more omega-3 fatty acids and less saturated fat than olive oil, causing it to score higher on the NuVal scale.

Last week, I noticed my husband fumbling around with his keys as he went to unlock the front door of our house. Then, he mumbled something about how he could never figure out which key went to which door. (We have a separate key for the front door of our house  and for our apartment.)

As soon as my husband complained about the confusing keys, I remembered a great tip from Real Simple magazine. They suggested using nail polish to color-code your keys. Brilliant!

How to: Just lay the key flat and apply a thick coat of nail polish to the top. Use a different shade of nail polish to distinguish different keys.

My husband loved this idea and immediately asked me for a bottle of nail polish. He painted the front door key, let it dry, and hasn’t fumbled with his keys at the front door since.