Consider the facts: Breyers Extra Creamy Vanilla Ice Cream has a NuVal score of 45. Green Giant Frozen Sweet Baby Peas And Low-Fat Butter Sauce has a NuVal score of 30.  Now, the NuVal score 91 Neopolitan ice cream that CNN found may just be a glitch in the NuVal algorithm*, but it illustrates the kind of nutritional surprises that result when you consider all of the factors that make something more or less healthy.  

Dr. David Katz of the Yale Prevention Research Center and a team of
recognized medical and nutrition experts created NuVal (and have
licensed it to big supermarkets) to provide consumers with on-the-shelf
nutritional comparison data distilled into a single 1-100 Overall Nutritional Quality Index
based on a proprietary formula that evaluates and weights good
nutritional elements (like calcium and fiber) against less-healthy ones
like sugars and trans fats. 

Packages that tout "Low Fat" or "High in Fiber" on their front label may be diverting your attention from the sodium or sugar content on the back label.  It's hard to imagine that replacing your morning Raisin Bran with ice cream is going to result in an overall healthier diet.  But a quick
look at the sugar and sodium in Raisin Bran does show you how easy it is to be misled into less healthy choices, and how a simple NuVal number can make trading up to a healthier cereal easier for those who don't have the time, patience, knowledge or
calculator available to make those decisions in the supermarket aisle.

Would a NuVal score of 91 on the Birds Eye Frozen Cooked Winter Squash help you choose it over those Green Giant Frozen Sweet Baby Peas? Supermarket chains have already started testing combining scores with
the personal shopping data from your shopper loyalty card to offer you
analysis of your shopping and coupons for healthier choices. 
Is this an acceptable use of your private data? In this era of rampant
obesity, I think so. What do you think?

*The NuVal ice cream page is currently inaccessible (perhaps while Dr. Katz and team recalculate how much that calcium is really worth) though their press release on the surprises in their Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt scores is still available.