Table 3.
Highest, median, and lowest-nutrition items, and best and worst-case nutritional quality for a ‘balanced basket’a from Bronx food pantries (n = 13)b
| NuVal® Score | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food-pantry items by MyPlate.gov food-group categories | Across all pantries | Across all prefilled-bag pantries | Across all ‘client choice’ pantries | Mean of all pantries’ highest or lowest score | Mean of all prefilled-bag pantries’ highest or lowest score | Mean of all ‘client choice’ pantries’ highest or lowest score |
| Highest-NuVal® itemc | ||||||
| Fruit | 100 | 100 | 100 | 85.6 | 69.3 | 99.6 |
| Vegetable | 100 | 100 | 100 | 98.3 | 96.3 | 100.0 |
| Grain | 94 | 94 | 94 | 83.7 | 74.0 | 92.0 |
| Dairy | 100 | 89 | 100 | 91.8 | 89.0 | 94.1 |
| Protein | 100 | 100 | 100 | 89.2 | 80.3 | 96.7 |
| Basket of all 5 items (mean) | 98.8 | 96.6 | 98.8 | 89.7 | 81.8 | 96.5 |
| Median-NuVal® item | ||||||
| Fruit | 49.5 | 32.5 | 67.5 | 55.1 | 44.8 | 63.9 |
| Vegetable | 100 | 99 | 100 | 93.9 | 88.5 | 98.6 |
| Grain | 65 | 84 | 65 | 63.6 | 61.6 | 65.3 |
| Dairy | 89 | 89 | 89 | 83.3 | 89.0 | 78.4 |
| Protein | 77 | 52 | 77 | 65.2 | 52.3 | 76.2 |
| Basket of all 5 items (mean) | 76.1 | 71.3 | 79.7 | 72.2 | 67.3 | 76.5 |
| Lowest-NuVal® itemd | ||||||
| Fruit | 1 | 4 | 1 | 12.5 | 22.0 | 4.4 |
| Vegetable | 20 | 55 | 20 | 60.6 | 70.5 | 52.1 |
| Grain | 8 | 9 | 8 | 32.5 | 44.8 | 21.9 |
| Dairy | 28 | 89 | 28 | 79.8 | 89.0 | 72.0 |
| Protein | 20 | 20 | 25 | 34.7 | 27.7 | 40.7 |
| Basket of all 5 items (mean) | 15.4 | 35.4 | 16.4 | 44.0 | 50.8 | 38.2 |
A’balanced basket’ is a hypothetical bundle of five items, one from each of the five MyPlate.gov food-group categories of fruit, vegetable, grain, dairy, and protein
Analyses here restricted to the pantries that offered at least one item from each of the 5 MyPlate.gov food-group categories: 6 pantries operating by the traditional prefilled-bag model and 7 pantries operating by a client-choice model. For an imputed analysis, considering all pantries at which any foods or drinks were being offered (12 pantries operating by a prefilled-bag model and nine operating by a client-choice model) and setting missing items to a NuVal® score of zero, please see Appendix - Table 5.
In the fruit and vegetables categories, fresh varieties--and canned varieties without added sodium--were among the items with NuVal® scores of 100 at pantries of both types. Brown rice was the whole-grain item with NuVal® score of 94 at both types of pantries. The dairy food with NuVal® of 89 at pantries using prefilled bags was 1% milk; fat-free milk (in either powdered or liquid form) was the dairy item with NuVal® score of 100 at client choice pantries. Scoring 100 in the protein category at pantries of both types were dried beans and lentils.
In the fruit category, sweetened dried cranberries had the NuVal® score of 4 and sweetened cranberry sauce had the NuVal® score of 1. For vegetables, diced, salted, canned tomatoes had the NuVal® score of 55, cut yams in light syrup had the NuVal® of 20. The grain item with NuVal® score of 9 was Mac and Cheese, the grain item with the NuVal® score of 8 was gluten-free tagliatelle. For dairy, 1% milk scored 89, and sweetened flavored yogurts scored the 28. The protein item having a NuVal® score of 20 was Vienna sausages, and the protein items having the NuVal® score of 25 were canned beef stew and canned chicken.