Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Health Check vs Guiding Stars Round 2: Chili

Up today? Chili. Staghorn Beef Chili to be exact.

And what do you get in your can? Almost half of the Heart and Stroke Foundation's daily recommended 1500mg maximum of sodium.

Health Check: Check!

Guiding Stars: Zero.

So as far as Guiding Stars go, Staghorn Beef Chili's grade falls between 0-25%.

Interestingly there's another Health Check'ed Staghorn Chili. It's their Vegetable Garden Chili.

Notice that it actually gets one Guiding Star (still not exciting as it in a sense reflects a score of 25%-50%, but still better than no stars).

Of course if you shopped using Health Checks you'd never know one was better (albeit marginally) than the other because Health Check pass/fail status doesn't allow consumers to compare one Health Check'ed item to another and consequently if sticking with the school analogy, kids getting 50% on an exam being marked by Health Check end up with the same grade as kids getting 100%.

More on that tomorrow with Round 3: Canned Vegetables.

And if you missed it, you can click here for further background.