There's no one-right diet when it comes losing weight. Experts often stress reading food labels to make sure that you're eating healthy, but even that can be complicated.
Now a group of scientists has developed a simple way to tell whether your meals are a good fit or full of fat.
What's your best bet: potato chips, cereal or tortilla chips? Seems like a no brainer, right?
"But if you were to chose which one of these was better for you, (tortilla chips) has a higher score than either the cold cereal or the potato chips. It is surprising," said Sharon Guillett, registered nurse.
That's according to a new food rating system called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index or ONQI.
"It's a scientific system where they take all of the good things in food and divide it by all of the negative things in the food," said Guillett.
Foods are given a score of 1 to 100 - 100 being the healthiest. So most vegetables will score a 100, but processed foods like potato chips could get a 3.
"For me the best idea is to look in categories. So for example, if you're to buy a piece of meat, what's the best quality meat?" said Guillett.
If you compare salmon and ground beef, that's an easy one. The salmon is healthier. But what about chicken versus turkey?
"Chicken has a lot of fat in it. I think everyone thinks of it as a lean meat, but when you balance the good things against the negatives, the negatives outweigh the positives," said Guillett.
According to the ONQI scale, chicken gets a 39 and turkey gets a 48. Now take pickled beets and goldfish crackers .
"(The pickled beets) has a score of 8 and (the crackers) has a score of 20," said Guillett.
Just because it's a vegetable doesn't make it healthy.
"Because in this case, they are pickled and so that adds the brine, the salt, the sugar," said Guillett.
CLICK HERE for more information on the ONQI food scores.
