Maine Healthcare System to Implement Nutrition Rating System

All Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems hospitals will implement the Guiding Stars nutrition rating system to label all prepared meals, snacks and grab-and-go items in their cafeterias by the end of February, reports the Bangor Daily News. Guiding Stars, which labels items on a zero-to-three stars scale depending on their nutritional profiles, is routinely used in retail grocery stores in the state and is thus familiar to customers.

It was originally developed by the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain to provide customers with an easy guide to judge the healthfulness of different grocery items, and proved so successful that it was spun off as a subsidiary and extended to other venues, including Bates College.