A color-coded system could help people make healthier choices at food pantries, study shows Taylor Avery, USA TODAY Replay Video Food pantry patrons make healthier choices when foods are organized by nutrition level, new research shows. Using a food categorizing system called Supporting Wellness at Pantries that ranks different foods based on their level of saturated fat, sodium and added sugars, researchers found patrons selected 11% more healthy foods and decreased unhealthy choices by 7%. "The most important finding from this study is that people who go to food pantries, like all of us, want to eat a healthy diet, and it's very hard to quickly figure out which items are the healthiest," said Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and an author of the study. "The purpose of SWAP is to just simplify that whole process by doing all of the evaluating ahead of time, having a simple color-coded system that's very easy to understand.”