A New England supermarket company is rating the healthiness of the food products it sells and the truthfulness is striking a raw nerve with its suppliers, reports the New York Times. Not surprisingly, many processed foods that seem heatlhy have too much sodium or some other strike against them, which means they get no stars on Hannaford Brothers' rating system of up to three stars for the healthiest foods.

In fact, 77 percent of the 27,000 products in the store got no stars. The disparity, notes the paper, shows that nutritional claims are often more about marketing than health. And, it pays to read the fine print about ingredients to see how much fat and sodium a product actually contains.

Trying to soften the blow to those who make the processed food products, a Hannaford spokeswoman tells the paper: "We are saying there are no bad foods. This is a good, better and best system." That still didn't mollify Campbell's or ConAgra.

A food industry consultant says that manufacturers could not stick with the Hannaford stars because no one would buy products that qualified for the top rating. For Hannafords, though, it could be the best marketing gimmick since Kris Kringle told kids in "Miracle on 34th Street" that they should go to Gimbel's to get the toy they wanted.