Fashion magazines often show side-by-side comparisons of high-priced couture designs next to less expensive versions of the same style.

If your budget can't handle splurging on $500 black patent-leather designer pumps, then it's good to know a similar look can be had for far less.

Handout (ENLARGE)

Carolyn O'Neil is a registered dietitian and co-author of 'The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous!' E-mail her at healthyeating@ajc.com.

RELATED LINKS: • Veggies improve eyesight • Tips to get more veggies/fruit in diet • More Health stories

It's a matter of priorities. The same goes when balancing your calorie budget at mealtime. Have to have the large order of fries? Fine, but that will set you back 500 calories. Better yet, if weight control's your goal, why not get to know and love the style of eating that delivers on flavor and nutrition without the waist-widening price tags?

For instance, let's say you're craving the comfort of a fresh-baked cinnamon bun topped with icing and chopped pecans. One of those treats packs in more than 700 calories. But, if you can satisfy your urge to taste cinnamon and pecans for less than 200 calories, would you be interested? A bowl of Special K cinnamon and pecan breakfast cereal with 1/2 cup of fat-free milk contains only 160 calories.

The real value in choosing the cereal over the cinnamon roll is not only the calories you save but the nutrition you get from the whole grains and the milk.

Foods that provide substantial amounts of vitamins and minerals and relatively few calories are considered nutrient rich and include lean meats, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits.

Dr. Adam Drewnowski and other researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle are working to come up with a ranking system that gives higher scores to the foods that deliver the most bang for the buck nutritionally.

"This score would help identify the most nutrient-rich foods. These are foods that give more nutrients per calorie ratio." For instance, spinach would earn the top score of 100 because it's so low in calories and provides a lot of vitamins and minerals. Canned peaches packed in heavy syrup would get a lower score than fresh peaches.

Adding sugar or fat would lower the score for any food no matter how many nutrients it contains because the total calories per serving is increased. Therefore, cabbage would rank higher than coleslaw made with a sweetened mayonnaise dressing. Drewnowski is the first to admit that the science of ranking foods based on nutrient content per calorie isn't simply a matter of math. Nuts, for instance, lose points because they're naturally high in fat, even though the fats are heart-healthy oils.

"It's really best to use the rankings to compare foods in the same category. It's one more tool to help you customize a healthy diet," Drewnowski says. So if and when you see nutrient density rankings, use them to compare apples to apples in a pie and nuts to other nuts. In the meantime, the best guide is a side by side "eat this — not that" comparison of total calories and fat in meal choices with an eye on emphasizing higher intakes of nutrient-rich ingredients.