It’s terribly broken, which is unsurprising since it was never designed to do what it does, and ends up placing healthy, non addictive foods under the ultra processed category 4, while including hyper palatable foods that are not healthy at all in categories 1-3.
Hyper palatability, which is much better defined and is designed to capture what the NOVA system is actually used for, is likely a better categorization.
When companies have engineers sitting around figuring out the precise amounts of salt, sugar, and crunch required to force a person to eat 4 servings of something in one sitting… yeah, at least put a warning label on it. I don’t know that I agree with outright bans or anything, but people should be properly warned about the risks.
Yes, I've begun translating "ultra-processed foods" to "junk food". It's roughly the same meaning and roughly the same amount of scientific rigor. UPF sounds scientific and specific but it's neither.
OTOH everybody intuitively understands junk food is bad for you, has a rough idea of what it is and that the definition is circular.
Agreed. I hope these terms go away. I think what people tend to mean is "calorie dense, low in nutrients, low in fiber", or something along those lines, and the term "processed" makes it far more confusing.
"Processed" ends up meaning anything from "high in sugar" to "long shelf life" or "one of a dozen kinds of artificial sweetener" etc. It does more harm than good.
I can have an extremely high fiber, high protein, nutritionally well rounded meal that's also "ultra processed".
Someone mentioned Nova. Nova is a PERFECT example of how god awful the term is. When asked to classify foods into Nova categories there is almost no agreement amongst nutritionists.
Time after time, Nova is shown to be more confusing than helpful, with worse than random results. Nova itself doesn't even attempt to correlate with "healthy".
> there is almost no agreement amongst nutritionists
Neither is there for speciation. Doesn’t make the term or concept useless. And doesn’t mean we can’t make useful statements about one species versus another, even if it gets blurry at the edges.
What is helpful about Nova? What are the useful statements we can make? I would argue that Nova makes it more difficult to make useful statements. For example, someone who follows Nova would believe that taking a fiber supplement, or a multivitamin, is "ultra processed" and if they equate "ultra processed" with bad... well, they'd skip those. Meanwhile, they could eat raw mean morning to night, or drink their own urine, and they'd be on a totally unprocessed diet.
What framework has Nova helped develop for eating healthier?
> someone who follows Nova would believe that taking a fiber supplement, or a multivitamin, is "ultra processed"
No one believes that. We're all adults and not looking for loopholes or edge cases to exploit. A system can be generally good even if it has inconsistent edge cases, which is basically all systems that have ever existed.
why not use a classification of food that actually aligns with what is bad? it seems like we don't actually know. Nova combines a bunch of different attributes some of which we don't actually think are causally linked to bad health.
> "Ultra-processed foods" isn't a scientific concept
This is like arguing astronomy isn’t real because colloquial definitions of space are ambiguous.
The study [1] uses a definition that finds a significant effect. We should investigate that further. If it pans out and the term ultra-processed food triggers people, we can rebrand it. (Did the cigarette lobby ever try muddying the water on what cigarettes are?)
Presumably, since the first citation in the paper is said epidemiologist (Monteiro), this is the framework they rely on.
Unless you’re intent on scientific gatekeeping, in which case having actually read the reported study (it’s linked in the article fyi) would have offered much more effective methods of rebuttal than semantic quibbles.
It's not gatekeeping to point out that multiple studies have shown that Nova is a perfect example of "no one agrees on what processed foods are". Even when given Nova criteria, nutritionists repeatedly, across studies, fail to agree on categorization.
Nova also does not even attempt to categorize in terms of health because "processed" has nothing to do with "healthy" despite being used in conversations about public health. Absolutely perfect example of how bad the term "processed" is.
That's a perfect example of the problem. It's overgeneralized to the point of meaninglessness.
It asserts that UPF is bad because they tend to result in quicker absorption, amongst many other things. So why not say quick absorbing food is bad for you, and why use a definition that also includes food that is processed to absorb slower?
Then repeat across several other characteristics. Few UPF foods will bingo on all characteristics and a lot of non-UPF foods will bingo on many of the same characteristics.
Most of the things on sale at “Whole Foods” are ultra-processed these days. Anything that requires effort to make gluten free or vegan for example. Like impossible burger. Extreme ultra-processed. Or gluten free bread.
Please don’t tell me impossible burger patties are like cigarettes.
Perhaps more obviously, a multi-vitamin is considered "ultra processed" under Nova. A fiber supplement is considered "ultra processed". Lab grade creatine is "ultra processed".
As a creatine user I thought of this, but I don't recall seeing creatine as an ingredient in most foods. I still prefer to get my protein via meat, eggs, or other basic foods rather than in the form of a highly engineered shake, not least for cost reasons.
They certainly have such offerings, but I'm perplexed at how you get to 'most of the things on sale'. The most processed things I get from there on a regular basis are bread, cookies, or alcoholic drinks. It's very rare that I find myself looking at the label of anything I can purchase there wondering how it was made.
I think of “UPF” the way I think of “BMI.” Useful insofar as it provides an intial signal for further investigation. The term UPF provides a way to group certain foods according to their likelihood of helping me reach my health goals.
I think people's intuition is generally reliable, though. What food has the term "UPF" helped you learn is 'unhealthy', which you otherwise would have thought of as healthy?
For losing fat, "fried chicken", "chocolate cake", and "sugary drinks" are intuitively unhelpful, and "vegetables", "lean meat", "water" is more "healthy".
>What food has the term "UPF" helped you learn is 'unhealthy', which you otherwise would have thought of as healthy?
It's not that I didn't know that certain foods were unhealthy. The term UPF (understood to mean foods that are manufactured specifically to be hyper-palatable while otherwise lacking in nutrients) taught me the reasons why I find certain foods harder to resist than others, and consequently what foods I should focus on instead (higher protein / high fiber).
We need to get away from the NOVA system.
It’s terribly broken, which is unsurprising since it was never designed to do what it does, and ends up placing healthy, non addictive foods under the ultra processed category 4, while including hyper palatable foods that are not healthy at all in categories 1-3.
Hyper palatability, which is much better defined and is designed to capture what the NOVA system is actually used for, is likely a better categorization.
When companies have engineers sitting around figuring out the precise amounts of salt, sugar, and crunch required to force a person to eat 4 servings of something in one sitting… yeah, at least put a warning label on it. I don’t know that I agree with outright bans or anything, but people should be properly warned about the risks.
As another commenter pointed out, those are hyperpalatable foods, not 'ultraprocessed foods'.
Besides, 'ultraprocessed food' itself is and has always been a useless buzzword (buzzphrase?).
"Ultra-processed foods" isn't a scientific concept.
It's like "organic".
Too many variables are conflated to make any of this reasonable.
Yes, I've begun translating "ultra-processed foods" to "junk food". It's roughly the same meaning and roughly the same amount of scientific rigor. UPF sounds scientific and specific but it's neither.
OTOH everybody intuitively understands junk food is bad for you, has a rough idea of what it is and that the definition is circular.
Agreed. I hope these terms go away. I think what people tend to mean is "calorie dense, low in nutrients, low in fiber", or something along those lines, and the term "processed" makes it far more confusing.
"Processed" ends up meaning anything from "high in sugar" to "long shelf life" or "one of a dozen kinds of artificial sweetener" etc. It does more harm than good.
I can have an extremely high fiber, high protein, nutritionally well rounded meal that's also "ultra processed".
Someone mentioned Nova. Nova is a PERFECT example of how god awful the term is. When asked to classify foods into Nova categories there is almost no agreement amongst nutritionists.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8181985/
Time after time, Nova is shown to be more confusing than helpful, with worse than random results. Nova itself doesn't even attempt to correlate with "healthy".
> there is almost no agreement amongst nutritionists
Neither is there for speciation. Doesn’t make the term or concept useless. And doesn’t mean we can’t make useful statements about one species versus another, even if it gets blurry at the edges.
What is helpful about Nova? What are the useful statements we can make? I would argue that Nova makes it more difficult to make useful statements. For example, someone who follows Nova would believe that taking a fiber supplement, or a multivitamin, is "ultra processed" and if they equate "ultra processed" with bad... well, they'd skip those. Meanwhile, they could eat raw mean morning to night, or drink their own urine, and they'd be on a totally unprocessed diet.
What framework has Nova helped develop for eating healthier?
> someone who follows Nova would believe that taking a fiber supplement, or a multivitamin, is "ultra processed"
No one believes that. We're all adults and not looking for loopholes or edge cases to exploit. A system can be generally good even if it has inconsistent edge cases, which is basically all systems that have ever existed.
why not use a classification of food that actually aligns with what is bad? it seems like we don't actually know. Nova combines a bunch of different attributes some of which we don't actually think are causally linked to bad health.
Feel free to publish one?
> "Ultra-processed foods" isn't a scientific concept
This is like arguing astronomy isn’t real because colloquial definitions of space are ambiguous.
The study [1] uses a definition that finds a significant effect. We should investigate that further. If it pans out and the term ultra-processed food triggers people, we can rebrand it. (Did the cigarette lobby ever try muddying the water on what cigarettes are?)
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0009.70066
The Nova framework for classifying processed foods was created in 2009 by a Brazilian epidemiologist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
Presumably, since the first citation in the paper is said epidemiologist (Monteiro), this is the framework they rely on.
Unless you’re intent on scientific gatekeeping, in which case having actually read the reported study (it’s linked in the article fyi) would have offered much more effective methods of rebuttal than semantic quibbles.
It's not gatekeeping to point out that multiple studies have shown that Nova is a perfect example of "no one agrees on what processed foods are". Even when given Nova criteria, nutritionists repeatedly, across studies, fail to agree on categorization.
Nova also does not even attempt to categorize in terms of health because "processed" has nothing to do with "healthy" despite being used in conversations about public health. Absolutely perfect example of how bad the term "processed" is.
Here’s a scientific paper written by scientists that defines UPFs:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0009.70066
Which variables are conflated?
That's a perfect example of the problem. It's overgeneralized to the point of meaninglessness.
It asserts that UPF is bad because they tend to result in quicker absorption, amongst many other things. So why not say quick absorbing food is bad for you, and why use a definition that also includes food that is processed to absorb slower?
Then repeat across several other characteristics. Few UPF foods will bingo on all characteristics and a lot of non-UPF foods will bingo on many of the same characteristics.
Ever notice how you semantic junkies always end up defending entrenched financial interests?
Redirect your energy toward something useful.
Most of the things on sale at “Whole Foods” are ultra-processed these days. Anything that requires effort to make gluten free or vegan for example. Like impossible burger. Extreme ultra-processed. Or gluten free bread.
Please don’t tell me impossible burger patties are like cigarettes.
Right, it's not that all ultraprocessed foods are bad, it's that most bad foods are ultraprocessed.
Agreed. Which makes the statement “ultraprocessed foods should be treated more like cigarettes” seem wrong.
I guess “bad foods should be treated more like cigarettes” is too obvious.
nobody has a good definition of ultra-processed food
Perhaps more obviously, a multi-vitamin is considered "ultra processed" under Nova. A fiber supplement is considered "ultra processed". Lab grade creatine is "ultra processed".
As a creatine user I thought of this, but I don't recall seeing creatine as an ingredient in most foods. I still prefer to get my protein via meat, eggs, or other basic foods rather than in the form of a highly engineered shake, not least for cost reasons.
They certainly have such offerings, but I'm perplexed at how you get to 'most of the things on sale'. The most processed things I get from there on a regular basis are bread, cookies, or alcoholic drinks. It's very rare that I find myself looking at the label of anything I can purchase there wondering how it was made.
As I said - anything surprisingly gluten free or surprisingly vegan is going to be UPF.
Sometimes I wonder if the gluten free trend is a ploy by food processing companies to whitewash expensive proprietary processed foods as “whole”.
I think of “UPF” the way I think of “BMI.” Useful insofar as it provides an intial signal for further investigation. The term UPF provides a way to group certain foods according to their likelihood of helping me reach my health goals.
I don’t need a term to be perfect to be useful.
I think people's intuition is generally reliable, though. What food has the term "UPF" helped you learn is 'unhealthy', which you otherwise would have thought of as healthy?
For losing fat, "fried chicken", "chocolate cake", and "sugary drinks" are intuitively unhelpful, and "vegetables", "lean meat", "water" is more "healthy".
>What food has the term "UPF" helped you learn is 'unhealthy', which you otherwise would have thought of as healthy?
It's not that I didn't know that certain foods were unhealthy. The term UPF (understood to mean foods that are manufactured specifically to be hyper-palatable while otherwise lacking in nutrients) taught me the reasons why I find certain foods harder to resist than others, and consequently what foods I should focus on instead (higher protein / high fiber).
Agreed - and in both cases the government should stay out of it.