Are we eating processed or ultra-processed foods

It is common to hear the terms "processed foods" and "ultra-processed foods," in the food industry. However, what exactly say from these words or categories?

The majority of the foods that we consume on a daily basis have undergone some sort of processing unless you are eating carrots you picked right off of your garden.

Processing of foods entails altering them from their natural state to a processed state in order to increase nutritional content, extend the shelf life, and make them safe to consume or store for a long period. Processing techniques may include pasteurizing, canning, fermenting, freezing, or drying foods.

Depending on how many processing steps, they have undergone, the food products are divided into four major categories according to the NOVA food classification system.

The Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of Sao Paulo, created the NOVA Food Classification system for food processing. The NOVA system emphasizes the extent of processing that food sold in supermarkets goes through in an effort to assist consumers in making better decisions.

What is the NOVA food classification system?

The world's most popular food processing classification system is NOVA, which divides all foods and beverages into four categories based on how much and for what purpose they have been industrially processed or based on their degree of industrial processing.

1. Unprocessed and Minimal Processed Foods

These are the foods in their natural state or that have undergone minimal processing. They consist of edible components of plants, animals, or fungi that have not had any processing done to them or natural foods that have undergone little processing in order to make them safe, pleasant, or suitable for storage. Examples: Fresh fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, meat, and milk

 

2. Processed Culinary Ingredients

They are ingredients that have undergone simple processing and are used in everyday home cooking. They are obtained from unprocessed or minimally processed foods or from nature. Moreover, are used to prepare and season minimally processed foods but are not meant for individual consumption.

Examples: Fats, oils, sugars, salt, starches, spices, herbs)

3. Processed Foods

These foods undergo processing techniques such as canning or bottling to preserve foods and enhance their flavor. Processed foods are produced by adding sugar, oil, fat, salt, and other culinary components to minimally processed foods (or when processed culinary ingredients are added to minimally processed foods to create industrial products. Processed foods are not processed in a way that is harmful to our health.

Examples: Cheese, fruit in syrup, and vegetables in cans with brine.

4. Ultra-Processed Foods

They are foods that are frequently modified by chemical processes and then combined into ready-to-consume hyper-palatable food and beverage products utilizing flavors, colors, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additions.

When food is ultra-processed, it signifies that the manufacturer created the final product using industrial-scale techniques and ingredients that you might not be familiar with or would not use in home cooking.

Examples: Soft drinks, premade frozen dinners, pizza dishes, reconstituted meat products, and savory snacks.

How we can identify ultra-processed foods?

Foods that have undergone extreme processing often have a lot of salt, sugar, fat, and industrial chemical additives.  When you purchase food products for your consumption, you can read the ingredient list. If it has mentioned ingredients such as sugar, salt, protein, oil derivatives including high-fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, protein isolates, hydrogenated oil, and cosmetic additives including colors, flavors, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, thickeners, and artificial sweeteners (designed to make the final product more palatable), you can identify it as an ultra-processed food.

Try to restrict or avoid ultra-processed foods whenever you can. You may quickly determine whether a food is processed, or ultra-processed by using the examples in this table.

Minimally processed	Processed	Ultra-processed
Wheat	Flour	Cookies
Corn	Canned corn	Corn chips
Carrot	Carrot juice	Carrot cake
Potato	Baked potato	French fries
Apple	Apple juice	Apple pie
Rice	Cooked rice	Rice cake

 

Why do we crave ultra-processed foods?

According to the research findings, when people consume minimal or unprocessed foods, the appetite suppression hormone, which is called PYY, can inform the brain to stop eating. However, when consuming ultra-processed foods; they can blunt the appetite suppression hormone. Thus, the brain does not get the message to stop eating.

Effect of ultra-processed foods on health?

Eating a lot of food that has undergone extreme processing has a negative effect on our health.

Our diets can significantly affect both our gut microbiome and our general health. Processed food is not always bad, even though routinely consuming ultra-processed foods like chips, microwave dinners, candies, and chicken nuggets is not a healthy diet. The proportion of industrially processed foods in the world's food supply has grown in recent decades. This pattern has changed at the same time when diets connected to an increase in obesity and non-communicable diseases are common in many nations.

Recent research studies reveal that consumption of a high amount of ultra-processed foods including beverages, fats, sauces, sugary products, and meat products associate with non-communicable diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. These findings have significant implications for dietary recommendations and food regulations because they add to the mounting evidence that ultra-processed food is linked to unfavorable health consequences.

You can eat less ultra-processed food and more unprocessed or slightly processed food, according to simple dietary advice.

The findings also have consequences for public policy measures that call for an evidence-based metric to assess the "healthiness" of specific food products, such as front-of-pack labeling, food taxes, and restrictions on food marketing.