Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study

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.

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.

"Ultra-processed foods" isn't a scientific concept.

It's like "organic".

Too many variables are conflated to make any of this reasonable.

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.

Agreed - and in both cases the government should stay out of it.