logoalt Hacker News

kelseyfrogtoday at 1:58 AM3 repliesview on HN

> 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.


Replies

staticassertiontoday at 12:00 PM

If a framework leads to obviously absurd conclusions, I think that's a very valid criticism of that framework. You have not demonstrated or in any way supported that this framework can be "generally good".

And yes, people absolutely believe things. I have had people criticize food/drinks I've eaten as unhealthy because they are "processed" even though being "processed" means I know exactly what's in them.

theamktoday at 3:57 AM

Sure they do, I know multiple people like that.

It's could be OK to have informal system with plenty of inconsistent cases for informal conversations, but once we start talking of regulation, it's time to switch to something that does not have quite as few loopholes.

Because for example grape juice has more sugar per cup than coca-cola, and almost no nutrients (if filtered.) And yet it's firmly the best type of food according to NOVA system (minimal processing, no artificial additives). You can be sure that if any sort of government adopts NOVA system, it's that kind of food that would be pushed to consumer, not the actual healthy stuff.

brokenseguetoday at 2:46 AM

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.

show 1 reply