Just seeing a lot of articles about ultra processed foods lately and wondering.
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“Ultra processed” is a label from the [NOVA classification system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food), which is used by many organizations including the WHO (but *not* US government agencies).
NOVA gives a few labels:
* **Unprocessed food**: straight from nature, no changes. Fruits right off the tree are a good example.
* **Minimally processed food**: simple mechanical changes. Washed eggs, frozen veggies, and pasteurized milk.
* **Processed culinary ingredients**: minimally processed, but something you wouldn’t eat alone. Olive oil and flour.
* **Processed food**: Take the above and add any amount of salt, sugar, or fat. Bread, canned meats, some cheeses.
* **Ultra processed food**: A processed food that also adds artificial colors or flavors. If you use food coloring on your Christmas cookies, they’re ultra processed.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/
These labels are not without criticism. A particular ingredient might fall into different categories depending on how it was sourced. For example, vanillin, the main component of vanilla extract, can be produced “naturally” by a days- or months-long process of treating vanilla beans, or an identical molecule can be synthesized from raw chemicals. From one route, you get a minimally processed culinary ingredient; if you use the latter, your end food would be considered ultra processed. The NOVA system also does not consider the *degree* of the inclusion of such ingredients: you could use minimally processed ingredients up until you throw in a teaspoon of that ultra processed vanillin, and your entire product would be tainted by that inclusion.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924224421004970
My take: processed and ultra-processed are flawed shorthands for actually evaluating what you eat. If you really have no time to think, they might be better than nothing, but if you’re invested enough to be reading the nutrition label in the first place, you can afford to do better than that.
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