by I have another little piece of bonus content for you. A little extra between our regular episodes of the Nutrition Diva podcast. I wanted to share a response to a study that has been getting a lot of publicity. And this was another study linking the consumption of ultra processed foods or UPFs to all kinds of chronic diseases.
You’ve probably seen it in the headlines. And this is just the latest in a very long series of similar studies showing this connection between the consumption of ultra and various processed foods. Health conditions and disease risks and the headline from this was that this is a very consistent result and that’s important because all of this research is correlational, right?
They are just showing associations and we know that. Correlation does not prove causation, but when you see the same correlations over and over again, it lends more credence to it. So they are putting a lot of emphasis on the fact that there is a lot of consistency in this result. And this in turn is putting more and more weight behind the push to incorporate new guidance specifically aimed at the consumption of processed foods into our national dietary guidelines, which guide all other food policies.
This is my problem with this. The underlying NOVA classification system has several fundamental flaws. All this research. So every single paper that is publishing and promoting this decision, this Nova system, has the same flaw at its heart, the point of which is to categorize foods based on their levels of processing, which allows us to see if there are links between. the consumption of those foods and various diseases, the problem is that it adds perfectly healthy, nutritious foods often in the same category.
You might also like my take on how to lose weight without dieting here.
Foods we can all agree are junk food. And this is more than just a classification error. We run the risk of embedding a very privileged perspective on nutrition in our food policy. And that would be hard to roll back. So I want you to imagine for a moment a busy working parent who puts out a box of ready-to-eat cereal for their kids.
That’s an option labeled as ultra-processed by Novostat standards. That would be in that category linked to an increased risk of chronic disease, but it really doesn’t belong in that category. That grain, a whole food option like steel cut oats, is likely to have more iron, more fiber, more folate, all other nutrients except non-extracts mentioned.
Which, by the way, takes at least 45 minutes to prepare. The suggestion that time-consuming cooking is the only way to eat healthy is to ignore the reality of those who may have to balance work with childcare, or caring for people elderly, or limited resources. You know, if the NOVA classification system was a medical diagnostic test, we would reject it because it produces too many false positives.
And yet, with each new analysis at home, it is more likely that this particular bias and error will be enshrined in our national food policy. Instead of vilifying all processed food, We really need to take a more nuanced approach here, one that recognizes the nutritional value that certain processed foods offer and also acknowledges the very diverse factors that influence our dietary choices.
Let’s distinguish between food processing that makes foods safer, or more nutritious, or more accessible, and the kind of food processing that better accommodates cheap, nutrient-poor ingredients. Good nutrition really needs to be accessible to everyone, and not just those who don’t believe there is a relationship between highly processed junk food and an increased risk of chronic conditions.
All I’m saying here is that the NOVA classification system is not specific enough to determine whether or not a food should be included in a healthy eating pattern. And if we incorporate advice to avoid these NOVA category foods into our dietary guidelines, we risk alienating and even shaming those who cannot live up to this ideal but often impractical nutritional standard.
Good nutrition is not a binary condition. We need to balance health, accessibility, affordability and convenience.
So this is my plea that instead of baking bias into our food policy, we empower people to make more informed decisions within the options available to them without guilt or judgement. You might be interested in giving another listen to my interview with USDA researcher Julie Hess. We were discussing his very interesting study on ultra-processed foods and I think it sheds a lot of additional light on this dilemma.
