For decades, dietary guidelines have focused on limiting the intake of specific nutrients like fat, sugar, and salt, and playing between carbohydrates and proteins. However, new research suggests that this approach ignores an equally important key factor – how food is processed. Brazilian nutritionist Carlos Monteiro has developed an entirely new food classification system called NOVA, which evaluates foods based on the extent and purpose of their processing, not just the nutrients present in them.
Monteiro became interested in the subject after noticing conflicting trends in his home country: while shopping basket surveys found that people bought fewer oils, sugar and salt in 2009 than the 1975 mash, the country's rates of overweight and obesity rose rapidly. The answer, Monteiro realized, was that Brazilians simply switched to consuming these nutrients in highly processed forms like snacks, pastries and sugary drinks, rather than purchasing the basics and making the final products at home.
Under the NOVA system, foods are divided into four categories based on processing:
1. Unprocessed, or minimally processed foods, such as fruits, vegetables and fresh meats;
2. Processed culinary ingredients, such as oils, butter, and sugar, to be added to food;
3. Processed foods, including canned, smoked or ground foods, white grain bread, cheese, etc.;
4. Super-processed foods, made from substances derived from whole foods such as fats, starches, sugars or proteins, through various industrial processes. They contain little or no whole food and are designed for convenience.
Preliminary studies using the new method show that super-processed foods may affect health beyond what can be expected from its nutritional composition alone. In a groundbreaking clinical trial conducted in the United States, 20 participants spent a month in a hospital, during which two weeks they received only unprocessed foods and the other two weeks superprocessed foods only. The researchers found that in the two weeks that participants were given superprocessed foods, they ate an additional 500 calories a day and gained 2 kilograms, while in the two weeks that they received unprocessed foods, they ate less and lost weight – even though the nutrients of both types of meals were identical. Further research aims to reveal how these foods affect normal appetite control and metabolic function.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that the new method of addressing food quality has received quite a bit of attention, most countries still impose regulations solely regarding nutritional ingredients (as we see in Israel with the red label that warns of saturated fat, sodium and sugar content). Now it seems that soon we will have to get used to new and quite different considerations in our dietary decisions.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us