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I’ve posted about this before and gotten downvoted, but, yeah, the Nova definitions are problematic. I think the issue is the data clearly shows something or somethings are causing problems, but nobody really knows what the troublesome ingredients are, or if any individual ingredients are problematic at all: * Is it the emulsifiers? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven * Is it the high calorie density/ease of chewing? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. * Is it <insert pet theory here>? That, too, probably sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. * Is it just the A/B testing? After a few rounds of optimizing for “do people eat more of substance a or substance b”, does it even matter what the ingredients are? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. Meanwhile, to pick on one single example, you have jams in the Nova database that are “ultra processed” because they contain ”added” pectin. The last time I brought this up, someone responded that they made homemade jam without adding any pectin at all, just by cooking the fruit for longer. So, clearly, Big Jam is making Frankenfood Jam by adding artificial pectin to thicken their product. You’ll never guess how you extract pectin from fruit: apply heat. |