It’s not like this is a weird health nutter concept. It’s also not like these foods are necessarily as bad as some people like to act. But it is definitively objectively definable.
Already criticized as not very precise or reliable.
When tested, experts who agree on the intension of these definitions fail to settle on consistent extensions for them.
Their difficult interpretation makes for unhelpful guidelines & discussions.
One of the articles cited pointed out that difficulty & inconsistent examples the definers offered to clarify.
Because of the difficulty of interpretation of the primary definition, the NOVA group and others have set out lists of examples of foods that fall under the category of ultra-processed foods. The present manuscript demonstrates that since the inception of the NOVA classification of foods, these examples of foods to which this category applies have varied considerably. Thus, there is little consistency either in the definition of ultra-processed foods or in examples of foods within this category.
It’s not like this is a weird health nutter concept.
Not claiming that it’s fringe, only that attempts to define it with enough objective reliability & precision for anything serious have been largely inadequate.
Researchers attempt to use it.
Outside operational definitions of specific studies, it’s hard to be sure what technically fits/doesn’t fit the concept in general.
A definition that states extraction & chemical modification may seem clear at first glance.
However, if you examine regular cooking with sieves, tea filters, baking, fermenting, cheese-making, or even salting meat before cooking to retain juiciness, they technically fit.
Cooking is filled with everyday chemistry.
People disagreeing on the boundaries or details of a definition doesn’t make it not an objective definition.
It seems pretty clear to me that tea would fall into the ultra processed category, since it’s an extraction of a highly processed ingredient. Home baking, fermentation and cheese making would all be processed because they’re a transformation of unprocessed foods or processed food ingredients like flour. I’m not incredibly familiar with the classification system so I’m not sure where a piece of uncured beef, an unprocessed food, cooked with salt, a processed food ingredient, would go. I’m thinking it would be processed, like bread, but I’m not sure where seasoning falls.
Disagreement in the boundary conditions is pretty normal. Geologists disagree on exactly where different types of rock fall on the classification scales. Biologists disagree on a wide array of animal taxonomic boundaries.
You wouldn’t say that geology lacks an objective definition of what is or isn’t limestone, you’d just note that some people would disagree with the classification of some samples.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10260459/
Cheese, fermented and baked goods are typically processed, but can be ultra processed depending on the specifics of production.
The image should provide a more concise feel.
Basically:
Unprocessed, minimally processed, processed and ultra processed, respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
It’s not like this is a weird health nutter concept. It’s also not like these foods are necessarily as bad as some people like to act. But it is definitively objectively definable.
Already criticized as not very precise or reliable. When tested, experts who agree on the intension of these definitions fail to settle on consistent extensions for them. Their difficult interpretation makes for unhelpful guidelines & discussions.
One of the articles cited pointed out that difficulty & inconsistent examples the definers offered to clarify.
Not claiming that it’s fringe, only that attempts to define it with enough objective reliability & precision for anything serious have been largely inadequate. Researchers attempt to use it. Outside operational definitions of specific studies, it’s hard to be sure what technically fits/doesn’t fit the concept in general.
A definition that states extraction & chemical modification may seem clear at first glance. However, if you examine regular cooking with sieves, tea filters, baking, fermenting, cheese-making, or even salting meat before cooking to retain juiciness, they technically fit. Cooking is filled with everyday chemistry.
Okay?
People disagreeing on the boundaries or details of a definition doesn’t make it not an objective definition.
It seems pretty clear to me that tea would fall into the ultra processed category, since it’s an extraction of a highly processed ingredient. Home baking, fermentation and cheese making would all be processed because they’re a transformation of unprocessed foods or processed food ingredients like flour. I’m not incredibly familiar with the classification system so I’m not sure where a piece of uncured beef, an unprocessed food, cooked with salt, a processed food ingredient, would go. I’m thinking it would be processed, like bread, but I’m not sure where seasoning falls.
Disagreement in the boundary conditions is pretty normal. Geologists disagree on exactly where different types of rock fall on the classification scales. Biologists disagree on a wide array of animal taxonomic boundaries.
You wouldn’t say that geology lacks an objective definition of what is or isn’t limestone, you’d just note that some people would disagree with the classification of some samples.