As a policy analyst and academic, your points about the inconsistencies and ambiguities resonate. I don’t see how NOVA can be helpful for population health. At the same time, as a layperson I do like a few simple heuristics to help me navigate menus and food stores. Some of the heuristics that make prima facie sense to me include the adage of prioritising fresh ingredients with a short shelf life that my great grandparents would have recognised as food, and preparing my own meals at home so I know what’s in them, even if these principles are incomplete and come with a few type I and II errors. Perhaps the folly is trying to over-codify it?
Well done! NOVA is a clumsy, biased, and wholly unreliable method of evaluating the health effects of processed food, and yet it has been used in nearly every study (which as you point out are nearly all observational in nature) that makes headlines and unnecessarily scares consumers. There's so much more to the conversation about processed foods than meets the eye. Thank you for this thoughtful piece.
Thank you for this thoughtful and articulate post. I fully agree with your core argument. The UPF narrative, as it stands, risks becoming a moral panic rather than a scientific framework. And as you rightly point out, NOVA is not just flawed in structure. it’s nearly unusable as a policy tool or dietary guide.
I’d like to add a few reflections from my work on food policy and nutrition frameworks that may complement your perspective:
The cultural narrative is powerful and dangerous. What makes UPFs so cognitively “sticky” is their simplicity: natural = good, industrial = bad. It’s an old story, almost mythological, that taps into distrust toward global industry. But it doesn’t help consumers make informed choices. Worse, it infantilizes them.
It fails to consider real-world trade-offs. Shelf-stable, low-cost, nutrient-dense products, often labeled as UPF, play a vital role in ensuring access to food, especially for low-income groups. Why aren’t these trade-offs part of the debate?
It distracts from what really matters. Obesity and NCDs are not caused by “types” of food alone, but by how, when, and under what conditions we eat: portion sizes, socioeconomic stress, access to fresh food, education, physical activity, and more.
It clashes with dietary diversity. Many Mediterranean-style foods, pasta al pomodoro, lasagna, and even some types of bread or preserved vegetables, would be flagged as UPF under strict NOVA criteria. That’s absurd and unhelpful.
In short, we need clarity, nuance, and evidence, not labels driven by ideology or marketing.
I studied with one of the major anti UPF activists and it genuinely baffles me that we had the same education because that education equipped me to see the major problems with the NOVA framework and poor evidence being used to scaremonger about UPFs, without context or adhering to principles of good science communication.
I’ve been studying and reading a lot about NOVA, especially since Novo Nordisk went steam on against it to “improve it” (paint me scared when a pharmaceutical company selling Ozempic-like drugs is interested in something food related).
It is quite easy: and the key is in the ULTRA-processed.
A burger with vegetables and herbs only is clearly a processed food. Not ULTRA processed as Coca Cola may be in their beverage section.
Scientifically, they made a whole mess of it. Intuitively, we all know very well which granola is processed food, and which is ultra-processed.
This is the distinction that Novo Nordisk will try to erase.
The problem is that for any research (or recommendations), one needs a system that is reproducible. A burger is ultra-processed based on most of the published definitions - presumably because mincing destroys completely the food matrix.
Novo Nordisk doesn't want to do anything - it's their foundation. But what they propose to do is not different from what has been suggested before: create a sensible definition that is workable, e.g. by using criteria based on food science (type of process, additives etc) instead of some vague assumptions. Such a definition could help to provide sensible recommendations and improve food.
Intellectually I agree, however we have it in plain sight what happens when private companies push for a system: the equally biased and useless “grading”, whereby extra virgin olive oil gets penalized but some obscure protein powder gets A rating.
Novo Nordisk (Foundation) is not without ties with Novo Nordisk (company), which for me is a larger issue by itself - how come governments are leaving the scientific discourse around food to pharmaceutical companies or multinational conglomerates such as Nestle is part of the problem.
The NOVA classification rethinking is needed, but in my ideal world it would be re-written without private sector involvement. Because there’s a bias right there: these are companies that want to produce and sell ultra-processed foods. They are not trying to sell processed or unprocessed food. And they want and need their food to be sold in quantities.
It would probably be better if the revision would be coordinated by someone else, I agree - but this has been made almost impossible by an activism that labelled everyone with links to industry, however remote, as corrupt.
When the BMJ "investigated" SACN (they simply read the declarations of interest), even membership in the American Society for Nutrition was seen as a problem. Such an approach leads to an entrenchment that doesn't help anyone.
When NOVA 2 was proposed, the response wasn't "good idea, but should be done by someone else, let's get started" - but rather "this is colonialism and needs be banned". I think this is the real problem, there is no interest in refining it.
As a policy analyst and academic, your points about the inconsistencies and ambiguities resonate. I don’t see how NOVA can be helpful for population health. At the same time, as a layperson I do like a few simple heuristics to help me navigate menus and food stores. Some of the heuristics that make prima facie sense to me include the adage of prioritising fresh ingredients with a short shelf life that my great grandparents would have recognised as food, and preparing my own meals at home so I know what’s in them, even if these principles are incomplete and come with a few type I and II errors. Perhaps the folly is trying to over-codify it?
Thanks for your comment. I think composition is currently the best heuristic we have.
Well done! NOVA is a clumsy, biased, and wholly unreliable method of evaluating the health effects of processed food, and yet it has been used in nearly every study (which as you point out are nearly all observational in nature) that makes headlines and unnecessarily scares consumers. There's so much more to the conversation about processed foods than meets the eye. Thank you for this thoughtful piece.
Great read!
Thank you for this thoughtful and articulate post. I fully agree with your core argument. The UPF narrative, as it stands, risks becoming a moral panic rather than a scientific framework. And as you rightly point out, NOVA is not just flawed in structure. it’s nearly unusable as a policy tool or dietary guide.
I’d like to add a few reflections from my work on food policy and nutrition frameworks that may complement your perspective:
The cultural narrative is powerful and dangerous. What makes UPFs so cognitively “sticky” is their simplicity: natural = good, industrial = bad. It’s an old story, almost mythological, that taps into distrust toward global industry. But it doesn’t help consumers make informed choices. Worse, it infantilizes them.
It fails to consider real-world trade-offs. Shelf-stable, low-cost, nutrient-dense products, often labeled as UPF, play a vital role in ensuring access to food, especially for low-income groups. Why aren’t these trade-offs part of the debate?
It distracts from what really matters. Obesity and NCDs are not caused by “types” of food alone, but by how, when, and under what conditions we eat: portion sizes, socioeconomic stress, access to fresh food, education, physical activity, and more.
It clashes with dietary diversity. Many Mediterranean-style foods, pasta al pomodoro, lasagna, and even some types of bread or preserved vegetables, would be flagged as UPF under strict NOVA criteria. That’s absurd and unhelpful.
In short, we need clarity, nuance, and evidence, not labels driven by ideology or marketing.
I studied with one of the major anti UPF activists and it genuinely baffles me that we had the same education because that education equipped me to see the major problems with the NOVA framework and poor evidence being used to scaremonger about UPFs, without context or adhering to principles of good science communication.
I’ve been studying and reading a lot about NOVA, especially since Novo Nordisk went steam on against it to “improve it” (paint me scared when a pharmaceutical company selling Ozempic-like drugs is interested in something food related).
It is quite easy: and the key is in the ULTRA-processed.
A burger with vegetables and herbs only is clearly a processed food. Not ULTRA processed as Coca Cola may be in their beverage section.
Scientifically, they made a whole mess of it. Intuitively, we all know very well which granola is processed food, and which is ultra-processed.
This is the distinction that Novo Nordisk will try to erase.
The problem is that for any research (or recommendations), one needs a system that is reproducible. A burger is ultra-processed based on most of the published definitions - presumably because mincing destroys completely the food matrix.
Novo Nordisk doesn't want to do anything - it's their foundation. But what they propose to do is not different from what has been suggested before: create a sensible definition that is workable, e.g. by using criteria based on food science (type of process, additives etc) instead of some vague assumptions. Such a definition could help to provide sensible recommendations and improve food.
Intellectually I agree, however we have it in plain sight what happens when private companies push for a system: the equally biased and useless “grading”, whereby extra virgin olive oil gets penalized but some obscure protein powder gets A rating.
Novo Nordisk (Foundation) is not without ties with Novo Nordisk (company), which for me is a larger issue by itself - how come governments are leaving the scientific discourse around food to pharmaceutical companies or multinational conglomerates such as Nestle is part of the problem.
The NOVA classification rethinking is needed, but in my ideal world it would be re-written without private sector involvement. Because there’s a bias right there: these are companies that want to produce and sell ultra-processed foods. They are not trying to sell processed or unprocessed food. And they want and need their food to be sold in quantities.
It would probably be better if the revision would be coordinated by someone else, I agree - but this has been made almost impossible by an activism that labelled everyone with links to industry, however remote, as corrupt.
When the BMJ "investigated" SACN (they simply read the declarations of interest), even membership in the American Society for Nutrition was seen as a problem. Such an approach leads to an entrenchment that doesn't help anyone.
When NOVA 2 was proposed, the response wasn't "good idea, but should be done by someone else, let's get started" - but rather "this is colonialism and needs be banned". I think this is the real problem, there is no interest in refining it.