Are You Consuming Ultra Processed Food? You need to know this before having it

Nutrition Experts have opened up a debate on ultra-processed food in a bid to redefine what is healthy. The debate will be commenced on 14 June 2022 during Nutrition 2022 Live Online. The authors Carlos A. Monteiro, MD, PhD, of the University of São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil, and Arne Astrup, MD, PhD, of Novo Nordisk Foundation in Hellerup, Denmark will be participating in this debate.

The debate centres around NOVA classified foods by their degree of industrial processing, ranging, from unprocessed to processed to ultra-processed. NOVA defines ultra-processed foods as those made using sequences of processes that extract substances from the food, and formulate the final product after altering with chemicals. This type of food is usually cheap, palatable, and convenient such as cold drinks, candy, frozen food, etc. NOVA was developed by Monterio and colleagues.

According to a report, consuming ultra-processed foods which are high in salt, sugar, and fat may increase the risk of chronic diseases. while the reason behind these associations is not fully satisfactory. Monterio argues that the above evidence is enough to justify discouraging the consumption of ultra-processed foods in dietary recommendations and government policies.

The negative effects of consuming ultra-processed foods now have been made clear by many nationally representative studies. Monterio emphasizes avoiding ultra-processed food.

On the other side, Astrup debates that the food processing method does not improve upon existing systems and could lead to unintended consequences. For example, there are both nutritional and environmental benefits increasing the accentuation of plant-based food varieties, yet many plant-based meat and dairy options are are considered ultra-processed.

He also added that unhealthy foods like fries, burgers and pizza would be considered ultra-processed if purchased from a fast food restaurant but considered minimally processed if made at home with some similar ingredients. He says, many aspects of food processing can affact health outcomes, but define them as ultra-processing is unnecessary.

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