Why NOVA Misses the Mark

Dire warnings to avoid processed foods no longer grace the internet. Turns out, processed foods are not so bad after all.

Instead, now we need to watch out for heavily processed foods, hyper-processed foods, or ultra-processed foods. Michael Pollan warns us to avoid any processed foods with more than five ingredients. Carlos Monteiro codified these additive-filled foods as ultra-processed in 2009 and declared them unhealthy in a classification scheme called NOVA.

I don’t argue that all processed …