A different way of classifying food could turn into a problem for makers of lucrative snacks and ready meals
There is polyglycerol polyricinoleate in Hershey bars and tripotassium phosphate in Cheerios breakfast cereal. Growing scrutiny of the peculiar ingredients in popular snack foods might be bad news for their makers.
“Ultra-processed foods” are informally considered those that contain ingredients that aren’t normally found in a domestic kitchen—protein isolates or emulsifiers, for example. The term comes from a way of classifying foods, called Nova, that emerged in Brazil over a decade ago.
It is also a new way to think about diet. Rather than focusing on salt, sugar or other nutritional baddies, Nova groups foods based on how intensively processed they are. Some scientists think that industrial processing of food itself might be harmful and encourage overeating.