When companies have engineers sitting around figuring out the precise amounts of salt, sugar, and crunch required to force a person to eat 4 servings of something in one sitting… yeah, at least put a warning label on it. I don’t know that I agree with outright bans or anything, but people should be properly warned about the risks.
"Ultraprocessed" is at least a tangible definition though (even if it's a proxy) where you can empirically show that a certain product is ultraprocessed or not based on the way it is manufactured.
It also has enough overlap with addictive food to be a useful criterion.
In contrast "hyperpalatable" is more precisely describing the problem, but seems much more difficult to proof / easy for manufacturers to wiggle out of.
How would you prove that a given food item is "hyperpalatable"?
> "Ultraprocessed" is at least a tangible definition
The Nova system's classification for UPFs seems to be what the majority of people who refer to them use as a definition.
In the Nova system, there are four main groups of food:
- Group one has 'unprocessed or minimally processed' foods, e.g. grains and fresh fruits.
- Group two has 'processed culinary ingredients'. These include foods that use naturally-derived ingredients like salt and flour.
- Group three has foods that combine the first two, like salted nuts, and can also include things with some added preservatives or flavourings.
- Group four is ultraprocessed foods. These are defined as industrially-manufactured foods made with multiple ingredients (typically multiple oils, sugars, fats, and salt) and ingredients with minimal culinary use.
The issue with group four is that it's far broader than it should be. For instance, under the Nova system sparkling water is a UPF because it's carbonated, and carbonation is considered a chemical additive. It also classifies anything with, say, Stevia as a UPF even though it's a perfectly safe artificial sweetener. It's broad enough that it covers tofu, various cheeses, and various breads, to name a few.
It also ignores the actual nutritional content of the foods (which the original Nova paper touches on, I think, specifically saying it's not meant to be used for nutrient profiling).
> How would you prove that a given food item is "hyperpalatable"?
I was recently looking at a study about this [0]. The three criterion that have been found to best define hyperpalatability are as follows:
(1) Foods with over 25% of calories from fat and more than 0.3% sodium by weight
(2) Foods with over 20% of calories from fat and more than 20% of calories from simple sugars
(3) Foods with over 40% of calories from carbs (not counting dietary fibre and simple sugars) and more than 0.2% sodium by weight
