Just reading a book ‘Ultra-Processed People’ by Chris van Tulleken. I find it to be insightful with lots of references to studies and research papers. Of interest to me are the four groups of food in the NOVA scale by Carlos Augusto Monteiro. (A basic description at Classification of food products according to NOVA (futurelearn.com)). Avoiding group 4 ‘Ultra Processed Foods’ (UPF) has to be the way to go but every sports nutrition, from pre to post, contains UPF. Does anyone worry about what UPF is doing to us and society in general?
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Yes and since I am not a pro and don’t need to squeeze out every last bit of performance I avoid them
No, I am not concerned: consuming sports nutrition only during workouts with sole purpose to get quickly carbs. Not expecting it to contain micronutrients or other useful stuff that I want from usual daily diet, which does not contain any ultra-processed food.
Should I be concerned for society? I don’t know. I used to be smoker and frequent social drinker. Nowadays I don’t smoke and drink maybe 3-4 beers over couple months. Change came because I lost interest, not because somebody somewhere was worried.
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In Europe we have the Nutri-Score, which I prefer over NOVA.
It favors process food with low salt, low saturated fat, low simple sugars, low energy density, high protein and high fiber.
It’s actually being updated to get higher thresholds because manufacturers have made improvements, and there is now a need to differentiate between ‘A’ products.
That means that processed food quality is getting better.
And regarding PUFA 4 versus whole/less processed, I believe having a NOVA 4 plant based milk is a healthier choice than a PUFA 1 or 2 full fat dairy.