NOVA classification

The Hunger Code: How to Reset Your Body's Fat Thermostat by Breaking the Ultra-Processed Food Habit

by Jason Fung  · 3 Mar 2026  · 284pp  · 76,656 words

and, 223–24; “low fat” or “fat free,” 83–84; low-insulin diet, 62–63, 225–26; misguided dietary advice, 37–38, 82, 109–11; NOVA classification system, 100–102; “nutrient-dense,” 68; plant-based, 85, 227; protein powders, 85–86; satiety and, 80–81. See also absorption; carbohydrates; dietary fat; digestion

Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food

by Chris van Tulleken  · 26 Jun 2023  · 448pp  · 123,273 words

the foods associated with poor health outcomes in their data and started to try to describe them. By 2010, they had come up with the NOVA classification. Monteiro himself denies it was his idea, insisting it was a collective piece of work. And he denies that there was any kind of ‘Eureka

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from feeling like something to be concerned about, they’ve almost begun to feel like a ‘traditional’ food. Since the first publication of Monteiro’s NOVA classification system there has been significant backlash. How, critics asked, could a group of processes that don’t add calories or change the chemical composition of

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’s also not arbitrary to propose that food produced for profit might be designed, deliberately or inadvertently, to make us consume it to excess. The NOVA classification was a hypothesis, a model that sorted foods into categories for rigorous testing by Kevin Hall and many others. And it sidesteps, at least partially

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provided tantalising evidence that Monteiro’s theory may indeed explain the rise in obesity across populations. Hall’s work gave a scientific heft to the NOVA classification system, and many scientists started to see it as a legitimate way of defining the category of food associated with obesity. It seemed like it

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, he spoke faster and faster and without pauses. It was as if he had no need for oxygen. One of the main criticisms of the NOVA classification is that UPF is simply nutrient-poor food that’s high in saturated fat, sodium and added sugar, which is why it causes ill health

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. He’s a friend and long-time collaborator of Carlos Monteiro and was crucial in bringing an understanding of the role of industry to the NOVA classification. ‡‡ Rice Krispies themselves increase blood sugar more than table sugar. On a scale of impact on blood sugar, if glucose is 100, then white bread

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promotes overconsumption even if it lacks the specific harms of, say, emulsifiers. For the purposes of my diet, however, I was sticking strictly to the NOVA classification, which meant switching to the Aldi lasagne. When I went back to UCL for testing at the end of the diet, the results were spectacular

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or your child. The goal should be that you live in a world where you have real choices and the freedom to make them. The NOVA classification system is not the perfect way to consider the food that causes diet-related disease and environmental destruction because there is no perfect classification. In

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: ‘I don’t have that in my kitchen.’ To be fair to Xand, I find myself having these same debates internally all the time. The NOVA classification has forced me to consider the purpose of the food the whole time. Was this created in an environment that is indifferent to my health

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of Coco Pops: the discovery of UPF 1 Monteiro CA, Cannon G, Lawrence M, et al. Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health using the NOVA classification system. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2019. 2 Ioannidis JPA. Why most published research findings are false. pLoS Medicine 2005; 2