About this Resource
The NOVA food classification system categorises different foods and drinks depending on the extent and purpose of the processing that they undergo. It was originally proposed by a Brazilian research team in 2010 after studying national trends in household food acquisition and their health implications over a span of 25 years. They concluded that diets with a high proportion of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are inherently nutritionally unbalanced and potentially harmful to health. This realisation prompted the development of the NOVA system, which has continued to evolve since its inception.
Grounded in the Research
“There is increasing evidence that foods are not the simple sum of their nutrients. When characterizing foods, it is essential to consider factors such as processing and formulation, which have grown more and more complex over the years. … At present, several systems are used to classify foods according to processing-related criteria each employing different criteria and metrics. NOVA is, by far, the most common of such systems.”
Excerpt from: Braesco, V., Souchon, I., Sauvant, P., Haurogné, T., Maillot, M., Féart, C., & Darmon, N. (2022). Ultra-processed foods: how functional is the NOVA system?. European journal of clinical nutrition, 76(9), 1245-1253.
References
[1] Monteiro, C. A., Cannon, G., Moubarac, J. C., Levy, R. B., Louzada, M. L. C., & Jaime, P. C. (2018). The UN Decade of Nutrition, the NOVA food classification and the trouble with ultra-processing. Public Health Nutrition, 21(1), 5-17. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980017000234
[2] Steele, E. M., O’Connor, L. E., Juul, F., Khandpur, N., Baraldi, L. G., Monteiro, C. A., … & Herrick, K. A. (2023). Identifying and estimating ultraprocessed food intake in the US NHANES according to the Nova classification system of food processing. The Journal of Nutrition, 153(1), 225-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2022.09.001
[3] Huybrechts, I., Rauber, F., Nicolas, G., Casagrande, C., Kliemann, N., Wedekind, R., … & Levy, R. B. (2022). Characterization of the degree of food processing in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition: application of the Nova classification and validation using selected biomarkers of food processing. Frontiers in Nutrition, 9, 1035580. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.1035580
[4] Monteiro, C. A., Levy, R. B., Claro, R. M., Castro, I. R. R. D., & Cannon, G. (2010). A new classification of foods based on the extent and purpose of their processing. Cadernos de Saude Publica, 26, 2039-2049. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2010001100005
[5] Elizabeth, L., Machado, P., Zinöcker, M., Baker, P., & Lawrence, M. (2020). Ultra-processed foods and health outcomes: a narrative review. Nutrients, 12(7), 1955. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12071955
[6] Gibney, M. J. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: definitions and policy issues. Current Developments in Nutrition, 3(2), nzy077. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzy077
[7] Bleiweiss-Sande, R., Chui, K., Evans, E. W., Goldberg, J., Amin, S., & Sacheck, J. (2019). Robustness of food processing classification systems. Nutrients, 11(6), 1344. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11061344
[8] Braesco, V., Souchon, I., Sauvant, P., Haurogné, T., Maillot, M., Féart, C., & Darmon, N. (2022). Ultra-processed foods: how functional is the NOVA system?. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 76(9), 1245-1253. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-022-01099-1