A new classification of foods based on the extent and purpose of their processing.

By C. Monteiro, Renata Bertazzi Levy, R. Claro, I. Castro, G. Cannon. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 2010

812 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper describes a new food classification which assigns foodstuffs according to the extent and purpose of the industrial processing applied to them. Three main groups are defined: unprocessed or minimally processed foods (group 1), processed culinary and food industry ingredients (group 2), and ultra-processed food products (group 3). The use of this classification is illustrated by applying it to data collected in the Brazilian Household Budget Survey which was conducted in 2002/2003 through a probabilistic sample of 48,470 Brazilian households. The average daily food availability was 1,792 kcal/person being 42.5% from group 1 (mostly rice and beans and meat and milk), 37.5% from group 2 (mostly vegetable oils, sugar, and flours), and 20% from group 3 (mostly breads, biscuits, sweets, soft drinks, and sausages). The share of group 3 foods increased with income, and represented almost one third of all calories in higher income households. The impact of the replacement of group 1 foods and group 2 ingredients by group 3 products on the overall quality of the diet, eating patterns and health is discussed.

Subfields: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Citations in the corpus

Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses (2024, neutral): “80 Although various food classification systems have been developed to classify foods on the basis of processing related criteria, 81-85 the most commonly used classification system worldwide is the Nova food classification system.”
Ultra-Processed Foods and Health Outcomes: A Narrative Review (2020, methodology): “2010] [25] 98-item FFQ, 12-month recall Breast cancer (BC) Diagnosed BC Regular consumption UPF (≥5 day/week) identified as risk factors for BC (OR = 2.”
Which Foods May Be Addictive? The Roles of Processing, Fat Content, and Glycemic Load (2015, background): “, sugar, white flour) and/or fat in the food [18].”
The Rise of a Middle Class in East and Southern Africa: Implications for Food System Transformation (2014, background): “6 Our classification scheme maps very closely to that of Monteiro et al. (2010), despite the fact that theirs was developed to highlight the nutritional implications of diet change while our focus was on implications for the structure of the food system. Annex B also contains a mapping of items from”
Ultra-processed foods and added sugars in the US diet: evidence from a nationally representative cross-sectional study (2016, methodology): “38 Being based on household purchasing data, these two prior studies and others based on the NOVA classi ﬁ cation system 23 39 – 42 could not evaluate the fraction of wasted food nor purchases at restaurants, which represent a substantial proportion of US calories.”
The Western Diet–Microbiome-Host Interaction and Its Role in Metabolic Disease (2018, positive): “Classification of foods according to processing has among others been reviewed by Monteiro and co-workers (The NOVA classification) [1].”