Any food that has been processed—that is, changed from its original state by heating, drying, salting, smoking, or adding additional ingredients or preservatives—is referred to as processed food. Usually, the goals of these modifications are to enhance convenience, flavor, texture, or shelf life. snacks that have been processed can vary in degree, from mildly processed goods like roasted almonds or packaged salads to highly processed goods like sugary drinks, frozen dinners, and snack snacks.
The NOVA food categorization is a system of food categorizing used by the United Nations. It divides food into four categories:
First group: foods that have been minimally or not processed. Foods with minor modifications, such as chopped vegetables, roasted nuts, fresh blueberries, and others, fall into this category. This is how these foods are cooked to make them more easily accessible.
Items that have been dried, frozen, chilled, filtered, fermented, or sealed in a vacuum bag may also fall into this category. This is to keep the natural foods safe for consumption at a later time.
Group 2: Ingredients for prepared foods. Options like butter, oils, sugar, or salts are included in this group. These are natural components that have undergone minor modifications. They might have undergone drying, milling, refining, or pressing. To make using them in your kitchen easier, they’ve gone through this process. It is not recommended to eat these options by alone. Their intended use is as an ingredient in meals that are being prepared.
Group 3: foods processed. These consist of fish that has been canned, fruits in syrup, cheese, fresh bread, veggies in a bottle, and other foods that have been enhanced with sugar, oil, salt, or ingredients from groups one or two.
These foods typically have two or three components. They can be added to other dishes or eaten on their own.This group’s food was prepared to improve its quality or make it more stable.
Group 4: Highly processed food and beverage items. Foods in this category are usually the product of lengthy manufacturing processes. They have little in common with foods in category one because they are made of foods and additives. These foods contain carbohydrates, oils, fats, and salt, much like other selections. However, they also contain substances that are derived from other foods, such as high-fructose corn syrup, protein isolate, maltodextrin, whey, casein, lactose, and gluten.