The term "ultra-processed food" has entered mainstream conversation in recent years, carried by a growing body of research linking it to a range of health outcomes. But the term is used loosely, and the concept behind it is often misunderstood.
Understanding what ultra-processed food actually means — and why the distinction matters — requires looking past the marketing language and into the science.
The NOVA Classification System
The most widely used framework for thinking about food processing is the NOVA classification system, developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo. NOVA divides foods into four groups based on the degree and purpose of processing:
Group 1: Unprocessed or minimally processed foods — fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, nuts, seeds, plain grains. These are whole foods in their natural or near-natural state.
Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients — salt, butter, oils, sugar, flour. These are substances derived from Group 1 foods through pressing, refining, grinding, or milling. They are used to prepare and cook Group 1 foods.
Group 3: Processed foods — products made by adding Group 2 ingredients to Group 1 foods. Canned vegetables in brine, cheese, cured meats, freshly baked bread. These are recognizable as food.
Group 4: Ultra-processed foods — industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods, combined with additives not typically used in home cooking. These are products, not foods. Their goal is to be convenient, hyper-palatable, and shelf-stable.
The vast majority of energy bars fall into Group 4.
What Makes a Food Ultra-Processed
Ultra-processed foods are characterized by their ingredient lists. They contain protein isolates (whey, pea, soy), refined starches (tapioca, corn, modified rice), refined sweeteners (sugar, brown rice syrup, corn syrup, sugar alcohols), refined oils (canola, sunflower, soybean), and a range of additives — emulsifiers, stabilizers, flavor compounds, colorants, and preservatives — that exist to improve texture, extend shelf life, or make the product taste better than its base ingredients would suggest.
A useful test: could you make this product in a home kitchen from ingredients available in a grocery store? If the answer is no — if the product requires industrial emulsification, high-temperature extrusion, or flavor compounds from a laboratory — it is ultra-processed.
What the Research Shows
The research on ultra-processed food has been striking in its consistency.
A 2019 randomized controlled trial published in Cell Metabolism found that participants who consumed an ultra-processed diet ate significantly more calories and gained more weight than participants on a minimally processed diet, even when the macronutrient composition was matched.
A 2023 analysis in the British Medical Journal associated ultra-processed food consumption with 32 adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and all-cause mortality.
A 2024 review found that ultra-processed foods account for more than 57% of caloric intake in the United States — a number that has been rising for decades.
Why "Healthy" Ultra-Processed Foods Are Still Ultra-Processed
High-protein. Low-carb. Organic. Gluten-free. No artificial flavors. These claims can all be technically accurate for products that are still fundamentally ultra-processed — assembled from isolates, refined ingredients, and additives in industrial facilities, in ways that bear no resemblance to the preparation of actual food.
The NOVA framework is useful precisely because it cuts through this language. The question is not whether a product contains protein, or whether its sweeteners are organic. The question is whether the product is assembled from whole food ingredients or from industrially derived substances.
Most energy bars are the latter.
The Whole Food Alternative
The research on ultra-processed food does not suggest that all processing is harmful. Cooking is processing. Drying fruit is processing. Roasting nuts is processing.
The distinction that matters is between minimal processing — which preserves the integrity of whole food ingredients — and industrial processing, which transforms them into something else.
A bar made from Medjool dates, dried cherries, almonds, seeds, and sea salt has been processed: the ingredients were combined, shaped, and packaged. But every ingredient is still recognizably food. The fiber is intact. The polyphenols are present. The fat is in its whole food form.
That is the difference between a whole food bar and an ultra-processed one — and according to a growing body of research, it is a difference that matters.
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