Location: Healthy Body Weight Research
Title: Reply to van elswyk et alAuthor
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Submitted to: Journal of Nutrition
Publication Type: Other Publication Acceptance Date: 1/30/2024 Publication Date: 2/5/2024 Citation: Hess, J.M. 2024. Reply to van elswyk et al. Journal of Nutrition. 154(4):1474-1475. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.01.027. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.01.027 Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Thank you for the opportunity to reply to the letter you received regarding our paper entitled Dietary Guidelines Meet NOVA: Developing a Menu for a Healthy Dietary Pattern Using Ultra-Processed Foods. We thank Van Elswyk et al. for sharing their insights on the challenges of applying NOVA and identifying areas where NOVA conflicts with regulatory guidance in the U.S. on the topic of meat and poultry. Van Elswyk et al. provide detailed examples of the challenges of categorizing meat using NOVA and state that “avoidance of misclassification of meat in observational evidence is a key step toward more precise U.S. dietary recommendations for meat.” We agree that details on meat classification are limited in nutrition publications. With NOVA, however, there are many categories of food with unclear classifications. This lack of clear categorizations limits the conclusions about ultra-processed foods that can be drawn from the evidence base. Without a detailed list of ingredients for each individual food item in either intervention studies or epidemiological studies, it is impossible to state definitively that all food products of a certain type (e.g., nut butters, milk, ground meat, “natural” cheeses) belong in a certain category. As our examples illustrate, not all ground beef is group 3, not all peanut butter is group 4, not all cheese is group 3. Clarifying the nuances of food categorization is of critical importance to advance the scientific evidence on processed foods. |
