Plant-Based Magic 101: High-Quality Foods Day 7

Your commitment to eat foods that build you up more than they break you down is about more than food processing.

-Plant-Based Magic 101- High Quality Foods

📷@aniawld

The NOVA system is a great way to identify ultra-processed foods we want to cut back on (#cancelultraprocessedfood). BUT, the level of processing a food has isn’t the information you need to use to choose high-quality foods. Fat and sugar content play big roles, too.

Here’s what I mean. Under NOVA, both oranges and orange juice are in the “unprocessed/minimally processed” category. But, oranges and orange juice are very different nutritionally. Even freshly-squeezed fruit juice has more “free sugars” and lower fiber content than oranges at the same calorie level. These differences can make it harder to maintain a healthy weight and can raise your heart disease risk. The nutritional differences are even bigger if your orange juice isn’t fresh-squeezed and is made “from concentrate”. Based on these differences, most doctors and nutritionists would point you towards eating an orange rather than drinking orange juice. 

Dealing with the fat content in food is even more complicated. Again, the NOVA framework places fatty fish like salmon in the same unprocessed/minimally processed category as fatty meats like beef. Yet, nutritional studies show the omega-3 unsaturated fat in wild-caught salmon is linked to much lower risk of heart disease, compared to the saturated fat in beef.

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