request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition 
There's this widespread claim that "highly-processed foods are bad for you". I'm not just talking about things like "high in sugar" here, but merely the property of it being 'processed' being considered bad.
Where does this idea come from? Does it have a legitimate scientific basis? I am seeing this argument pop up suspiciously often in the context of defending particular industries (meat, dairy).
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition :boost_requested:
@joepie91 I've recently heard[2] that one of the more common ways to categorize foods is the "Nova classification"[1]. In short, this classification groups foods "based on the extent and purpose of food processing applied to them" - and crucially, not based on what they contain (i.e. amount of vitamins, fibres, etc).
1/2
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yti10rytI1A (german)
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition :boost_requested:
@joepie91 Which is also one of the main criticisms of this classification: That it tends to conflate the healthiness and the 'how much prcoessed is it' aspects of foods.
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition
@liketechnik Yeah. Going from the history described on Wikipedia, it sounds like the whole thing is built on "treating correlation as causation"? It's not clear to me how this classification ever became a scientifically acceptable basis to build research on.
