Cereals 17 Symposium: Processed and Ultraprocessed Foods Defined—An Alice in Wonderland Question? Processing foods using washing, cleaning, milling, cutting, chopping, heating, pasteurizing, blanching, cooking, canning, freezing, or drying, either on the farm, in commercial facilities, or in the home, creates safe, nutritious food products, while reducing waste and preserving natural resources. Most of the popular definitions associated with some form of food processing do not have any regulatory sanction, and the popular criticism of processed foods and use of a processed food categorization, which has its own criteria (e.g., subjectively defined by degree of processing plus other criteria), as a guide to selecting a healthful diet have become contemporary topics of debate. The definitions and ideas surrounding processed food categorizations will be discussed during an interactive session at the Cereals 17 meeting. This first of two articles provides various definitions of processed food and shows their extreme incongruence. The second article will introduce the NOVA categorization and some of the data and forces behind it. |