Though many modern foods may be problematic, something like NOVA classification, a model currently used by many intellects in nutrition science, is a terrible approach to finding a solution to obesity and diabetes. Here's why:
Putting Food in a Food Processor makes it... Unprocessed?
Yes, you heard it. The model suggests that putting food literally inside a food processor makes it unprocessed. That's how it has been marketed and is making rounds in various newspaper outlets. It's almost like many people in nutrition and science have had their minds short-circuited on how this works.
Appealing to Nature for Salvation
Nature is a double-edged sword where some of the best and worst events in human history are a side effect of nature's directions. The NOVA classification, in a nutshell, states that if something is more processed, the worse it gets. So much for filtered water and various other foods and drinks that have been made safer by processing. For anyone science-minded, this is a disastrous way of thinking.
Anti-authoritarian and Contrarian Narratives
The NOVA classification is aimed to point the bulls-eye at food companies that are purported to be causing harm to society by marketing and creating obesogenic foods. However, the problem here is that even if that were the case, this is no justification for generating poor ideologically backed models with horrible premises. NOVA classification, therefore, gains traction among anti-authoritarian and contrarian camps which help no one but the purveyors of poor processed information that capitalize on this model by selling diet books, and recipes and using humans as invisible labor and cannon fodder for their selfish gains. You will almost always note that such contrarian and anti-authoritarian camps will have their line of diet camps, supplements, foods, and anything that provides
What About Additives and Chemicals!?!
Most additives and chemicals added to food are there for a purpose. Many of them are mere extracts from existing foods and added to packaged foods for enhancing palatability, shelf-life, and various other consumer-based perceptions. It's tragic that many scientists and intellects, instead of educating the masses on the chemistry and science of such chemicals and additives, would much rather demonize them to fit their model and pre-conceived ideology.
We Need Better Science and Quantification
We need a better understanding of food and a less focus on diets and a 'more processing is evil' approach. Diet camps and a crusade against processed foods are counterintuitive since human beings have always sustained on foods that were tasty and around them, notions that are captured by modern processed foods.
The solution to this pandemic is not to demonize processing or processed food but to understand and improve them. Shelf stable, tasty and convenient are a milestone for humanity and are the beginning of a world where food shortage will not be an issue. Yes, human greed and industrialization have their quirks when abused, but think about it: every single field of humanity has gained benefits from industrialization. We have cars, phones, computers, and nearly every commodity that you and your neighbor share with the help of industrialization and mass production. We need better-processed foods not a bulls-eye on them.