When critics of ultraprocessed foods use the term “degree of processing,” it makes no sense to food scientists or food manufacturers. And yet it makes perfect sense to those who encourage us to avoid, or at least limit, our consumption of these ultraprocessed products. So why the disconnect? It is easy for a food scientist like me to say well the opponents just don’t understand processing like we do, but I think the thought process goes deeper than that. It hit me how to better understand the disconnect when looking at a recipe the other day.

Take two recipes for “homemade” brownies—one from the internet and the other from the back of a brownie mix. Any recipe has two components—a list of ingredients and the directions of how to make it from those ingredients. In food manufacturing we call the recipe a formulation. The list of ingredients is found on the package for the formulated product as are the steps to complete the process at home. The manufacturing steps used to turn the ingredients into a mix are known as unit operations, or operations for short.

When food scientists or manufacturers talk about a process, we think of the operations not the ingredients. These operations are not spelled out on any food package, but the ingredients are. For the most part these operations are very similar to the steps in the recipe when performed in a home kitchen, but formulations are conducted in much larger quantities using much larger equipment, with much more precision, and much more mechanization than in a home kitchen. It’s these operations or steps that food scientists and manufacturers consider the process and not the ingredients. To the home shopper or cook, it is the ingredients—particularly the unfamiliar ones—that turn a processed product into an ultraprocessed one.

If we look more carefully at the ingredients for the ‘from scratch’ brownies and the ones from a mix, we notice some differences. First the ingredient list for the one from scratch is shorter than the one from the box. Only nine main ingredients appear in the recipe from scratch, while twelve appear in the mix. Five additional secondary ingredients in the mix are shown in parentheses on the package label for the chocolate chips. If the secondary ingredients were listed in the flour and granulated sugar, the total number of ingredients for both sets of brownies would probably be similar. The other differences are that the flour from the scratch recipe probably contains bleached, enriched wheat flour and the mix contains no wheat at all.

The advantages to the mix are convenience and that it is gluten free. Each of the ingredients in the two recipes is there for a reason—what food scientists call functionality. The additional ingredients found in the scratch version are the powdered sugar which contains “cornstarch, which helps thicken the batter without the chemical additives you’d find in a mix” and vanilla extract which “really amps up the chocolate flavor.” It is not clear what emulsifier is used in the chocolate chips for the scratch recipe. The two suspect ingredients in the mix formulation would be soy lecithin, which acts as an emulsifier in chocolate chips, and xanthan gum to bind the ingredients in the mix together, particularly the chocolate with the rice four, potato starch, corn starch, and canola oil.

Brownie mix

Ingredients: Sugar, Chocolate Chips (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural flavor), Rice Flour, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Potato Starch, Corn Starch, Canola Oil, Salt, Xanthan Gum.

Back to the degree of processing, as a food scientist, I would compare the steps of the recipe to the operations in the formulation. The recipe calls for the following steps

1. Mixing the wet and dry ingredients separately,
2. Combining the wet and dry ingredients,
3. Pouring the batter into a baking pan,
4. Baking at 325⁰F for 40-45 minutes,
5. Cooling,
6. Slicing and serving.

The primary operations to produce the formulation would be to

1. Weigh and mix the dry ingredients,
2. Weigh and package the mixed ingredients,
3. Store the package in ambient conditions prior to distribution.

Since the food preparer in the home provides the wet ingredients—eggs, vegetable oil, and water steps 2-6 listed above for the scratch recipe are similar to making the brownies from the mix. The food scientist sees no real difference in the process of making the brownies from scratch or a mix. What is the problem here? Why then is the brownie mix considered ultraprocessed?

NOVA focuses on the difference in ingredients. The exceptions include “extrusion, moulding, and pre-frying” which automatically qualify as ultraprocesses. The two ingredients of particular concern would be xanthan gum and soy lecithin.* The home cook could easily avoid xanthan gum but would need to make sure that the chocolate chips used did not contain soy lecithin. To evaluate the ‘degree of processing’ in this case would be to determine how serious using xanthan gum as a binder of ingredients makes it a “cosmetic additive” or one that preserves or protects the food as described NOVA guidelines. Since brownies are not whole foods or even remotely considered healthy, xanthan gum would be considered cosmetic. Soy lecithin would also likely be considered cosmetic. Thus, the brownie mix would probably be classified as ultraprocessed, but those brownies made from from scratch would not be considered ultraprocessed. It is not clear how great a degree of processing would be attributed to the brownie mix.

A food scientist would determine the degree of processing as the number of operations required to manufacture a specific food product, the duration of the most intense operation(s) such as baking, and the degree of impact on the quality and nutritive value of the finished product. The question is, then, how can one measure the “degree of processing” based on ingredients? The process for producing vanilla extract in the homemade brownies is very similar to the process for extracting soy lecithin found in the mix with the exception of the solvent used—ethanol for vanilla extract and hexane for soy lecithin. Both ethanol and hexane are considered safe for these applications, but ethanol is much more toxic to humans in common use than hexane.

A critical step in production of xanthan gum is fermentation of corn syrup (hydrolyzed corn starch). A critical operation in the processing of cocoa powder, a key ingredient in the chocolate chips in both the recipe of the brownies from scratch and the formulation for the mix, is fermentation of the cocoa beans. Why do the presence of soy lecithin and xanthan gum make a product ultraprocessed while cocoa powder becomes acceptable as a culinary ingredient? It is not clear to this food scientist how the degree of processing can be quantified on the basis of ingredients.

Take home lesson. The concept of degree of processing is very different for food scientists and NOVA advocates. There does not seem to be any common ground between the two perspectives.

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*One of the concerns about such additives is that they are industrial ingredients that presumably can’t be found in a normal home kitchen. I can buy xanthan gum at my local supermarket and it is in my home kitchen, but I can’t find soy lecithin there. Both ingredients are available at amazon.com.