Nutrient profile of packaged foods according to the degree of processing

Abstract

An increased consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) leads to a rising prevalence of chronic noncommunicable diseases. This study aims to characterise the nutrient profile of white-label pre-packaged foods and bakery products available in a market leader Portuguese food retail chain, according to the extent of processing proposed by NOVA classification system. The nutrient profile (energy, sugar, total fat, saturated fat and sodium) according to processing degree was analysed using non-parametric tests. UPF were the most energy dense (278 kcal/100 g, p < .001) and the highest in sugar (15.9 g/100 g, p < .001). Processed foods were the highest in sodium (538 mg/100 g, p < .001). Processed and UPF showed significantly higher total (12.4 and 10.8 g/100 g, respectively) and saturated fat content (6.10 and 4.61 g/100 g, respectively) than unprocessed/minimally processed foods (p < .001). Regarding the variation of the nutritional value across the extent of processing, different results were observed for some categories suggesting the importance of a stratified analysis. The consumption of less processed foods and the manufacture of processed/UPF with better nutrient profile should be promoted.

Keywords:

• Food processing
• nutritional value
• noncommunicable diseases
• food industry

Ethics statement

The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.

Author contributions

CV and CA designed and conducted the research, analysed and interpreted data and wrote original draft; PP supervised the research and critically revised the manuscript; JA critically revised the manuscript. All authors read, revised and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

A national food retail company provided the data used for this study but the authors state that they have no financial or other conflicts of interest. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position or policy of the food retail company.

Data availability statement

Databases used in the manuscript will not be made available due to privacy policy of the food retail company that supported this study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed through national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology—FCT (Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education), under the projects with references UIDB/04750/2020 and LA/P/0064/2020 and DOI identifiers https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/04750/2020 and https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0064/2020. Individual PhD grant attributed to Carla Almeida (2020.08208.BD) was funded by FCT and the "Programa Operacional Regional Norte" (NORTE 2020/FSE).