Problem
In a perfectly balanced world, supermarkets would carry just a few UPF products. The problem is that we are not living in a balanced world. A very high percentage of all foods in the supermarkets is categorized as NOVA 4: UPF. I believe over 80% in the UK stores is considered UPF(!) That means that 80% of all food (millions of products) is bucketed into a single category, which is very not ideal.
Obviously it would be best if supermarkets would change. They won't anytime soon. But the information an app presents can change!
For me as a customer this makes it difficult to make a decision on which UPF is less worse than others, since all UPFs are bucketed in a single classification. Aside from the differences in amount of UPF ingredients, there is also no distinction between the types of UPF ingredient. There is no distinction at all between a veggie burger that has a single UPF ingredient added (e.g., vitamin B12) , and a product that has been glued together using 30 different UPF ingredients. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure there is a difference between the two.
As a customer the app isn't really helpful if most foods are labeled UPF. I find myself now manually looking into the different ingredients and make my decision based on that. This is cumbersome and I often don't know anything about those chemical names that are listed, making my decision even harder. So it would be very helpful if the app quickly provides me with that info.
I afraid if people constantly see UPF for mosts foods, with no further distinction AND not a lot of alternatives, the app will lose its usefulness.
Proposed solution
This might perhaps be more of an acadamic question, but it would be very helpful to subdivide category 4 from not good to very bad, or present it as some scale (see image below). At least until the producers drastically reduce the number of UPF ingredients (which will probably take a long time).
Problem
In a perfectly balanced world, supermarkets would carry just a few UPF products. The problem is that we are not living in a balanced world. A very high percentage of all foods in the supermarkets is categorized as NOVA 4: UPF. I believe over 80% in the UK stores is considered UPF(!) That means that 80% of all food (millions of products) is bucketed into a single category, which is very not ideal.
Obviously it would be best if supermarkets would change. They won't anytime soon. But the information an app presents can change!
For me as a customer this makes it difficult to make a decision on which UPF is less worse than others, since all UPFs are bucketed in a single classification. Aside from the differences in amount of UPF ingredients, there is also no distinction between the types of UPF ingredient. There is no distinction at all between a veggie burger that has a single UPF ingredient added (e.g., vitamin B12) , and a product that has been glued together using 30 different UPF ingredients. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure there is a difference between the two.
As a customer the app isn't really helpful if most foods are labeled UPF. I find myself now manually looking into the different ingredients and make my decision based on that. This is cumbersome and I often don't know anything about those chemical names that are listed, making my decision even harder. So it would be very helpful if the app quickly provides me with that info.
I afraid if people constantly see UPF for mosts foods, with no further distinction AND not a lot of alternatives, the app will lose its usefulness.
Proposed solution
This might perhaps be more of an acadamic question, but it would be very helpful to subdivide category 4 from not good to very bad, or present it as some scale (see image below). At least until the producers drastically reduce the number of UPF ingredients (which will probably take a long time).