If your grandmother wouldn’t recognise it · 4 min
Ultra-processed, in plain English
NOVA 4 is food built for the warehouse: flavours, colours, emulsifiers, a list you could not shop. One biscuit is not poison. A diet of them crowds out real food.
Shop the Snacks aisleFour kinds of making
NOVA 1 is an apple, oats, a piece of fish. NOVA 2 is oil, sugar, salt. NOVA 3 is bread, cheese, tinned tomatoes. NOVA 4 is the rest: puffed, dyed, flavoured, built to last. Healthie uses that group as 20% of the food score, and a ceiling when the list is a factory.
Why it matters
These foods are easy to overeat. Soft, sweet or salty, they don’t fill you the way a cooked meal does. The research is about the pattern, not one Tuesday biscuit.
The 10-second test
Read the list. If you could shop those ingredients and make it at home, it’s probably fine. If you would need a plant in New Jersey, it’s a sometimes food. Open the snacks aisle and sort by score — the keepers are almost always the short lists.
The extras we mean
On our shelves
Real packs. Tap one — the score is the same as the rest of the shop.
