11d • Stroke Prevention Tips
Stroke-Proof Weekly Challenge - Week 6
This Week’s Focus: What’s Really in Our Food? (NOVA Classification)
First of all, please continue the healthy habits you are already building.
🌿Keep staying physically active, choosing balanced meals, monitoring your blood pressure, and practising breathing or relaxation exercises.
This week, rather than introducing a new challenge, we are focusing on awareness specifically, understanding food processing.
Many of the major stroke risk factors we discuss such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, diabetes, and excess weight are influenced not only by what we eat, but also by how processed our food is.
To help guide this understanding, researchers use the NOVA food classification, developed at the University of São Paulo.
NOVA groups foods into four categories according to the degree of processing:
1️⃣ Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Foods
Natural foods altered only slightly (washing, cutting, freezing, pasteurising).
Examples: vegetables, fruit, eggs, fish, milk, whole grains, legumes.
2️⃣ Processed Culinary Ingredients
Substances extracted from foods and used in cooking.
Examples: olive oil, butter, sugar, salt, honey starches
3️⃣ Processed Foods
Ready - made mixtures of groups 1 and 2 processed mainly for preservation.
Examples: canned vegetables, canned fish, cheese, freshly made bread.
4️⃣ Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)
Industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances extracted from foods, combined with additives designed to improve flavour, texture, appearance, and shelf life.
These often include:
- Emulsifiers – maintain texture and prevent separation
- Flavour enhancers – intensify taste and increase palatability
- Artificial sweeteners – provide sweetness without sugar
- Colourings – standardise or enhance visual appeal
- Preservatives – extend shelf life and reduce spoilage
- Modified starches – improve thickness and stability
- Protein isolates – increase protein content and modify texture
These ingredients are typically added not for nutritional value, but to optimise taste, texture, convenience, and commercial durability.
Common examples include:
- Packaged snacks
- Sugary breakfast cereals
- Processed meats
- Ready meals
- Fizzy drinks
- Many “low-fat” or “high-protein” marketed products
Why This Matters:
Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods has been associated with increased risk of:
- Death - so called all cause mortality
- Cardiovascular disease (strokes and heart attacks)
- Obesity
- Type 2 diabetes
- Hypertension
- Fatty liver disease
- Cancers - all cancers overall
- Cognitive decline and depression
It is important to emphasise that not all food processing is harmful. However, when ultra-processed foods dominate the diet, they often displace whole, protective foods that support our health.
🛒 This Week’s Shopping Mindset: Become a Food Detective
As you walk through the supermarket this week, choose one product you regularly buy and ask yourself:
- How long is the ingredient list - a short note or a novel?
- Does this resemble real food, or a manufactured formulation?
- Do these ingredients sound like something I would cook with at home?
- Is the main ingredient a recognisable food - or is it built around powders, extracts, and additives?
- Are sugars listed under multiple names (e.g., glucose syrup, maltodextrin, fructose)?
- If I consumed this regularly, would it support or undermine my blood pressure, cholesterol, and energy levels?
- Could I choose a version with fewer ingredients and less processing?
💬 What Did You Discover?
Post your observations with the group:
- Did anything on the label surprise you?
- Did a product marketed as “healthy” turn out to be more processed than expected?
- Did you find a simpler or better alternative?
- Or did you confirm that something you enjoy is already a good choice?
Every time you read a label with greater awareness, you strengthen a habit that supports your heart, brain, and long-term health.
If anyone is interested in exploring the topic further, I found “Ultra‑Processed People” by Chris van Tulleken a helpful and thought‑provoking read.
It goes into much more detail about how food processing affects health, behaviour, and metabolism.
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Stroke-Proof Weekly Challenge - Week 6
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