ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2022
Nutritional Quality, Environmental Impact and Cost of Ultra-Processed Foods: A UK Food-Based Analysis.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Do sustainable diets take food processing into account? A scoping review.Public health nutrition · 2026Article
- Food Label Readability and Consumption Frequency: Isolating Content-Specific Effects via a Non-Equivalent Dependent Variable Design.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Food Insecurity, Diet, and Clinical Outcomes in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease: The Role of Unprocessed Foods.Gastro hep advances · 2026Article
- How young adults in the United States understand and conceptualise ultra-processed foods.Journal of nutritional science · 2026Article
- The UK Food Environment: A Systematic Review of Domains, Methodologies, and Outcomes.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Review
- Association between the nutritional quality of Canadian packaged foods and their prices: an analysis across five food categories.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
- Should Grain-Based Staple Foods Be Included in Admonitions to "Avoid Processed and Ultra-Processed Food"?Nutrients · 2025Review
- Ultra-Processed Foods in the Food Supply: Prevalence, Nutritional Composition and Use of Voluntary Labelling Schemes.Nutrients · 2025Article
- The measurement of dietary species richness reveals that a higher consumption of dietary fibre, fish, fruits and vegetables, is associated with greater food biodiversity in UK diets.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
- Fifteen Years of NOVA Food-Processing Classification: "Friend or Foe" Among Sustainable Diet Indicators? A Scoping Review.Nutrition reviews · 2025Article
- Nutritional quality and climate impact of Norwegian adults' diet classified according to the NOVA system.Nutrition journal · 2024Article
- Nutrients or processing? An analysis of food and drink items from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey based on nutrient content, the NOVA classification and front of package traffic light labelling.The British journal of nutrition · 2024Article
- Ultra-processed food consumption and quality of life: a cross-sectional study in Iranian women.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Environmental sustainability of food production and consumption in the Nordic and Baltic region - a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023.Food & nutrition research · 2024Article
- Consumption of foods with the highest nutritional quality, and the lowest greenhouse gas emissions and price, differs between socio-economic groups in the UK population.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- Nutritional Assessment of Plant-Based Meat Products Available on Hong Kong Market: A Cross-Sectional Survey.Nutrients · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Food-based analyses of the healthiness, environmental sustainability and affordability of processed and ultra-processed foods are lacking. This paper aimed to determine how ultra-processed and processed foods compare to fresh and minimally processed foods in relation to nutritional quality, greenhouse gas emissions and cost on the food and food group level. Data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey nutrient databank year 11 (2018/2019) were used for this analysis. Median and bootstrapped medians of nutritional quality (NRF8.3 index), greenhouse gas emissions (gCO2-equivalents) and cost (in GBP) were compared across processing categories. An optimal score based on the medians was created to identify the most nutritional, sustainable, and affordable options across processing categories. On a per 100 kcal basis, ultra-processed and processed foods had a lower nutritional quality, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and were cheaper than minimally processed foods, regardless of their total fat, salt and/or sugar content. The most nutritious, environmentally friendly, and affordable foods were generally lower in total fat, salt, and sugar, irrespective of processing level. The high variability in greenhouse gas emissions and cost across food groups and processing levels offer opportunities for food swaps representing the healthiest, greenest, and most affordable options.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.