Is pasta ultra-processed?
Dried pasta made of flour and water is whole food, NOVA group 1, the same group as plain oats and rice. Frozen pasta meals and instant noodles with a flavor packet are ultra-processed. What you put on the pasta decides more than the pasta does.
Pasta gets blamed twice. Low-carb diets put it on the bad list, and “processed” sounds like it should cover anything dried in a factory and sold in a box. Neither has anything to do with NOVA, which only asks what went into it. Flour and water, pressed and dried, is about as simple as packaged food gets.
We’d keep dried pasta in the cupboard without a second thought, and put the attention on the jar of sauce and the box it might come in. Pasta with a sauce of tomatoes, oil and salt and some beef you brown yourself is a dinner with nothing on it a kitchen wouldn’t keep.
Pasta is like flour that’s been given a shape. Drying and pressing don’t add anything, and that’s why NOVA keeps it with the grains it’s made from.
What NOVA’s authors say
Their 2016 paper lists “pasta, couscous and polenta made with flours, flakes or grits and water” in group 1, beside the grains and flours themselves. Group 4 has “pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes” and “powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts”.
| Pasta | Group | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dried spaghetti, penne, macaroni | 1 | Flour and water |
| Whole wheat pasta | 1 | Whole wheat flour and water |
| Fresh egg pasta of flour and eggs | 1 | Two group 1 foods together |
| Jarred tomato sauce of tomatoes, oil and salt | 3 | Food plus kitchen ingredients |
| Frozen spaghetti meals and other ready pasta dishes | 4 | On NOVA’s group 4 list |
| Instant ramen | 4 | On NOVA’s group 4 list |
Nothing here yet. Pick a food below.
The pasta itself
| 1 cup cooked | Calories | Protein | Fiber |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pasta | 197 | 7 g | 2.4 g |
| Whole wheat pasta | 174 | 7 g | 6.3 g |
Both from the site’s food table (USDA). Same group, but whole wheat pasta has more than twice the fiber.
The frozen spaghetti meal in the checker above is 255 calories and 14 g of protein. The same dinner made at home, a cup of pasta, half a cup of jarred sauce and 3 ounces of browned ground beef, is 499 calories and 30 g of protein, with nothing ultra-processed in it. It’s a bigger plate, so make it to your appetite.
What we’d do
- Keep dried pasta. It’s group 1.
- Check the sauce jar for added sugar names and thickeners, and the box for a cheese sauce packet.
- Play round 10 of spot the ultra-processed, dried spaghetti against instant ramen.
3 sources
- Monteiro et al., NOVA. The star shines bright, World Nutrition, 2016worldnutritionjournal.org
- Monteiro et al., Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them, Public Health Nutrition, 2019pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Gebhardt and Thomas, Nutritive Value of Foods, USDA Home and Garden Bulletin 72, 2002ars.usda.gov
