Across 2 decoded pieces of advice. This scores the state of the evidence behind what they say — not them, and not their honesty. Good creators cover contested ground; that shows up here as mixed.
Stripped of the plug for the ZOE app, the claim checks out: the NOVA system lumps very different products under "ultra-processed" — sugary sodas on one end, fortified cereals or plant milks on the other — with very different health effects. A 2025 critical review in Proceedings of the Nutrition Society confirms this heterogeneity: sugar-sweetened beverages are consistently tied to worse outcomes, while some ultra-processed products (fortified cereals, certain dairy) show neutral or even protective effects. An inter-rater reliability test published in Nature (2022) found low agreement among nutrition experts classifying the same foods with NOVA. Spector's point — swap the binary label for mechanistic criteria (energy density, palatability, additive load) — is well grounded, even though his in-house "Processed Food Risk Scale" has no independently published validation yet.
Extra virgin olive oil earns its place as the default cooking fat: trials and cohorts comparing it with other fats show a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, driven by its polyphenols.
The full read
The PREDIMED trial (2018 NEJM republication) found roughly a 30% relative reduction in major cardiovascular events with a Mediterranean diet plus EVOO versus control. A 2022 meta-analysis of cohorts/trials (PMID 36343558) found a 16% lower cardiovascular risk and 22% lower type 2 diabetes risk per 25g/day of olive oil — but no significant association with cancer either way. The post also cites lower cancer risk, which is the weakest-supported of the three benefits claimed: a slight overreach on one point in an otherwise well-sourced post.
