PhaseFood › Unprocessed Eats › Pad Thai

Unprocessed Eats · last updated 4 September 2026

Pad Thai without the unnecessary extras

Unprocessed Eats ranks real supermarket products by the NOVA food-processing scale and fails anything whose label lists a numbered additive, added sugar, flavouring or emulsifier, so you can see the whole-food or minimally processed option for every ingredient in a meal.

The 9 ingredients a home cook buys for pad thai, each with the cleanest real product on the shelf.

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Rice Noodles Whole food available

All rice noodles options

Eggs Whole food available

All eggs options

Chicken Breast Whole food available

All chicken breast options

Peanuts Whole food available

All peanuts options

Spring Onion Whole food available

All spring onion options

Lime Whole food available

All lime options

Fish Sauce Cannot call it

We can't call this one. 3 of the 5 products we found fail on their labels, but 2 have no ingredients panel published online, so we won't claim there is nothing clean here.

All fish sauce options

Garlic Whole food available

All garlic options

Sprouts Whole food available

All sprouts options

How Unprocessed Eats works

What does "minimally processed" mean here?

We use the NOVA classification from the University of São Paulo. Group 1 is a whole food or one that has only been cleaned, cut, dried, frozen or pasteurised. Group 2 is a culinary ingredient pressed or extracted from a whole food, like olive oil, salt or honey. Group 3 is a few of those combined, like cheese or tinned beans in brine. Group 4 is ultra-processed. We show groups 1 to 3 and rank group 1 first.

What makes a product fail?

Any numbered additive on the label (colours, preservatives, acidity regulators, gums, modified starches, raising agents, flavour enhancers, sweeteners), plus anything named as a flavouring, emulsifier or lecithin, and added sugars. We read the retailer's published ingredients panel and print it verbatim so you can check our working.

Why is plain sugar marked as failing?

Because added sugar is one of the things the rule fails a product for, sugar as an ingredient fails too. Honey and pure maple syrup pass as group 2 culinary ingredients. This is a deliberate choice about what we recommend, not a claim that sugar is an additive.

What about seed oils like canola and sunflower?

Under NOVA a refined seed oil is a group 2 culinary ingredient, the same group as olive oil, so it does not make a food ultra-processed. We still cap any product containing canola, sunflower, soybean, rice bran, palm or unspecified vegetable oil at amber and say which oil it is, so you can decide. That cap is our position, not a research finding.

The prices didn't match my local store. Why is that?

Every price comes from a single supermarket on the date shown on the page, so there will be variation across other stores and regions, and prices move between our checks. Each product links to its page on the retailer's site for today's price, and services like grocer.nz show the price at your local store.

A product I use isn't in the list. Why is that?

If your product is a whole food or additive-free, it may be that it is not sold at general supermarkets, or not at the store we checked. If we have missed something, email us at hello@phasefood.com.

What does "nothing in this store passes" mean?

We only say it when we found the product category on the shelf, read the ingredients panel on every product in it, and every one failed. If any panel was missing or unreadable we say we cannot call it instead. Where nothing passes, PhaseFood gives you the recipe to make it yourself.

Does any brand pay to appear?

No. Products are ranked by how little has been done to the food, then by how few ingredients, then by price. No brand has paid for placement and none can.

Where nothing on the shelf passes, we give you the recipe

Your first five recipes are free with a PhaseFood account. We count recipes, not views.

Try it with your own meal