*5.1. The Matrix Effect Is Not Considered*

First, the whole food potential is not only reflected by its nutrient composition. Whole foods are first complex matrices, which govern the health effects of nutrients [22]. Besides, food form matters for human health, be it solid, semi-solid, or liquid. It should be emphasized that interactions between nutrients within the food matrix participate in a food's health potential, including notable food chewing and satiety [62], nutrient kinetics of release, and final bioavailability. For example, the calcium of dairy products is only 20–40% bioavailable; therefore, 120 mg of calcium in a yogurt corresponds to around 36 mg being bioavailable, with the remaining fraction reaching the colon [63]. The same is true for the lipid content of a whole almond, which is not fully available [64]. Otherwise, within an extruded-cooked breakfast cereal, wheat flour, and/or maize semolina behave close to simple sugars in human organism with a glycaemic index above 80 [65], and so on for most of nutrients, depending on the food form and on the impact of processing on the food matrix. Such fundamental physiological properties go beyond the simple nutritional composition, which leads to the hypothesis that chronic diseases have more to do with highly degraded and artificialized food matrices than with the food composition itself [22].
