As I push my cart into my favourite grocery store, I cease and take a look at the patrons — my neighbors — round me. Do they notice that just about 70% of the food accessible to buy for his or her households is ultraprocessed? And in the event that they did, would they know the way to keep away from these meals?
I’ve been attempting to reply that query for greater than two years now, as half of my beat for the NCS Wellness workforce. Not solely does my workforce report on the newest way of life information, we additionally present expert-vetted steerage on how to enhance your well being — we like to say it’s “news you can use.”
Yet after studying numerous research, speaking to dozens of specialists and exploring all types of stylish apps, I nonetheless can’t show you how to reliably keep away from ultraprocessed meals, also called UPFs.
Come with me to the snack aisle, and I’ll clarify why.
As I cross by all of the colorfully packaged candies, cookies and chips, my abdomen begins to rumble with anticipation. Typically made of refined grains and overflowing with sugar, salt and fats, these merchandise — which we used to name “junk foods” — are calorie-laden, nutritionally unhealthy for us, and deliciously addictive.
The enchantment of junk meals hasn’t modified — the truth is, specialists say it’s solely gotten worse because the meals trade refined its algorithms to goal our “bliss point” — creating absolutely the yummiest combinations of sugar, salt and fats to make it almost unattainable to “eat just one.”
Today, many of those self same junk meals — in addition to the bulk of different ultraprocessed meals equivalent to ready-to-eat meals, processed meats, prompt and boxed mixes, breakfast cereals, and extra — comprise newly created artificial favors, textures, dyes and preservatives.
In reality, in the present day’s preservatives can hold meals wanting contemporary and tasty for days and weeks, even years — for much longer shelf lives than in your nice granny’s day.
There’s little doubt that the protection and comfort of such long-lasting, reasonably priced meals has been life-changing. Today, we will make meals from our cupboards with out stopping by the store for contemporary elements or stirring sauce for hours over the range. We have extra of our treasured time to spend on different pursuits.
Yet it’s these preservatives and different components, nonetheless, that may make a meals ultraprocessed, in accordance to the meals classification system NOVA, essentially the most extensively used definition of UPFs to date.
NOVA was created in 2009 by Brazilian nutritionist Carlos Augusto Monteiro, who coined the time period “ultraprocessed.” Monteiro is an emeritus professor of diet and public well being within the School of Public Health at Brazil’s University of São Paulo.
NOVA splits meals into 4 classes. First are minimally processed meals — complete meals which we could barely “process” by chopping (slicing up an orange or apple) and cooking (sautéing greens). The second group consists of processed culinary objects used to put together, season and prepare dinner complete meals — suppose spices, herbs and oils. Group three consists of processed meals that mix teams one and two — canned or bottled veggies and fruits, salted nuts, and unpackaged, freshly baked breads are examples.
Group 4 are ultraprocessed meals — which now make up to 53% of an American grownup’s weight-reduction plan and 62% of meals eaten by an American youngster, in accordance to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Monteiro, the merchandise in group 4 comprise little to no complete meals. Instead, they’re manufactured from “chemically manipulated cheap ingredients” and usually use artificial components to make them “edible, palatable and habit-forming.”
Additives usually utilized in ultraprocessed meals embody preservatives to resist mould and micro organism; emulsifiers to hold incompatible elements from separating; artificial colorings; perfume and taste enhancers; and anti-foaming, bulking, bleaching, gelling and glazing brokers.
“No reason exists to believe that humans can fully adapt to these products,” Monteiro cowrote in a 2024 editorial in the journal The BMJ. “The body may react to them as useless or harmful, so its systems may become impaired or damaged, depending on their vulnerability and the amount of ultra-processed food consumed.”
The stakes are excessive: Studies have proven that consuming simply 10% extra energy a day from ultraprocessed food — that’s about one serving — could also be related to a 50% higher risk of cardiovascular disease-related loss of life. There is additionally a 55% higher probability of weight problems and a 40% larger likelihood of creating kind 2 diabetes. The danger of cognitive decline and stroke additionally rises, as does the prospect of developing cancers of the higher digestive tract.
However, the Consumer Brands Association, which represents main meals producers, instructed me in an electronic mail “there is currently no agreed upon scientific definition of ultra-processed foods.”
“Attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities,” stated Sarah Gallo, CBA’s senior vice chairman of product coverage. “Americans deserve facts based on sound science in order to make the best choices for their health.”
In addition, she stated, meals and beverage producers have lengthy invested in product labeling, “so that consumers can review product ingredients and nutrition information and make decisions best for them.”
To manufacture low-cost, scrumptious meals that is packaged for comfort, specialists say fundamental meals crops equivalent to potatoes, corn, wheat and soybeans could also be disassembled into their molecular components — starchy flours, protein isolates, fat and oils — to create what producers name “slurries.” (How do they do it? Watch this video.)
The cell partitions of the crops are destroyed, dispersing micronutrients that usually want to work collectively to nurture our our bodies. Insoluble plant fiber we’d like to be wholesome might also be lost. What’s left is a substance some scientists name “predigested” — not not like the regurgitated meals a mama chook feeds her infants.
Barry Popkin, the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, has seen the method firsthand.
“In the early 2000s, I went into some food plants and I saw the stuff — it was supposed to be granola bars, shredded wheat cereal,” Popkin stated. “It was colorless, odorless. I scooped some up in a spoon and tried to taste it — it was like sawdust or something.”
Here’s why consuming “predigested” meals might be a downside: When we eat complete meals as our our bodies are meant to do, we take in micronutrients all through all the digestive course of. If they’re exploded into smithereens in an ultraprocessed meals, do we nonetheless have entry to them? If we do, are they absorbed by the physique within the methods nature meant them to be?
I’m not conscious of any research that reply that query, though analysis is underway. But in accordance to some meals scientists I’ve spoken to, it doesn’t matter — producers simply add again lacking nutritional vitamins, fiber and protein throughout manufacturing and voilà! It’s pretty much as good as new.
Or is it? Is a patched-up Humpty Dumpty actually the identical Dumpty that fell off the wall?
Let’s get again to the slurries: Next, with the assistance of synthetic colorings, flavorings, texturizers and glue-like emulsifiers, elements are blended, heated, pounded, formed or extruded into any meals a producer can dream up.
“It’s an illusion of food,” Dr. Chris van Tulleken instructed me last year. He is a BBC contributor and professor of an infection and world well being at University College London.
“It’s really expensive and difficult for a food company to make food that is real and whole, and much cheaper for food companies to destroy real foods, turn them into molecules, and then reassemble those to make anything they want,” stated van Tulleken, writer of the 2023 ebook “Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?”
I’m nonetheless wandering across the snack aisle, so let’s put our information to the check by taking a look at one of my children’ previous favorites — ranch-flavored veggie straws. As a conscientious mother, I all the time reached for the natural model.
Of the greater than 30 elements, three are components: sodium caseinate, used as an emulsifier; calcium chloride, which extends shelf life; and potassium chloride, a taste enhancer used to deal with low blood stress and low potassium ranges.
All are designated GRAS (generally regarded as safe) to be used in meals by the US Food and Drug Administration. Yet by NOVA’s requirements, these veggie straws are positively ultraprocessed.
Let’s take a look at the diet label. The high ingredient is potato starch, adopted by potato powder. Then come numerous oils, dehydrated vegetable powders (equivalent to bell peppers, carrots, spinach), turmeric and beetroot powders (for shade), and dried milk merchandise (for the ranch style). There are some nutritional vitamins and minerals. Oh, and salt and sugar, of course.
None of that sounds harmful, however all these powders? That’s a purple flag that these kid-friendly straws could not have been comprised of my “Mom” imaginative and prescient of sautéed veggies pureed in a blender, poured into a mould and baked till puffy. Instead, it’s potential they have been created from a potato-based sludge, coloured and flavored with vegetable powders, and enriched with nutritional vitamins earlier than being squeezed by means of a tube and baked.
That’s one thing scientists can’t decide. In reality, none of us can, as a result of how these meals are made is proprietary to every producer, which intently guards recipes and “bliss point” algorithms from opponents and the general public.
I attempted to receive entry to a main meals firm’s manufacturing web site on a number of events to perceive how potato chips and different meals are made. Six months later, I gave up.
“Food companies today, they’ve closed off their processing plants,” Popkin stated. “So we’ve never been able to have a clinical study studying what happens if you eat real corn versus deconstructed corn.”
But wait — I purchase natural variations of the veggie straws, doesn’t that assist? Unfortunately, no. Buying natural does cut back pesticide ranges, however that’s not half of ultraprocessing. Turning even an natural vegetable into refined flakes and powders could destroy the plant’s meals matrix — cell partitions that maintain vitamins — and like our Humpty Dumpty, that meals have to be put again collectively once more.
Many specialists have tried to simplify the chore of avoiding ultraprocessing by advising shoppers to select meals with not more than 5 elements or keep away from meals with elements you may’t pronounce or can’t discover at residence.
Those are nice solutions if in case you have time to learn labels. It’s additionally not a full resolution. Let’s take a look at my favourite potato chip, which solely has three elements on the label: potatoes, salt and oil. Does that imply this potato chip is now good for me? Or is it nonetheless a junk meals despite the fact that it isn’t ultraprocessed by the NOVA definition?
Those handy, kid-friendly frozen hen nuggets are straightforward to establish as ultraprocessed. And right here’s a startling reality: Nuggets usually comprise transglutaminase, which the trade calls “meat glue.” It’s an enzyme that helps mix components of an animal or completely different animals into one product — sizzling canines, sausages and deli meats are widespread examples. (Hint: If the meals packaging reads “formed” or “reformed,” it doubtless accommodates transglutaminase.)
Transglutaminase isn’t straightforward to pronounce, and it’s not an ingredient you’ll have at residence. Yet the FDA and US Department of Agriculture haven’t any downside with it as a result of it dissipates when cooked.
This subsequent problem is more durable: Are most breads on grocery store cabinets ultraprocessed by NOVA requirements? Unless it’s freshly baked from scratch, the reply is “most likely,” though specialists disagree.
From the NOVA perspective, if a bread lasts longer than a week or so with out mould, it could have a artificial preservative in it. Common components in bread embody calcium propionate, a synthetic preservative linked to behavior problems in children; potassium sorbate, one other artificial preservative linked to pores and skin and respiratory points in people who find themselves delicate to it; and BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene), two extra synthetic preservatives that may be linked to hormone and reproductive disruption and most cancers.
But what if the bread is made with complete wheat or complete grains you may really see and style? It should be ultraprocessed, however isn’t it higher for you? That is nonetheless a fiercely debated query.
Now, right here’s a difficult one: plant-based meat substitutes. Ultraprocessed to their core, many specialists say these alt meats are nonetheless higher for us than purple and processed meats full of saturated fat or nitrates.
“The fat composition of beef is so undesirable for health that it’s very easy to be better than that,” main diet researcher Dr. Walter Willett instructed me earlier this year.
“Animal products not only have too much saturated fat but lack polyunsaturated fat, fiber and many of the minerals and vitamins available in plants,” stated Willett, professor of epidemiology and diet at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of drugs at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Many of the alt-meat merchandise have dramatically improved their dietary profiles since they first hit the market. Recent research analyzed by the Physicians Association for Nutrition, or PAN International, discovered plant-based meats have been dramatically decrease in saturated fats, a little decrease in general energy, equal in protein, dramatically larger in fiber (beef has no fiber), and a bit larger in salt and sugar than standard meat.
There’s additionally the position of plant-based meat in saving the planet. According to the Good Food Institute, which promotes alternative proteins and coauthored the report, changing a beef burger with a plant-based patty can cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions by up to 98% and land use by up to 97%.
I may go on and on, however right here’s the underside line: Deciding what is “ultraprocessed and bad for your health” and “ultraprocessed, but OK to eat” is actually difficult — particularly for a society unwilling or unable to surrender cheap, handy meals.
Quite a bit of huffing and puffing happening…
Fortunately, the world is taking motion. In mid-May, the World Health Organization put out a global clarion call for scientists to assist outline and create tips for ultraprocessed meals consumption. Once the panel is chosen, the work is anticipated to take two years.
Every week later, the Trump Administration launched its first “Make America Healthy Again” report, calling for motion on ultraprocessed foods they are saying are a hazard to our kids’s well being. An August 15 leaked version of the second report — which was supposed to announce particular coverage actions — as an alternative known as for the federal government to “continue efforts to develop a U.S. government-wide definition.” The remaining report, released in September, supplied no further motion.
“Unfortunately, the final MAHA report is all promises and has no teeth,” University of Carolina’s Popkin told me at the time. “In my opinion, it shows the food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries got to the White House and won the day.”
Andrew Nixon, deputy assistant secretary for media relations on the US Department of Health and Human Services, instructed me in an electronic mail the administration is confronting the UPF problem, which is a “major driver of the nation’s chronic disease epidemic.”
“Replacing them with real, whole foods is one of the most effective ways to Make America Healthy Again,” Nixon stated. “We remain committed to serving the American people, not special interests or outside critics, by delivering radical transparency and upholding gold-standard science.”
Other teams have stepped into the void. The American Heart Association, for instance, divided ultraprocessed meals into three categories — least wholesome, reasonably wholesome and wholesome.
Understandably, the AHA is most involved with how meals influence the guts. High-fat purple and processed meats fall throughout the “least healthy” class within the AHA report — as they need to, contemplating their position in coronary heart illness and colon most cancers. However, purple meat is additionally the least processed meals in that class.
And but, that’s the purpose: Regulating ultraprocessed meals by components alone — with out additionally addressing the well being issues of an excessive amount of sugar, salt and saturated fats (hiya, beef tallow!) — received’t enhance the nation’s meals provide and our deteriorating well being.
In an effort to repair that, Monteiro is campaigning for researchers and authorities officers to add extra elements to the NOVA definition usually utilized in creating meals coverage.
“Our proposal now is to target any food with an excess of sodium, saturated fat or sugar, along with synthetic colors, flavors and non-nutritive sweeteners,” Monteiro instructed me after I reported on a latest three-part series within the journal The Lancet. He and Popkin coauthored the articles with 41 different internationally recognized scientists.
However, there is a lacking ingredient, in accordance to Harvard’s Willett: “The huge blind spot of refined grains, which is the largest source of calories in the US and most countries at this time — this is not considered to be an UPF.”
The Lancet collection blasted the meals trade, claiming world firms continued to aggressively market and extensively revenue from new and current UPF merchandise regardless of growing proof of hurt to public well being.
“The food industry doesn’t want to lose their cash cow, so they’re willing to put millions into fighting government restrictions on ultraprocessed food as well as funding nutritionists who’ll say there’s no evidence of harm,” Popkin stated.
The International Food & Beverage Alliance, based in 2008 by main meals and nonalcoholic beverage firms, instructed me in an electronic mail when the Lancet collection printed that well being authorities worldwide have rejected the idea of ultraprocessed meals due to its lack of scientific consensus.
“The policy and advocacy recommendations of this series go far beyond the available evidence — proposing new regulatory action based on ‘processing’ or additive ‘markers’ and calling for the exclusion of industry from policymaking,” stated IFBA Secretary-General Rocco Renaldi.
California made historical past in early October by enacting the first law in the United States to outline and in the end ban problematic ultraprocessed meals in public faculties.
Not solely does the California laws outline ultraprocessed meals — not a straightforward activity as you’ve gotten seen — it requires public well being officers and scientists to determine which UPFs are most dangerous to human well being. An “ultraprocessed food of concern” would then be phased out of the varsity meals provide. That’s spectacular, contemplating California is projected to serve over 1 billion meals to schoolchildren within the 2025–26 faculty yr.
California has additionally led the way in which in legal guidelines banning food dyes, potassium bromate, a potential carcinogen as soon as extensively utilized in breads, brominated vegetable oil and propylparaben.
“Here in California, we are actually doing the work to protect our kids’ health, and we’ve been doing it since well before anyone had ever heard of the MAHA movement,” stated Jesse Gabriel, the Democratic California Assemblymember who launched a number of of the payments, in an October 9 press convention.
What’s so promising concerning the laws is the scope of the trouble. California lawmakers have thought of many of the methods through which each junk and ultraprocessed meals could also be dangerous to human well being — elements equivalent to nonnutritive sweeteners; components equivalent to emulsifiers, stabilizers and thickeners; taste enhancers; a host of food dyes and extra.
American scientific analysis on the harms of UPF components is in its infancy, however the brand new regulation has taken that under consideration. Additives banned, restricted or required to carry a warning by different native, state, federal or worldwide jurisdictions will likely be within the evaluation. That’s key, because the European Union and different nations have already regulated many components nonetheless allowed within the US.
Food modified to comprise excessive quantities of saturated fats, sodium and added sugar may also be rejected, in accordance to the regulation. This will assist goal trade methods which will contribute to an addiction to ultraprocessed foods — an growing concern for American kids raised on UPFs.
The draw back? The regulation received’t present remaining particulars on which UPFs are most regarding till June 2028, and it received’t have all UPFs out of faculty lunches till 2035. I’m hopeful there will likely be helpful updates as the method rolls alongside.
While we await definitive motion (don’t maintain your breath), we nonetheless have to navigate the grocery store. Of course, the easiest way is to purchase all the things contemporary and prepare dinner at residence. But such as you, I’m far too busy to do as a lot of that as I would really like — plus my children are grown and the stress to set a good instance is gone (though my new grandson could change that).
Instead, I replenish on frozen veggies — many are flash frozen and have the identical vitamins as when first picked. Low-sodium canned beans and different legumes hold me from having to prepare dinner dry beans from scratch.
When I purchase contemporary produce, I strive to purchase natural if my price range permits. That’s very true for crops within the 2025 “Dirty Dozen,” an annual record of meals with essentially the most (and least) pesticides created by the Environmental Working Group, a well being advocacy group.
I additionally do my finest to keep away from veggies and salad greens packaged in chemical-laden plastics (that’s a whole other problem I write about). I particularly keep away from precut veggies (loss of nutrients) and meals bought in black plastic containers (read about those here.) That’s actually laborious as a result of they’re all over the place!
When it comes to ready-to-heat-and-eat meals, I search for complete hen breasts, sliced beef and pork, hen or steak kebabs, and stews with actual chunks of meat. (Here’s a tip: If the package deal says the meat is cooked “sous vide,” I’ve discovered it’s extra doubtless to be complete meat.)
As for the remaining of the grocery store — the almost 70% which is ultraprocessed — I do my finest. I don’t know all of the names of components — a lot much less that are dangerous or helpful — in order that’s not very useful to me. I may simply as simply discard a meals enriched with pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), pyridoxine (vitamin B6) or cobalamin (vitamin B12) as I may one with azodicarbonamide, a bleaching agent in bread banned in the EU due to most cancers issues.
Instead, I placed on my detective hat, flip the product over, and learn — beginning with the diet label. Many folks go straight to carbohydrates, however carbs usually are not essentially the enemy — in complete meals they arrive naturally, together with fiber, nutritional vitamins and minerals. Foods that are overly processed, nonetheless, might have to enhance ranges of added sugars, salt and fats to make the meals “hyperpalatable” and laborious to resist.
A tablespoonful of ketchup, for instance, can comprise 4 grams (1 teaspoon) of added sugar, whereas spaghetti and pizza sauces are notoriously excessive in added sugar as effectively. If you search the cabinets, nonetheless, there are low-salt, no sugar and no synthetic sweetener choices.
And this is vital — the chances on the diet label are just for one serving. Let’s take honey peanut butter, half of a typical PB&J lunch for my children whereas they have been rising up.
The label says one serving — two tablespoons of peanut butter — has 13 grams of sugar (2.5 teaspoons). So if I put 3 servings on the sandwich — that’s an unbelievable 39 grams or 7.3 teaspoons of sugar (not counting the jelly) in what many of us think about a wholesome meal for a youngster.
(OK, you might know this, sure. But in truth, how usually do you cease and take a look at serving dimension? Yeah, me neither.)
I then transfer to the elements listed within the order of prevalence. I search for indicators of overprocessing (powdered veggies, of course). Additives are all the time on the backside, however different culprits rise to the event. If sugar is first, second or third on the record, I have a tendency to think about the meals a dessert. If elements on the high are wholesome and sugar is towards the underside of the record, I’m not overly involved.
Here’s a nice instance: An extraordinarily in style natural bread in grocery shops has 35 elements — the primary 21 are complete grains and seeds. The loaf has no artificial components, nevertheless it does have 4 grams of added sugar per serving within the type of natural molasses. Would you think about that a junk meals? An ultraprocessed meals overly laden with sugar? Or is it wholesome? You determine.
Yet you shouldn’t have to determine, specialists say. You ought to find a way to go to your grocery store and purchase meals which can be good for you with out having to play detective.
“The rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in human diets is being driven by the growing economic and political power of the UPF industry,” wrote the authors of the third Lancet paper. “Curbing corporate power in food systems begins with governance reform.”
Otherwise, they added, UPFs could effectively “replace all other food groups” within the not-so-distant future.
Yes, there’ll all the time be junk meals, and sure, we are going to all succumb at instances. But if the bulk of our meals was regulated to be as complete, contemporary, and devoid of added sugar, salt, fats, components and processing as potential, we’d be a a lot more healthy nation — and world.
I’m not holding my breath.