What Are Ultra-Processed Foods? What Should I Eat Instead? Anahad O’Connor - The Washington Post
go to original September 29, 2022

What are ultra-processed foods? (Imperial College)

Is your diet ultra-processed?

In many households, ultra-processed foods are mainstays at the kitchen table. They include products that you may not even think of as junk food such as breakfast cereals, muffins, snack bars and sweetened yogurts. Soft drinks and energy drinks count, too.

These foods represent an increasingly large share of the world’s diet. Almost 60 percent of the calories that adults in America eat are from ultra-processed foods. They account for 25 to 50 percent of the calories consumed in many other countries.

Every year, food companies introduce thousands of new ultra-processed foods with an endless variety of flavors and ingredients. These products deliver potent combinations of fat, sugar, sodium and artificial flavors. They are what scientists call hyper-palatable: Irresistible, easy to overeat, and capable of hijacking the brain’s reward system and provoking powerful cravings.

Yet in dozens of large studies, scientists have found that ultra-processed foods are linked to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer. A recent study of more than 22,000 people found that people who ate a lot of ultra-processed foods had a 19 percent higher likelihood of early death and a 32 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with people who ate few ultra-processed foods.

So how do we break our dependence on ultra-processed foods? You can start by learning which foods in your diet count as ultra-processed. You don’t necessarily have to give them up. But once you know how to spot an ultra-processed food, it’s easy to find a less-processed substitute.

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Related: The FDA Announces a New Definition of What’s ‘Healthy’ (The Washington Post)