How ultra-processed food is central to your diet  ...Middle East

Some diet experts have been warning us off highly processed, or ultra-processed food (UPF) for years, but this month the campaign reached new heights.

In the US, Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has revamped the nation’s official healthy eating advice, and for the first time it explicitly tells people to avoid highly processed food and instead eat “real food”.

The UK has brought in a new ban on adverts for junk food being shown on TV before 9.00pm and at any time online, suggesting a similar direction of travel.

But, those trying to cut UPF from their diet may find it is harder than they think. It has been estimated about half of the British diet consists of UPF. It is present in a surprising number of everyday staples – many of which would often be seen as healthy foods.

What is an UPF?

According to Brazilian scientists who developed the UPF concept, food can be divided into three main types. The first category is unprocessed foods, in other words, the natural forms of meat or fruit and vegetables.

Next comes processed foods and ingredients, substances derived from meat or plants using simple age-old processing methods, such as drying, grinding, refining or heating.

This includes things like traditionally made bread, cheese, yogurt, butter and some oils, like olive oil.

Last comes the dreaded UPF – foods made from the first two groups using modern manufacturing methods, to make things like modified vegetable oil, pre-digested proteins such as pot noodles and high-fructose (or fruit sugar) corn syrup. It typically usually contains artificial chemicals, such as emulsifiers – which help fat mix with water – and preservatives.

Common UPFs

People like doctor and TV personality, Chris van Tulleken, who has spearheaded the anti-UPF movement in the UK, has said a quick way to tell if something is processed or UPF is that the latter usually comes wrapped in plastic.

You can also check by looking at the packet to see if it contains ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.

What’s new about this take on food?

Before the UPF idea took hold, most doctors would have said a food’s healthiness or otherwise depends on its nutrients, namely, its levels of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar.

Some of the time, these rival frameworks for judging food – nutrient-based or UPF-based – agree with each other about which stuff is good or bad.

Many UPFs are indeed high in fat, sugar and so on. For instance, cakes and biscuits bought in shops are full of sugar. A typical takeaway, ready meal, or supermarket pizza is high in fat and salt.

Why some ‘healthy’ foods can also be an UPF

But, there are some foods that would be judged good by the old system, yet are UPF. Most types of bread, even brown or wholemeal loaves, contain ingredients like emulsifiers and preservatives, and so fit the UPF definition.

The only way to have bread on a non-UPF diet is to either buy it from pricey artisan bakeries or make your own bread every day at home.

Another example is frozen chicken nuggets or fish fingers, which usually have artificial ingredients in the breadcrumbs. Most dietitians would say these are a nutritious and economical way of getting low-fat meat into the diet of fussy children. But they are a no-no to UPF crusaders.

“I think school food programs would love to be able to offer real chicken instead of chicken nuggets, but the reality is, you’re not giving them any more money to support that kind of change,” said Danielle Battram, head of Brescia School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Western University in Canada.

Other UPFs that catch people out include wholegrain breakfast cereals, flavoured yogurts and some pasta sauces – anything that has added preservatives or flavourings. “Things like a can of tomatoes or passata is technically processed food. So they’re demonising all processed foods under one umbrella term,” said Kirsten Jackson, a spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association.

Whole foods that can be unhealthy

There’s another potential downside of switching to the new UPF classification system. Some foods that pass the no-UPF test are seen as decidedly unhealthy by most dietitians.

These would include biscuits, ice cream and cake that have been home-made. You could eat steak with butter sauce every day and still be eating healthily, according to some UPF campaigners.

But most doctors would say a diet so heavy in red meat is bad because it raises your cholesterol. “Higher amounts of dairy, especially full fat, and red meat are linked to high rates of heart disease,” said Jackson.

Scientists still don’t know

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Since the UPF idea took off, the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition has reviewed all the studies available, twice. In its most recent report, from last year, the committee concluded there are concerning correlations between UPF consumption and poor health.

But it is unclear whether those links are explained by the fact that UPF tends to be higher in substances we already thought were bad for us, in other words, fat, salt and sugar.

“On balance, most people are likely to benefit from reducing their consumption of processed foods high in energy, saturated fat, salt and free sugars, and low in fibre,” the body said.

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