Ultra-processed foods have become the great enemy of our diet. We explain what they really are and why you should avoid them in your diet. In addition, we will show you how to know if a food is ultra-processed.
The term ultra-processed foods encompasses a series of very common food products in the contemporary era. They are long-lasting and very tasty foods, but that means they are not at all healthy.
This is basically due to the way they are made, which is where they also get their name. And you can’t have everything: if you want it to last a long time you need to use certain… food techniques. If you also want the food to be attractive in every sense, you will have to use others. Curiously, for both cases, we can find similar strategies, if not completely identical. But let’s stop beating around the bush and get to the heart of the matter.
What is ultra-processed food?
Ultra-processed foods are foods that have been processed industrially. This means that all the procedures for making them are industrialized to be as efficient as possible. The objective of ultra-processing, in addition to maximizing production, is to ensure that the food lasts as long as possible, is easily transportable, and the end result is palatable. The latter means that it is attractive to the palate (and to the sight, smell, etc.).
Is all processed food ultra-processed? Obviously not. There are two types of food, basically natural and processed. The former are consumed raw, without any treatment and without changing their properties. In addition, they serve as raw material for the latter. Once they are manipulated and one of their characteristics is changed, they are considered processed. An Omelette, a wine, an ensaimada… are processed foods.
When the process is highly industrialized, automated and substances are used that help the process, its duration, and its transportation, as we said, that is when we find an ultra-processed food. There is also a standard that says that if it contains more than five ingredients, it is an ultra-processed food. This, however, is not very reliable because there are hundreds of ultra-processed foods with less than five ingredients, as well as many good processed foods that contain five or more.
Why are ultra-processed foods not recommended?
The problem with automating a process so much that you can squeeze every second out of its production and shelf life is that you need industry “tricks.” Tricks like, for example, using a lot of sugar as a preservative, or certain fats to make it smooth or look nice. Certain flours are easier to work within a machine, and of course there are foods that are more cost-effective.
Needless to say, today, with science at our side, we have a food safety and traceability system that ensures that no food is immediately harmful to health. Just 50 years ago, it was not difficult to suffer from listeriosis, salmonellosis, or solanine poisoning. Today, it is very difficult for this to happen, at least with industrial foods. However, all these tricks (sugar, fats…) can be harmful, although not immediately.
Are sugars in ultra-processed foods dangerous?
Yes. Sugars are one of those substances that we now know for a fact are associated with all kinds of metabolic problems, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. The problem with sugars is that free sucrose, which includes added sugar, is very attractive to the palate and, on top of that, very bad for our metabolism. A good sugar should be a natural part of the food, in low doses, and form part of the food matrix, so that it is digested slowly.
Ultra-processed foods, as we mentioned, use large amounts of sugar because of its ability to help preserve against microorganisms and because it makes the food more palatable. In addition, sugar is addictive (it stimulates our brain’s reward system). The WHO does not recommend more than 25 g of sugar per day, an amount that is easily exceeded in 100 g of most ultra-processed foods.
What are the bad fats in ultra-processed foods?
Some fats are easier to work with than others. Some are also much cheaper, improving the profitability of the feed. This is the case, for example, with the infamous palm oil, also called palmitate, palm kernel oil, fractionated vegetable fat, palm stearin, palm olein, Elaeis guineensis oil, ascorbyl palmitate, sodium palm kernelate or palmitoyl oligopeptide, among others.
Fats are necessary and beneficial for health, but this statement depends on their nature. They are also necessary in the right quantities. Both of these issues are not met in the ultra-processed foods that are commonly used, which use excessive amounts of poor-quality fats and oils, leading to health problems.
Do ultra-processed foods contain other dangerous substances?
As we said at the beginning of this section, by law and by principles of food safety, no food, whether ultra-processed or not, can contain substances that are harmful to health. What’s more, if any of the foods or additives have even the slightest realistic suspicion of being dangerous, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) immediately and preventively put their use in “quarantine”.
Food science is advancing every day, of course, and new studies and knowledge appear every day that lead to the re-evaluation of substances. However, despite many social alarms, not even ultra-processed foods contain substances that we know, for certain, cause diseases. Notable exceptions to this statement are sugars and fats, which we now know that their abuse causes direct damage to health but which remain unregulated due to the high interest of the food industry.
How to know if a food is ultra-processed
All ultra-processed foods have several issues in common, most of them related to production quantities and their duration. They also have a lower nutritional quality of their components. How do we distinguish them?
The packaging of ultra-processed foods
On a superficial level, foods that are packaged in industrial packaging, always the same, in huge quantities, are, in almost all cases, ultra-processed foods. Of course, this is not enough, since, for example, pickles, or cheese, are not usually classified as ultra-processed. And vice versa, not all ultra-processed foods have recognizable packaging.
The nutritional composition of ultra-processed foods
The most important thing, however, we can observe is its nutritional composition:
- If it contains a large amount of sugar (over 2% of its composition), it is almost certainly an ultra-processed food.
- If it contains poor quality fats, or in other words, does not contain good quality fats, such as olive oil, quality seed oil, etc., it is probably also ultra-processed.
- If its composition has a much higher proportion of any macronutrient such as fat or sugar, in an unbalanced way, it could be ultra-processed.
All these generalities, of course, depend on the food itself, of course, since a sweet is not the same as a prepared dish or a sausage.
Ultra-processed foods take advantage of poor raw materials
A basic issue is that the better the raw material used, the better the processing. Due to ultra-processing, ultra-processed foods can use low-quality materials for the final product where, at first glance, the difference will not be noticeable. On the other hand, curiously, many ultra-processed foods use some ingredient as a claim, unnecessarily or irrelevantly. If a soft drink claims to contain 5% juice, or a packaged empanada claims to “have tomatoes from the garden” it is quite likely to be an ultra-processed food.
Ultra-processed foods: 16 examples
There’s nothing better than learning from an example. Or 16, like the following ultra-processed foods, some of which you may not have even suspected were so:
- Pre-cooked meals: although they try to imitate home cooking, they are highly perishable, so they require an industrial process that makes them ultra-processed.
- 0% fat yogurts: the problem with these is not the fat, but the sugar they contain, which is very high.
- Soft drinks: There are no healthy soft drinks. Even those containing non-caloric sweeteners, which are healthier, yes, but unhealthy, are associated with metabolic health problems such as diabetes in the long run.
- All pastries: everyone likes a sweet treat from time to time. Pastries are a treat, with no nutritional value within a healthy diet. They are also the main attraction of ultra-processed foods.
- Biscuits, in particular: Biscuits deserve special mention among ultra-processed foods because they are so close to children and have a healthy appearance. They are, however, a calorie bomb.
- Low-calorie cereal bars: These are supposed to fool us with numbers and a healthy appearance. In reality, they contain a rather impressive amount of sugar and bad fats.
- Breakfast cereals: Cereals contain a high amount of free sugars, especially the sugary ones (redundancy intended).
- Packaged salads: another food that is considered healthy but, as with prepared meals, it often contains unhealthy sauces and foods.
- Packaged “homemade” pizzas: these are not fooling anyone. No matter how homemade they are, ultra-processed pizzas are obvious from a mile away.
- Fruit juices: juices, even natural ones, are an extremely high source of free sugars. Especially ultra-processed ones, which are disguised soft drinks.
- Bread: if it is not from a bakery, it is usually ultra-processed. This does not mean that some baked goods are healthy. In the end, it depends on the type of flour and its fiber content.
- Tuna and canned foods: These are not actually bad per se. Except for canned foods with sauces and highly processed foods.
- Sausages: Sausages, even those that are not considered ultra-processed, are quite unhealthy due to their high-fat content. However, ultra-processed ones are of much worse quality.
- Sausages and ultra-processed meats: Similarly, meat preparations, and especially sausages, are among the lowest quality ultra-processed foods.
- “Homemade” food served in supermarkets: This food is ultra-processed, frozen, and sent to supermarkets where it is heated or finished cooking. They are usually ultra-processed.
- Snacks: It’s obvious, but it’s worth remembering. Chips and other snacks are a source of nutritional problems, from any point of view.
What are the worst ultra-processed foods?
From the list above, we can make a top five of the worst ultra-processed foods, starting, without a doubt, with pastries. This is the ultimate representation of nutritional inefficiency: they provide almost nothing, contain very little usable protein, few micronutrient varieties, and a high amount of sugars and fats.
Next, we can place juices, which are basically watered-down syrups, with no nutritional value and quick assimilation. Calorie bombs in a tetra brick. We continue with chips and other fried snacks, which also have zero nutritional value, except when we talk about poor-quality fats.
We finish our top five with processed meats, such as sausages, whose amount of unnecessary and saturated fats, as well as the low quality of their raw materials make them a bad ultra-processed food. Lastly, and not for that reason healthier, cereals, especially sugary ones, pose a major problem, since they are usually camouflaged as part of a healthy diet, also perpetuating the myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.