What is ultra-processed food? - The Food Chain podcast, BBC World Service
Summary
TLDRThe BBC World Service's 'The Food Chain' explores the prevalence and impact of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in our diets. Host Ruth Alexander discusses how these products, often found in supermarkets, can be difficult to avoid due to their appealing taste and convenience. The show delves into the challenges faced by individuals attempting to reduce their UPF consumption, the difficulty in identifying such foods, and the broader implications for health. The Nova food classification system is introduced as a way to categorize foods by their level of processing. The program also touches on the role of nutrition labels in guiding consumer choices, the influence of government policies, and the importance of home cooking as a means to reduce UPF intake. It concludes with a call to action for listeners to share their experiences and insights on the topic.
Takeaways
- 🍰 More than half the calories consumed in countries like the UK and the US are thought to come from ultra-processed food (UPF).
- 🛒 Most supermarket products are ultra-processed, making it difficult for consumers to avoid them.
- 🍟 Common examples of UPF include carbonated drinks, commercial cookies, cakes, muffins, confectionery, chips, crisps, and pretzels.
- 🏭 Ultra-processed foods are industrially manufactured and often contain additives and substances not typically used in home cooking.
- 🧀 The Nova food classification system categorizes foods into four groups, with the fourth group being ultra-processed.
- 🔍 Ultra-processed products are made to mimic and appeal to consumers, often containing additives not found in unprocessed foods.
- 📈 Studies have shown a link between UPF and increased health risks such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
- 🍳 Reducing UPF consumption often requires a significant shift towards cooking and preparing food from scratch.
- 👨👩👧👦 Parents find it challenging to provide snacks and meals for their children without resorting to UPF due to convenience and affordability.
- 🛡️ Some countries like Chile and Mexico have implemented policies such as taxation, labeling, and marketing restrictions to control UPF.
- 📊 The effectiveness of nutrition warning labels on food packaging in changing consumer behavior is mixed, with some shoppers overlooking them when in a hurry.
- 🌐 Open Food Facts, a non-profit organization, provides an app to help consumers identify ultra-processed foods by scanning product barcodes.
Q & A
What is the general perception of ultra-processed foods in countries like the UK and the US?
-More than half the calories consumed in countries like the UK and the US are thought to come from ultra-processed foods, which are often difficult to avoid due to their prevalence in supermarkets.
What is the Nova food classification system?
-The Nova food classification system, proposed in 2010, categorizes foods according to their level of processing. It divides foods into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, refined ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foods.
Why are ultra-processed foods considered potentially harmful to health?
-Ultra-processed foods are associated with an increased risk of health problems such as obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and cancer due to their high levels of additives, salt, sugar, and often unhealthy ingredients.
How does Jen Sherman, a listener from California, approach reducing ultra-processed foods in her family's diet?
-Jen Sherman has been on a drive to reduce the amount of ultra-processed food her family eats by cooking more meals from scratch, packing fruit and vegetable snacks for her kids, and keeping a close eye on ingredient lists when shopping.
What are some examples of ultra-processed foods mentioned in the transcript?
-Examples of ultra-processed foods mentioned include carbonated drinks, fruit and vegetable juices, ready-to-drink tea or coffee, most ice cream, commercial cookies, cakes, muffins, confectionary, chips or crisps, and pretzels.
What is the role of additives in the classification of ultra-processed foods?
-Additives play a significant role in the classification of ultra-processed foods as these are substances not typically used in home kitchens and are added to create products that are appealing, convenient, and often mimic the qualities of natural foods.
What is the impact of ultra-processed food on the daily life of individuals trying to reduce their consumption?
-Reducing ultra-processed food consumption requires a significant shift in lifestyle, including more time spent cooking and planning meals, as well as being more conscious of the ingredients in the food they purchase.
What are some challenges faced by individuals trying to avoid ultra-processed foods?
-Challenges include the difficulty in identifying ultra-processed foods, the appeal and convenience of these products, the cost and accessibility of alternatives, and social situations where ultra-processed foods are commonly served.
How do nutrition warning labels on food packaging in countries like Chile influence consumer behavior?
-Nutrition warning labels can influence consumer behavior by making them more aware of the health implications of certain foods. However, the impact may be limited, especially when consumers are in a hurry or when ultra-processed foods are cheaper or more convenient.
What is the perspective of the food industry on the term 'ultra-processed foods' and the potential for labeling such products?
-The food industry is aware of the term but does not actively use it. They follow scientific evidence and government guidelines, and while they acknowledge consumer awareness and confusion, they are not currently advocating for specific ultra-processed food labels.
What advice is given to consumers who want to identify and avoid ultra-processed foods?
-Consumers are advised to look for foods with the simplest ingredient lists, choose products made of one ingredient when possible, and avoid items with ingredients they do not recognize or use in their own kitchens.
Outlines
🍰 The Prevalence and Challenge of Ultra-Processed Foods
The first paragraph introduces the concept of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), highlighting that over half of the daily caloric intake in countries like the UK and the US may come from such products. It discusses the difficulty of avoiding UPFs due to their prevalence in supermarkets and the lack of clear definitions and public awareness. The segment also touches on the Nova food classification system, which categorizes foods based on their level of processing, and the challenges of reducing UPF consumption, especially when it comes to snacks and convenience foods for children.
🧑🍳 Navigating the Complexities of Ultra-Processed Foods
The second paragraph delves into the differences between normal food and ultra-processed products, which are designed to mimic and appeal more than actual food, often containing additives not used in home kitchens. It mentions the correlation between UPFs and health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, and cancer, although the direct causation is challenging to prove. The narrative includes personal anecdotes from individuals attempting to reduce their UPF intake and the practical difficulties they face, including the time-consuming nature of cooking from scratch and societal pressures.
🛒 The Struggle to Identify and Avoid Ultra-Processed Foods
The third paragraph continues the discussion on the challenges of identifying ultra-processed foods without clear labeling. It explores the experiences of individuals who have attempted to eliminate or reduce UPFs in their diet and the strategies they employed, such as making stock from scratch and avoiding convenience foods. The segment also highlights the influence of policy in countries like Chile and Mexico, where efforts to tax, label, and restrict the marketing of UPFs to children have shown some positive impact on consumption patterns.
🏷️ The Impact of Warning Labels and Public Awareness
The fourth paragraph examines the effectiveness of nutrition warning labels on food packaging in influencing consumer behavior. It presents interviews with shoppers who are aware of these labels but may not always consider them in their purchasing decisions. The discussion also contrasts the perspectives of those who find certain UPFs convenient and affordable with the growing recognition that these products may not be as healthy as perceived. The paragraph concludes with insights from a parent who adapts cooking practices to provide healthier, less processed alternatives for his children.
🤔 The Debate and Confusion Over Ultra-Processed Foods
The fifth paragraph addresses the debate surrounding the classification of ultra-processed foods and the need for clear labeling. It discusses the challenges of identifying UPFs through an app developed by Open Food Facts and the confusion that arises when seemingly healthy products are revealed as ultra-processed. The segment also includes expert opinions on the potential benefits of labeling and the industry's perspective on consumer awareness and the current evidence regarding UPFs and health.
👨👩👧👦 A Call to Action for a Change in Food Choices
The sixth paragraph concludes the discussion by emphasizing the role of consumer choices in driving change in the food industry. It suggests that while clear labeling of UPFs could be beneficial, a more significant impact may come from raising public awareness about the nature of UPFs and encouraging home cooking and the preference for less processed foods. The paragraph ends with a call to listeners to share topics they'd like explored on the program, reinforcing the importance of community engagement in shaping food choices and policies.
🌟 The Role of Consumer Behavior in Influencing the Food Industry
The seventh and final paragraph is not provided in the input, so it is not included in the output. If it had been included, it would have followed the same structure as the other paragraphs, with a title beginning with an emoji and a detailed summary capturing the main points of the content.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Ultra-processed food
💡Nova food classification system
💡Health risks
💡Convenience foods
💡添加剂 (Additives)
💡Nutritional quality
💡Food labeling
💡Cooking from scratch
💡Ingredient lists
💡Public awareness
💡Food industry
Highlights
More than half the calories in countries like the UK and the US are from ultra-processed food.
Most products sold in supermarkets are ultra-processed, making them difficult to avoid.
Ultra-processed foods include commonly consumed items like carbonated drinks, commercial cookies, and frozen pizzas.
The Nova classification system categorizes foods based on their level of processing.
Fresh or minimally processed foods are identified as the healthiest options in the Nova system.
Ultra-processed foods are defined as formulations of refined substances and additives.
Scientific studies link ultra-processed foods to health risks like obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
Countries like Brazil and France advise consumers to avoid ultra-processed foods.
Practical challenges include managing children's diets amid pervasive ultra-processed foods in social settings.
Some countries have implemented nutritional warning labels to help consumers identify unhealthy foods.
The food industry has been slow to acknowledge the issues related to ultra-processed foods.
Emerging scientific evidence supports the harmful effects of ultra-processed foods, though some debate remains.
Public health policies are beginning to reflect growing concerns over ultra-processed foods.
Individual efforts to avoid ultra-processed foods often involve increased home cooking and scrutinizing ingredient lists.
The conversation about ultra-processed foods is moving from nutrients to broader food practices and impacts on health.
Transcripts
Cakes, muffins, confectionary, chips or crisps, pretzel, frozen pizza, frozen meals... - What if I said
that more than half the calories you consume are from ultra-processed food? That's thought to be the
case in countries like the UK and the US. - Most products sold in supermarkets are ultra-processed,
so it's very difficult to avoid them. This is The Food Chain from the BBC World Service.
I'm Ruth Alexander, and this week we're asking: Is this ultra-processed? It's not always easy to know. There are
lots of different definitions and a fair amount of confusion. Generally, we're talking about food
that's been industrially manufactured. - Yeah, we try to avoid all that stuff, but sometimes
we fall into it because they have some special taste that it's hard to say no
to it, sometimes.
We'll be finding out how to spot it. Mayonnaise. I had this with my lunch.
It's ultra-processed! Oh, that surprises me! How to cut down on it, if that's what you want to do.
I think the hardest part is the snack bits, because I've got to pack two snacks a day for the
kids for school. - And what to eat instead. - That means cooking. It's a huge shift in people's life.
It all started with an email to [email protected] from a listener, Jen Sherman, an
Australian who lives in California in the United States with her husband and two young children.
She's been on a drive to reduce the amount of ultra- processed food her family eats, or UPF as she calls it,
and suggested we should make a programme about people trying to do that. So we gave her a call.
- I like listening to programmes about ultra-processed food, and what I thought was interesting was
all of these podcasts talk about it from the science perspective, so they interview the researchers
and they talk about the science behind this, and what I thought would be useful was, what does it
look like to actually follow their advice? How do you actually follow their advice? Because it's very
easy to know the information and to think, right, I shouldn't be eating this much UPF because it's
not good for me, it's not good for my kids. But when you have a birthday party every second weekend and
there's class parties at school for Valentine's Day and Halloween and Easter when UPF is
everywhere, how do you actually reduce it? Because the other thing about UPF, it's not just the
crackers and the biscuits and the lollies, it's also, you know, your pasta sauces and
your convenience meals and all the stuff that you might not think of as UPF.
What exactly is ultra-processed food?
- Carbonated drinks, fruit and vegetables juices, ready-to-drink tea
or coffee, sports and energy drinks, most of the ice cream on the market, commercial cookies,
cakes, muffins, confectionary, most of the sweet and savoury snacks, such as chips or crisps, pretzel...
It would probably have been easier to ask what isn't ultra-processed.
- ...hot dogs, commercial soups, sauces, dressing...
- Jean-Claude Moubarac, assistant professor in public and international nutrition at the University of
Montreal in Canada, has worked with the team of scientists in Brazil who came up with the term.
They proposed the Nova food classification system in 2010, a new way of categorising foods
according to their level of processing. - Nova is a classification of foods that pays attention
to the degree and the purpose of processing. So, how much processing is applied to food, and why
processing is applied. Nova classify food into four main groups. The first one are foods that
are fresh or minimally processed. - Such as fruit and vegetables, meat, milk, and eggs. - Group two are
ingredients that are refined from food and are used to cook and season food.
- Salt, sugar, olive oil, butter, vinegar. - Group three are made of foods that are preserved with salt, sugar, and fat,
such as canned food, traditional bread and cheese, and the fourth group are ultra-processed, which are
a formulation of refined substances and additives. Those are products that are not food any more, but
are a collection of substances that are selected to create products of consumption. Irresistible, very
appealing, very convenient. - And this is where it starts to get tricky, because some foods can appear
in any one of the groups. - For example, yoghurts. So you can have a plain yoghurt that we will classify
as minimally processed. Then when you add sugar to it, it becomes processed food, so yoghurt plus sugar.
And then you can create also an ultra-processed yoghurt by adding flavours and colours, and
additives such as emulsifiers. You're changing the texture, the colour, the taste of the food.
- You don't recognise it as food, it's bad for us, you and the group of scientists who came up with this
classification believe. - Ultra-processed products are very different from normal food. They're
made to mimic food and to be more appealing. So for any food on the market, there's an ultra-processed
version of it, and the ultra-processed version has additives and substances that we don't use in kitchens.
- The positives of processing is that it can make food cheaper, last longer, look and
taste appetising. But it may not be good for us. A number of studies have shown an association
between ultra-processed food and increased risk of health problems, such as obesity, high blood
pressure and cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. But it's hard to prove for sure that
it's the level of processing causing this, rather than something else, such as lifestyle, or simply
the fact that ultra-processed foods can contain high levels of salt and sugar. But scientists
continue to investigate, and eight countries, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Israel, France, and Belgium, are
advising consumers to avoid ultra-processed food. Easier said than done, as our listener Jen can attest.
I read ingredient lists. I assume until proven otherwise that anything I find in the supermarket is UPF.
- Oh right, guilty till proven innocent, in your view? - Pretty much! - And how challenging has it
been overall, like how big an impact has this had on your day-to-day life? - It means I cook a lot, it
means I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen, but some of it is because I want to, and some of
it is because I can. You can use the slow cooker a lot, which is fantastic. There's a handful of
recipes that I do that's just you chuck the stuff in the slow cooker in the morning and
then eight hours later, you've got dinner. I think the hardest part is the snack bits. I've got to
pack two snacks a day for the kids for school, and what I've done is just I use fruit and vegetables
as their snack a lot of the time, I do a lot of carrot sticks, and capsicum, bell peppers, cucumbers,
we do berries, so blueberries and strawberries tend to last pretty well. - Have you cut out all
ultra-processed foods? Has that been possible? - No. I've got boxes of mac and cheese in the backup pantry.
- Macaroni cheese? - Yup. I'm going to have a bunch of boxes in the pantry as backup. - So, in an ideal
world, would you cut all ultra-processed food out, but in reality, you've discovered all you can
do really is reduce it you can't live without it, practically? - Pretty much. - And what do friends
and families and other parents think of your mission to radically cut down on ultra-processed
food? I mean, do you tell them about it? Do they know? I don't tend to talk about this, because I don't...
I don't want to present myself as a crusader, just by talking to you on the BBC Food Chain. I don't want
to present myself in real life as some kind of crusader against food that is so common
in most households with small children, or even without small children. Like, I don't want to make
people think I'm judging them for what they're eating or what they're feeding their families,
because I'm not. Because money is also a factor, and sometimes if you're feeding 30 or 40 people at a
four-year-old's birthday party, you go for the cheaper pizza, because that's what is affordable.
And a lot of the time in the short term, UPF is cheaper. - From your own experience, do you think
it's practical, like doable, for other people? Because you don't go out to work, do you? So you do have
more time than many people listening to cook and prepare food from scratch at home.
- I mean, it's impractical for me to entirely cut it out, so I think it's impractical for anyone to entirely
cut it out, but I think it's definitely possible to reduce it. Try and reduce a bit at a time, because
for any change, like drastic change is very hard to do and very hard to sustain long-term. If you've
been eating UPF a lot, and suddenly trying to cut it all out, like that's going to be hard. But if
you just change one meal a week, just you know cook one of them, cook two of them. - When you're out there
in the supermarket, trying to figure out what is ultra-processed and what isn't, would a UPF label be useful?
- Oh that'd be great, I'd love that. - Listener Jen Sherman. Well, someone who tried the drastic
route is programme producer, Beatrice Pickup. Didn't you Beatrice? You set yourself a challenge in January to
cut out all ultra-processed food. Was that fun? - Well, like all good New Year resolutions, I failed
on day one. We went for a New Year's Day walk, ended up in a pub, and I didn't want to have an alcoholic
drink, because I'd had a few the night before. And in fact, alcohol usually is processed, whereas all
the soft drinks in the pub that day were ultra- processed. So I found myself with a bit of a difficult
choice in terms of which was the healthier option, and ultimately I went for an ultra-processed soft drink.
- Could have gone for water! So what did you have to try and avoid then?
- Bread. Bread was quite a big one for us,
and we don't have a bakery locally where we live. Stock cubes was a surprising one for me.
I hadn't realised that if I'm making a meal from scratch but adding an ultra-processed stock cube to it,
obviously that's a fail for me. - I didn't realise that either. Oh dear. - Did get me into good habits,
though. Making stock from scratch, and making a big batch of it and putting it in the freezer so
that when I do want to make a meal using stock I already had some. - Which food did you miss the most?
- Crisps! Crisps are my favourite snack, so that was quite a big one for me for the month of January.
But I didn't realise until the making of this programme that in fact I could have been having
crisps, as long as they were just the plain, salted variety. So I did miss out there. - But that again,
there's the quandry, if you'd known that and you'd had the plain ready salted crisps, that wouldn't
necessarily have been good for you. - I assume that they're processed food, because I think of crisps as junk
food, but in fact it's the flavourings that are the problem there. - And what would you say your biggest
take home was about the whole thing? Biggest learning? - It did take a lot of thought and planning
and effort. It was entirely, mostly, doable, and it did get me into some good habits, and there was
cooking more, and it's a reminder that it's quite easy to make a lot of things. We made pizza one
weekend for example, which is great, although I did get into a bad baking habit. I started baking cakes
every weekend, when I'm not someone who normally buys a lot of cakes or biscuits. So in some ways my
sugar consumption might have gone up. - Interesting! How good was it when February came around, finally?
- I bought a big bag of crisps! - Oh good, then. Thanks, Beatrice.
It's been 14 years since Jean-Claude
Moubarac's colleagues came up with their definition of ultra-processed food and, in his view, created
a new understanding of what it is we're eating. - I think it has a huge impact in changing how people
think about food. The most important thing we've done is to change the mind of the people, from
nutrients to practices. So before Nova, people were talking about fibre, about sugar, about salt. With
Nova, we talk about why we process food and why we use such additives versus natural substances. It's
a change in the way people think about food, and we're getting also an impact on policies, but it's
something that's a little slower to obtain, because there's a lot of resistance in the
market from companies that are producing those ultra-processed foods. - You helped devise Brazil's
national food policy in 2014, which advised against eating ultra-processed food. Do you think it's made
a difference to what people are buying and much ultra-processed foods they're consuming?
- To my knowledge, no. In order to change the food system, you need to have strong political will. What
happened in Brazil in the last 10 years was a lot of change in terms of the government, so it's hard
to answer this question, but we don't see an impact on the data in terms of sales or consumption, or
in terms of health. - Is there any country you've seen that you're impressed by, and you think, yes,
this is the beginning of it? - For example in Chile and Mexico, there is strong policies to control
ultra-processed food, such as taxation and labelling, and also restriction of marketing to kids. In those
countries, they have shown some impact on reducing sales and consumption of ultra-processed food.
- In many countries, you can find nutrition labels on the front of food packaging. But Chile is one of
the few to make them mandatory. In 2016, it said that foods with high levels of added salt, sugar,
and saturated fats, or with a high calorie content, must carry prominent warning labels. In light of
these changes, our reporter Jane Chambers has been talking to people about the decisions they're now
making about what food they buy.
- I'm in the local supermarket on the outskirts of a seaside town
called Quintero, and it's full of produce. There's bread, cereals, chocolate, crisps, coffee, all the usual
things you would normally see in a supermarket. And I've found a shopper willing to talk to me. Your name is...?
- Hi. Elizabeth. - And we've got these black labels that they put on food here in Chile that's been on it
for quite a few years now, that show if it's high in salt, or sugar, or fat. When you're buying, are
you aware of the labels? Do they make a difference to what you buy? - Uh, yeah. Now it does make a
difference for me, and uh we really try to avoid that, but anyway when we are in a hurry I think
we just pick the things that we know already, and the things that we like. - So do you sometimes
forget about the labels if you're in a hurry? - Yeah, it really does. Yeah because it's um I think there's
also all the tasty food and um all the nice food that normally the kids like is like full of
labels and sugar and all that things. - So it's a kind of ultra-processed food that they like?
- Yeah. So even if you try to avoid it, it's easier to buy, and most of the people, we buy that kind
of food because it's cheaper. - What about since the labels have come in; have you been surprised that
some food you might have thought was healthy hasn't been as healthy as you think?
- The cereal, cereal bars, and um the things for the lunch for my kid. I used to think that is it was healthy
but now I realise since the labels that they're not really healthy.
- I'm off now just a couple of
miles down the road to the beach, to meet another parent, who I know is interested in the labels and
what's going on with ultra-processed food and what he feeds his children. You can probably
hear the sounds of cooking. That's because Diego Arenas is busy making lunch for his two children,
Gaston and Emma. It's smelling good! You got fish for lunch with garlic? - Yeah, garlic and ginger.
- When you're making things like lunch for your children, feeding your children, what kind of things do you
like to cook for them? - They always want to have something really sweet and the usual stuff that
they see everywhere, so it's not easy not to give them an ice cream or lots of sweets and stuff. So
we try to make them nice and sweet and healthy things, natural ice creams and things from fruits.
[Clanking saucepans and family talking]
- And what about the black labels that show if it's high in salt, or sugar, or fat,
is that something you're aware of when you go shopping, and what do you think about it?
- Yeah, we are aware. They know that they can ask for some food, but if it's one full of
them with three or four of these black labels, we try to avoid them. - And you've got
Gaston, your son, sitting beside you, and Emma across eating your delicious fish with ginger
that you just made. What kind of treats do they like to have, when they can have it?
- Oh, Emma likes a lot some like jelly and sweet and sour stuff, like gums. And he likes hot stuff
like nachos. It's a special treat. Or when they go to a birthday or something like that, or for
Halloween, or for some other special times. - And if there was a label that said something was ultra-processed
food, would you like to see labels like that, like the other black labels, would that help
when you're shopping? - Yeah, they should, they should be like that. I don't know, but yeah, we try to avoid
all that stuff, but sometimes we fall into it because they have some special taste that it's
hard to say no to it, sometimes.
- Parents in Chile talking to Jane Chambers. So, nutrition warning
labels on foods may not be the silver bullet that transform our shopping habits, but Jean-Claude Moubarac
believes they're worth having.
- There's a limit to those warning labels, but it's a first step
to give a strong message to the population that not everything at the supermarket is healthy, and
that's a major shift, because up till recently, our guidelines never talked about what to avoid, you know?
Guidelines usually are about what to eat, so you eat more fruits, more vegetables, more yoghurt.
But we rarely talk about what to avoid. So those labels are a first step to show the consumers
not everything on the market is healthy. Try to think and choose wisely. - How can someone spot
an ultra-processed food and avoid it? - The easiest way would be just to flip it around. I would say
the best food in the market are food that have no labels. So those are easy to identify: Fruits,
vegetables, legumes, meat, milk... everything that is made of one ingredient is healthy by definition.
Now of course, it depends on how you cook it and how you combine it, but when you choose a
product at the supermarket, if it's made of one ingredient, it's healthy. Then when you go into
those products that have a list of ingredients, try to choose the product that have the most simple
list of ingredients and avoid those that have ingredients that you don't use in your kitchen.
When you don't understand the list of ingredients, then leave it aside and go for a product that has
has a list of ingredients that you recognise. - I noticed that there are some foods that would be
classified by your system as ultra-processed foods, that actually there's an important
need for. Baby formula is one. Gluten-free products are important for some people with coeliac disease,
for example. I mean, there is considerable debate about all this, isn't there? - When we talk about
coeliac disease, or you know, this case of milk formula, to me these are miracles that save lives,
but I see this as medicine. When you cannot give breastfed milk to your kid then you need an
alternative, and what we have is milk formula, which is the next best thing we have, but to me it's a medication.
- Do you manage to avoid ultra-processed food entirely? - So what we try is not to bring them
at home. So it's not part of our regular pantry. But do we sometimes consume them outside the
house? Yes. Because we do live in society, like everyone else. - Jean-Claude Moubarac. In my house, we
cook most meals from scratch, so I have presumed that I don't eat much ultra-processed food, but
let's see now. I've downloaded an app that says it can tell me how good the nutritional content of
a product is and whether it's ultra-processed. So here on the countertop is wholemeal sliced bread.
I'm scanning the barcode, and the app tells me this is nutritionally very good quality, but... oh!
It's ultra-processed. [Klaxon] Confusing. Right, dark chocolate, an occasional treat. OK, probably a too-frequent
treat. [Klaxon] Nutritionally bad. That's probably not a surprise. But it gets a green dot, telling me that
it's not ultra-processed. Mixed messages again. Let's have a rummage in my fridge. Mayonnaise.
I had this with my lunch. It's... ultra-processed! [Klaxon] Oh, that surprises me! Mustard. Now, this I imagine is
just processed, not ultra-processed. [Klaxon] Wrong! What's in mustard? Stabiliser, xanthan gum.
What's in my freezer?
[Ruth rummages in her kitchen]
Fish fingers. I think of this as making a healthy meal... [Ting!] Yep, nutritionally good...
and ultra-processed. [Klaxon]
I wonder what's for dinner tonight, then? The app is by Open Food Facts, a non-profit
organisation set up 10 years ago as an online database of food products. There are more than three
million items listed, and anyone, anywhere, can add a product, as co-founder Pierre Slamich explained to me.
- So, you will take the picture of the ingredients list, artificial intelligence will extract it, and we will
recognise all the ingredients, and if we spot some markers of ultra-processing, then the food will be
labelled as so. Most products sold in supermarkets are ultra-processed, so it's very difficult to
avoid them. We explain in Open Food Facts, the ingredients that actually causes the food to be ultra-processed.
- It's not so clear, even with your app, to work out what is and isn't a good choice, though,
I found. I mean, for example, the sliced brown bread, wholemeal bread, that I'd bought, when I zapped
it with the app, it came up as being very good nutritional quality, and ultra-processed. So there's
conflicting information out there. - So yeah, it's a big problem, because foods that are nutritionally
healthy, that don't have too much salt, too much fat, too much sugar, still will have additives. The rule
of thumb is to try and get the food, if you can't find anything that's not ultra-processed, try to
pick the one with the least amount of additives. As a French person, I would say buy your bread
from the boulangerie, but if you go for the supermarket bread, look for the one with fibres, and look for
the one that have the least amount of additives. - I wonder, is there a risk that people get overly and
maybe needlessly anxious about what they're eating? I mean, I could have probably happily spent a good
couple of hours scanning everything in my kitchen cupboards yesterday. - So, there's no point in being too
anxious about it. Having a moment where when you realise that a lot of it is ultra-processed, and
then trying to do your own cooking if possible, trying to stick to the shortest ingredient list
possible, so anything above five to 10 ingredients is probably um a bit complicated. And be careful
about false friends. Some food will be packaged and marketed as healthy food, as authentic food, but
sometimes it can hide a UPF. If you don't recognise most ingredients, put it back on the shelf.
Pierre Slamich.
We made a programme called 'Do we need to talk about ultra-processed food?' in 2021. Then, we asked
Kate Halliwell, the chief scientific officer at the UK's Food and Drink Federation, which represents
manufacturers, how aware their members were of the term "ultra-processed foods". - We've of course heard
of it, so I'd say there is an awareness, but it isn't a term that we would use, and it isn't
something that we're kind of actively working on. - But plenty of other people have been working on it.
In 2022, the UK government's scientific advisory committee on nutrition said that it was timely
to consider this issue, since there was increasing discussion and debate regarding the implications
of food processing on health. It concluded that, while concerning, there are uncertainties
around the quality of evidence available, and more research was needed. We asked Kate Halliwell whether
the industry's position has changed. - Since 2021, we have seen really an explosion of publications,
I would say, in this space. We have also had a lot more media interest in this topic. So I think
that has led to generally people being more interested in it, as well as some confusions over
what it actually means, and what's the appropriate response for companies to it. So we have been
following the scientific publications that have been ongoing, and I think what's been very helpful
to us in the UK is that the scientific advisory committee on nutrition, their conclusion was that
the evidence-base, although there's a lot, it is still very weak. So as it stands at the moment, they
have not recommended that here in the UK we change our guidelines. - There are scientists out there who
I think would absolutely disagree that the evidence is weak. I mean, the US National
Institutes of Health carried out a randomised control trial, the gold standard of scientific
studies, and that showed a causal relationship between ultra-processed food and weight gain. So
there is emerging scientific evidence that ultra- processed food isn't good for you, but there's
debate about what might be going on, why that might be the case. - You know, there's still papers to be
published and actually what SACN, the body I just referred to, also said, was that what
was needed was more randomised control trials, or also cohort studies they call them, so they don't
think that evidence is there yet. Of course, in the future it might emerge, and if there was something
specific that was needed to be overlaid on top of the nutrition guidelines, then, you know, industry
would look to understand that, and implement it. - Are you not out of step with consumers who are
increasingly aware of the concept of ultra- processed food and concerned about it?
- So I think consumers are increasingly aware, you're absolutely right. I think they're both concerned and confused,
actually, as to what it means, because actually some foods which would be classed as ultra-processed
under Nova would actually fall within those healthy eating guidelines that government recommends.
So I think it is confusing, absolutely, and that's why I think for our companies it's right that we do
look to the scientific evidence, but we also follow what our government and our expert committees are
recommending that we do. - If scientific research in the future showed a clear causal link between
ultra-processed food and ill health, if there was more evidence that clearly pointed in that
direction, would the industry and the Federation respond by applying labels that identified the
food as ultra-processed so consumers could make an informed decision when they're in
the shopping aisle? - If evidence emerged, which it hasn't yet, but you know, science evolves all
the time, so if evidence emerged that showed there was something specific that needed to
go into our dietary guidelines, then yes of course industry would respond to that.
Kate Halliwell.
So it's unlikely that food and drink manufacturers will be flagging up ultra-processed products
anytime soon, and the onus will remain on the individual to spot it. Pierre Slamich is optimistic,
though, that people's buying habits could bring about change.
- In a perfect world, basically, food
would be clearly labelled front of pack so you would have clear warnings about ultra-processed food.
And that's the final, the eventual point of those apps. It's not basically keeping people captive
to scanning products, it's basically changing the formulas of the food offer, so that everyone
benefits and that there's systemic change in what we buy in the supermarket, that the default choice
in the supermarket become the right choices. We believe that if we mobilise, if we team up together,
we can force the industry to actually listen to the public, listen to the government, and it changes
the balance of power between the food industry and and the general public.
- Pierre Slamich. Jean-Claude Moubarac
has been advising the Canadian government on its food policies. Has he suggested a label that says ultra-processed?
- We haven't suggested that. - Why not? - I think it will be hard, because industry changes
its practice very quickly, so a label that we be implemented today might not cover some
of the ingredients that industry will come up in a year or two. - So you think food companies
would just reformulate a product so that it was just as ultra-processed, but um using perhaps new
ingredients that weren't captured in your original system? - Exactly. To me, it will be more meaningful
to raise awareness, and then people can make their decision to prefer food that are less processed.
That means cooking, and it's a huge shift in people's life, but I think it needs to start
by the understanding how food is made today, and to me a label will not be enough to cover that.
- Jean-Claude Moubarac. It's not always easy to know what is and isn't ultra-processed, and whether in
fact all ultra-processed food is bad for you. But our listener Jen knows one thing for sure: that
cutting down on convenience foods and taking the time to cook whole foods has been a net positive
for her family. - I'm not sure if this is something I'm going to keep doing forever, but I think what
I feed myself and what I feed my family, I don't see that changing, because part of it is just
this has become normalised in our family, that we cook and we make things from scratch, and we
like food that tastes yummy. - Thanks to Jen for getting us thinking about ultra-processed food,
and thanks to everyone in today's programme. If there's something you'd like us to look into,
do what Jen did: email [email protected] - We read every message we get. From me and the
rest of the team, Beatrice Pickup and Hannah Bewley, thanks for listening, and join us again next week.
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