Why Ultra-Processed Foods Are Making Mass Headlines

Ultra-processed food – the often vilified, rarely defined food category – remains a hot button issue among better-for-you food industry proponents, market researchers and federal regulators. Let’s take a look at the sentiments currently dominating this discussion.

During the Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum this week, U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy human foods commissioner Jim Jones shared insight on the agency’s upcoming nutrition-based initiatives, but when pressed about its stance on ultra-processed foods, Jones evaded. He claims this designation is not a specific focus for the agency, but offered up that it has tracked “a massive overlap” between products high in saturated fat, sodium and added sugar, which are key pillars to its upcoming voluntary, front-of-pack labeling schemes.

But the lack of federal regulation only allows confusion to fester. According to Innova Market Insights, the definition matters. The food and beverage market intelligence firm published a report last week that found U.S. consumers “hugely underestimate” their consumption of ultra-processed foods, citing that 44% view this category as only fast food. Nineteen percent of consumers reported that they eat ultra-processed foods everyday.

Without clear guardrails around the designation, consumer perception of “ultra-processed” varied greatly, and increasingly so when assessed across generations. Upwards of 27% of consumers believe certain categories as a whole are ultra-processed – such as ready-made meals, cakes, pastries, sweet goods and sugar confectionery. Boomers in particular view ready-to-eat meals as ultra-processed while Gen Z is more likely to associate the designation with cookies and salty snacks.

The vast majority of Boomers (52%) believe these foods are under-regulated while only 34% of consumers feel the same way. Despite what they believe about this group, most Americans regardless of age – 50% of Gen Z and 60% of Gen X and Boomers – believe a scoring system for classification would be useful.

That definition would not only be helpful to consumers, but also to those studying and reporting on various foods’ effects on human health.

Earlier this month, a new study, published in European Health journal The Lancet, made headlines for pointing out a supposed link between plant-based diets and heart disease as well as other chronic health conditions. Publications such as Business Insider, The New York Post, Healthline, CNN and more all reemphasized this claim. The journal’s own website seemed to supported it as well, listing the following keywords – ultra-processed food, plant-based food, cardiovascular disease and mortality – in relation to the study.

But what many missed is how the authors defined ultra-processed. The researchers claim to have used the Nova classification system for defining what is ultra-processed or not:

“[It assigned] each food and beverage item to one of the four main food groups: 1) unprocessed or minimally processed foods, e.g., fresh, dry or frozen fruits or vegetables; grains, flours and pasta; pasteurized or power plain milk, plain yogurt, fresh or frozen meat; 2) processed culinary ingredients, e.g., table sugar, oils, butter, and salt; 3) processed foods, e.g., vegetables in brine, cheese, simple breads, fruits in syrup, canned fish; and 4) UPF, e.g., soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery; packaged breads and buns; reconstituted meat products and pre-prepared frozen or shelf-stable dishes.”

Among the plant-based diets associated with higher cardiac risks were plenty of products that most wouldn’t necessarily consider vegan fare, but rather plain old junk food – like fries, cookies and soft drinks.

The researchers even state in their conclusion that non-ultra-processed foods are “inversely linked” to cardiovascular risk – meaning plant-based foods falling in the unprocessed, culinary ingredient and processed categories actually decrease the risk of heart disease. However, most headlines only pointed to the second half of the study’s conclusions, which found that even plant-sourced, ultra-processed foods – like fries and soda – contributed to higher cardiovascular risk.

The common denominator here is ultra-processed, not necessarily plant-based as most headlines indicated. But without a widely accepted definition for ultra-processed, there’s little way for consumers to distinguish the nuance. The meat of these discussions boils down to the challenge of not having a clear definition for ultra-processed products – regardless of whether the item is animal- or plant-derived.

What does this category really constitute, and where should we look to put guardrails around it? Send your thoughts to adeluca@bevnet.com.