THINK of unhealthy foods and you might picture takeaways, fried foods or sweets 鈥� products high in fat or sugar. But a new idea says we should shift our focus away from a food鈥檚 nutrient content to how and where it is made.
Anything cooked from scratch in your own home is allowed, while food made in a factory, which is now classed as 鈥渦ltra-processed鈥� thanks to artificial ingredients like additives or high-fructose corn syrup, is frowned upon.
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Consider a pre-packaged loaf of brown bread. Usually seen as wholesome fare, its additives put it in the ultra-processed camp. Most breakfast cereals would join it, as would anything containing a preservative or a sweetener 鈥� which might include seemingly healthy things such as low-fat yogurt or shop-bought hummus.
According to campaigners like Chris van Tulleken (see How ultra-processed food harms your health and how to fix the problem), the high palatability of ultra-processed foods and the fact they don鈥檛 leave people feeling full explain the global obesity epidemic, rather than how much fat or sugar we eat.
While van Tulleken and others are vocal about their cause, we shouldn鈥檛 be too quick to tear up current healthy eating guidelines, as the supporting research is still sparse. But if it is borne out by further studies, what can we do about it? It is a real conundrum.
Ultra-processed food is an integral part of the food system in most high-income countries, and it is often the cheapest food. It is unrealistic to expect families simply to start cooking all their meals from scratch, and many people don鈥檛 have the time or the money to do so.
Instead, possible steps include changing food labelling and marketing rules to make it clearer that food is highly processed 鈥� which is already done in some South American countries 鈥� without raising stigma.
Above all, any measures should be road-tested in pilot studies before being widely rolled out. If the latest idea is right, current healthy eating guidelines have made several missteps. We don鈥檛 want to get it wrong again.
