If you listen to any health or lifestyle podcast, or perhaps read the Nutrition and Fitness section of the New York Times, you’ll learn that eliminating processed foods from your diet is in the top 5 things you can do for your health.  But like any topic of nutrition, sometimes it seems like a tall order.  After all, processed foods make life easier, and even tastier, at times.  So someone needs to tell us WHY it’s so bad and clear up the confusion about what exactly we are avoiding.

The What

We’ve been encouraged to minimize our intake of processed food.  We’ve been advised to “avoid the middle of the grocery store.”  We are told to buy fresh, whole vegetables, grains, fruit, dairy, and meat. 

But what does “processed” mean?  Why is it bad?  If it is bad, why does it make up 73% of the American food supply?  If it’s so awful, why is there even a “middle of the grocery store” to begin with?

The Why

In this post, I hope to clear up the confusion of what “Processed” and “Ultra-Processed” mean, when it’s bad, why it’s bad, and maybe when it’s not. 

Just the Facts Ma’am

Most of the main ingredients of processed foods are the grains that the government subsidizes, like corn, wheat, soy and rice.  And because of that, food companies can sell them to us for cheap.  But they contain so much more than those grains, and that is where the danger lies.  Processed foods cause us to eat more.  Processed foods have been linked to disease.  Processed foods get in the way of our bodies’ instincts to seek out what it needs to survive and thrive.

What is a Processed Food?

Let’s start with how we define “processed.”  When health professionals say to avoid processed foods, they typically mean ultra-processed foods.  Let’s clear this up first.  Processed food is any food that has been changed from its original state.  If it’s been heated, frozen, blended, or extracted, it has been processed.  Certain “processed” foods, though, are not necessarily unhealthy for us.  For example, when you heat a tomato, broccoli or carrot, their nutrients become more bioavailable to us, and become healthier to eat than when raw or “unprocessed.”  Or if you make a smoothie, and blend fruit, yogurt and oatmeal, for example, the individual ingredients still provide health benefits.  As nutritionist and molecular biologist, Marion Nestle would put it, look at the ingredient list, and if you could make it in your kitchen, it’s not a bad option.  So processed, in and of itself, is not the problem.

The real concern is with ultra-processed foods or UPF.  UPF is what author Michael Pollan would call “edible food-like substances”or Brazilian scientist Fernanda Rauber would call “an industrially produced edible substance.” And these substances are what dominate the middle of the grocery store.  The layman’s term is Processed Food, but the industry and scientific term, and what the health professionals really mean is Ultra-Processed Food.   UPF, in addition to being altered from their original state, often contain chemicals you haven’t heard of that aid in shelf-life, texture or ingredient cohesion.  It is often flavored with artificial flavors to taste like something appealing.  Without these chemicals and additives, this “food” would not resemble, smell or taste like anything you would choose to eat.  UPF is a food impostor. Examples of ultra-processed foods or UPF include soda, packaged snacks, sweets and chocolate, ice-cream, cakes and pastries, packaged pies and pizzas, and chicken nuggets.

At a very high level, we can point to processed foods and conclude that perhaps its crime is that it supplants real whole foods from our plates.  So we miss out on the fiber, protein, healthy fats and a sufficient variety of vitamins and minerals that real whole foods bring.  But we are also replacing them with something that isn’t food at all but rather only “food-like.”  And while it’s deemed safe to eat, it’s not really a good thing to eat it.  Next question – if we also eat real whole foods, can we still eat ultra-processed foods? 

Let’s Jump Down the Rabbit Hole, Shall We?

Why is it so bad?  

UPF makes you gain weight.  Dr. Kevin D. Hall, a senior investigator with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), published a study where participants were first given an all-ultra-processed food diet while their counterparts received a whole food diet with non-processed and minimally processed foods.  Then the same participants switched to the other diet.  Both diets had the same amount of calories, fiber, fat, sugars, salt and carbohydrates.  They were presented with the meals, which were carefully created to be equally as appealing as the counterpart meals.  Then they were told they could eat as little or as much as they wanted.  The results – on average, when on the UPF diet, the participants ate 500 more calories per day and gained weight.  When those same people were on the non- and minimally processed diet, they ate fewer calories and lost weight.  This was across the board.  So something in the UPF was causing them to want to eat more. Further studies are needed to understand what that something is.

UPF makes you sick.  In a panel discussion about ultra-processed foods by the Center for Food as Medicine, Dr. Marion Nestle said, “since 2009, there have been more than 1600 studies with the term “ultra-processed” in the title, virtually all of them demonstrating that large amounts of UPF lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancers.  Now it’s depression, various neurological problems and overall mortality.” 

Dr. Fang Fang Zhang, a cancer epidemiologist and associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutritional Science and Policy at Tufts University, studies the link between UPF and colorectal cancer.  The results of her study showed that precursors for this type of cancer were more prevalent in subjects who ate more ultra-processed foods. 

UPF confuses your body that it’s getting what it needs.  Scientists are discovering that when we “crave” something, it’s our body’s way of telling us we need to provide it a specific nutrient or set of nutrients.  For example, when I was pregnant, both times I craved lemons. Lemons provide Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Iron and Potassium.  So it’s likely my body was low on at least one of these elements. If I consumed something that tasted like lemons, like Crystal Lite, for example, but that had none of those vitamins or minerals that lemons have, my body would be tricked into thinking I got what I needed when, in fact, I did not. 

“Nature endowed us with our most sophisticated bodily system because it performs the body’s most essential task, getting important nutrients.  By manipulating our richest and most direct source of pleasure, we have warped our relationship with the fuel our bodies require, food.”

Mark Schatzer, The Dorito Effect

So that is why we should be listening to our health professionals about avoiding ultra-processed foods. And don’t let the packaging fool you.  Buzz words like “all natural” and “heart-healthy” are a way to get you buy the product. In Chile, the public is pushing food companies to remove false claims from packaging.  Other countries, like France and Brazil, are trying to ban ultra-processed foods all together.  It’s best, for now, while American grocery stores still fill their shelves with UPF, stick with Dr. Nestle’s advice – if you could make it in your kitchen, it’s not ultra-processed.

A thought on policy

It should not be the responsibility of the consumer to distinguish between what will sustain us and what will make us sick – especially when food marketers are still allowed to make claims that are simply misleading and food manufacturers can continue to produce food-like substances that lead to disease.  What needs to change is policy so that what is presented to us as “food” actually is; that the flavors we crave actually originate in the food that is being sold to us. 

If you still arent’ convinced, think of it this way – when you eat a cracker and you enjoy the texture and flavor, realize that both of those were established in a lab.  Your body is craving food, but you are giving it something else entirely.

What you can do:

1. Read labels. No need to translate.  If there are real ingredients on there and nothing else, it’s generally safe to eat.  Pasta sauce with tomatoes, olive oil, oregano, salt, onions and garlic is a safe processed food.  Ice cream with milk, cream, sugar, vegetable gum (Tara), natural flavor – I’d avoid that one.
2. Don’t be manipulated by marketing claims like “All Natural” or  “Heart-healthy.”  It’s not what’s on the front of the box, it’s what’s on the back.
3. Work towards not buying any consumables that come in a box to begin with. (I know… I’m not there yet either) 
4. Keep it simple.  Don’t overthink it. If you think it’s bad, it probably is. Pop-Tarts are not a good option, even if the box says it’s made with real fruit.  It also has Yellow 6 lake, hydrogenated palm kernel oil and high fructose corn syrup.
5. Give your dollars to the companies doing it right.  Leave the bad stuff on the shelves – that’s a signal to the grocery stores of what to remove from our communities.