Living Earth: Policy
Ultra-processed food: Bad for climate, nature and our health Oliver Merchant-Hall, Supporter Marketing Officer I think we all have a food that we truly crave every now and then. For me it’s a certain brand of corn chips – those salty, crunchy triangles just have me hooked. But there’s a reason I can’t resist them. Like many packaged snacks their texture, consistency and flavour have been engineered to be moreish and downright irresistible. However, the finished product bears little resemblance to the original ingredients, and certainly has few of their nutritional benefits. In fact, many of the ingredients have been through so much processing they’re considered ultra-processed, and the final product is now classed as an Ultra-Processed Food.
Aren’t all foods processed? All the food that we eat has been processed to some degree, whether by chopping, slicing, biting or chewing. Grain is dried and milled to be turned into flour. Vegetables are washed and packed and might be frozen. Fish is tinned and beans are canned. Many processing techniques have been used for centuries to preserve and transform food, making it taste better and last longer. Food processing can support food security and improved nutrition, extending the shelf life of a product, meaning it can be stored or transported more easily. It can make food safer, and many processing techniques (such as cooking) enhance rather than diminish the nutritional quality of foods when eaten. However, in the past half century novel industrial processing techniques have been developed. The concept of ‘ultra-processing’ was introduced by a team of Brazilian scientists in 2009. Their idea was this: that the nature, extent and purpose of food processing shapes
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the relationship between food, health and disease. While there have been previous attempts to classify food types according to their processing level, the Brazilian team’s NOVA system of categorisation, which introduces ‘ultra-processed’ as a food category, has been widely accepted by researchers and governments around the world.
Public health Within five years of this research being published, the Brazilian government took the radical step to recommend that their citizens avoid ultra-processed foods entirely. To combat a steep rise in obesity, the new guidelines urged Brazilians to avoid snacking on packaged salty and sugary confectionary and to return to wholesome home-cooking, to eat with their families and to even teach their children to be ‘wary of all forms of food advertising’. Vitally, the level of processing was itself treated as an issue of public health, a stance no other government has yet matched. However, governments in Uruguay and Canada have changed their dietary guidelines to recommend a shift away from ultra-processed foods, whilst France has introduced a target to reduce their consumption by 20% over three years.
Over half our calories More than half of food sold in the UK is classed as ultra-processed. This year’s Peter Melchett Memorial Lecture – given by food writer and school food campaigner Bee Wilson – focussed on this drift towards a diet based on what has been described as ‘edible food-like substances’. But what really is ultra-processed food, and why does it matter for the climate and nature crises?
