7 minute read
Ultra-processed foods
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 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?
To quote Bee Wilson:
What characterises ultra-processed foods is that they are so altered that it can be hard to recognise the underlying ingredients. These are concoctions of concoctions, engineered from ingredients that are already highly refined, such as cheap vegetable oils, flours, whey proteins and sugars, which are then whipped up into something more appetising with the help of industrial additives such as emulsifiers.
Ultra-processed foods now account for more than half of all the calories eaten in the UK and US, and other countries are fast catching up. Ultra-processed foods are now simply part of the flavour of modern life. These foods are convenient, affordable, highly profitable, strongly flavoured, aggressively marketed – and on sale in supermarkets everywhere.
Ultra-processed foods & climate change
Many ready-meals contain ultra-processed ingredients, and research has shown that their production results in 30-50% higher greenhouse gas emissions than home-made meal equivalents, and that is before plastic waste and transportation are taken into account.
To better understand the impact of ultraprocessed food on nature and the climate we need to look beyond comparisons of individual meals and see the impact on the farming system as a whole.
Brazil’s ground-breaking dietary guidelines emphasise the intrinsic link between ultraprocessed food and the outputs of intensive monoculture farming systems, which have driven so much biodiversity loss.
If shopping baskets continue to be filled with ultra-processed food, our farming system will remain fundamentally about supplying commodity crops to the global market, where only yield and price matter whilst nutritional diversity is lost and the environment is neglected.
80% of processed food is made from just 3 plants - soy, maize, wheat - and from meat. In the UK, farmers receive just 8% of the price of this food, compared to 92% for the processors, value-adders and the retailers. This leaves little room to invest back in the soil and in the ecology of their farms.
Reducing ultra-processed food in public settings
Food for Life is our programme where we set standards for the type of food that is served in schools and public settings. There is an ambitious target of 75% freshly prepared, unprocessed food at its heart, and today this is achieved by over 10,000 schools with two million meals served to this standard every day. Only with real food on our children’s plates can they make real connections with others and with nature through the growing, cooking and sharing of food.
We plan to link arms with other food and health champions and organisations to campaign first to overcome food industry resistance and get this recognised as a public health problem, and secondly to secure national reduction targets in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, with city-level targets possible as stepping stones along the way. That also means placing a priority on policies to make less-processed food more normal and rebuild children’s connections with real food.
The NOVA system explained
The NOVA system of food classification is widely used by the research community and increasingly recognised by national governments.
GROUP ONE: UNPROCESSED AND MINIMALLY PROCESSED
Unprocessed and minimally processed foods make up 30% of the calories eaten in a typical UK diet.
Unprocessed foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, beans, pulses and natural animal products such as eggs, fish and milk.
Minimally processed foods may have been dried, crushed, roasted, frozen, boiled or pasteurised, but contain no added ingredients. They include frozen fruits and vegetables, frozen fish, pasteurised milk, 100% fruit juice, no-added-sugar yoghurt, spices and dried herbs.
GROUP TWO: PROCESSED CULINARY INGREDIENTS
Processed culinary ingredients, include oils, fats such as butter, vinegars, sugars and salt. These foods are not meant to be eaten alone, but usually with foods in group one. Around 4% of the calories we eat in the UK comes from this category.
GROUP THREE: PROCESSED
Processed foods are products that are usually made using a mix of group one and two ingredients. They include smoked and cured meats, cheeses, fresh bread, bacon, salted or sugared nuts, tinned fruit in syrup, beer and wine. The main purpose of the processing is to prolong the food’s life or enhance its taste and almost 9% of calories eaten in the UK are from this group.
GROUP FOUR: ULTRA-PROCESSED
Ultra-processed foods usually contain ingredients that you wouldn’t add when cooking homemade food. You may not recognise the names of these ingredients as many will be chemicals, colourings, sweeteners and preservatives. The most commonly eaten ultra-processed foods in the UK are:
• Pre-packaged meals (7.7%)
• Industrially-produced bread (11%)
• Breakfast cereals (4.4%)
• Sausages and other reconstituted meat products (3.8%)
These are closely followed by the expected confectionery (3.5%), biscuits (3.5%), pasties, buns and cakes (3.3%) and industrial chips (2.8%)
Soft drinks, fruit drinks and juices make up 2.5% of the average calorie intake. Salty snacks make up 2% of our calories, as do sauces, dressings and gravy (2.1%).
(NOVA System source: BBC)
You’re giving children healthier food choices
This year for the second year running, our report on children’s food in England - State of the Nation — has made an essential contribution at government level to tackle childhood obesity, pushing for all children to enjoy a healthy, fresh and sustainable diet. We believe children’s food should be a political priority and will continue lobbying the Government to make this happen.
THANKS TO YOUR SUPPORT
As a member you are helping to make a difference every day. Your support improves the indivisible connections between the health of soil, plants and people. Thank you again for your
