Ultra-Processed Foods

There is a growing body of information showing that foods that are heavily processed are probably bad for our health in a variety of ways.

The term ‘ultra-processed’ is used to describe foods where industrial scale processing has affected the nature of the product in a detrimental way.

Typically, ultra-processed foods contain ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen and have been processed in ways not usually possible at home.

Emails are appearing that may be from well meaning people but contain simple mistakes e.g.

“Ultra-processed such as snack cakes, fast food, frozen meals, canned foods and chips”  Not true.

Many snack cakes are ultra-processed, so is a lot of fast food and frozen meals but by no means all of it.

However, chips from a fast food fish and chip shop are simply cut potato fried in oil – probably unhealthy for other reasons but not ultra-processed. Even oven chips are simply cut potato par boiled and coated with a little flour and spice – again, these are not ultra processed.

Canned vegetables are generally regarded as minimally processed but its worth reading the label to see if anything unexpected has been added in the canning process.

Eat healthily but check on whether items are actually ultra processed and don’t accept lists that are too general and contain entries such as “all canned foods”.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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