Exactly what are ultra-processed foods and what makes them so unhealthy?

Note: Recently, there was an odd PR push extolling the virtues and even need for ultra-processed foods. Topped off with a Time Magazine feature story in Aug. 2024, it looks like the very creative minds of certain public relations firms are going all out to keep Big Food’s cheap and unhealthy concoctions in our shopping carts.

The Time story, promoting RD Jessica Wilson, who experimented with eating “highly processed foods” for a month, claims that diet gave her “more energy and less anxiety.” How, you might ask? As Time tells it, “She felt better eating an ultra-processed diet than she had before, a change she attributes to taking in more calories by eating full meals, instead of haphazard combinations of whole-food ingredients.”

If you’re eating such “combinations of whole-food ingredients,” good for you. Keep it up. And read the story below to learn what Dr. Carlos Monteiro, a professor of Nutrition and Public Health in Sao Paulo, Brazil calls “The Ultra-Processed Food Group.”

*****************

What makes a food “ultra-processed?”

Apologists for Big Food are working hard to make us believe that (with a few exceptions) ultra-processed foods are simply the natural evolution of food processing. Bread, they tell us, is likely the very first “processed” food, originally crafted over 30,000 years ago. Then there are cheeses, beer, and fermented foods – all created by humans to advance how we eat.

But along with the introduction of more and more novel ready-to-eat processed foods (such as canned beans and grape jelly in the 1920s and breakfast cereals hitting the market in the 1940s), something odd happened to large categories of these items. No longer did they retain the basic identity of food itself, with some being made entirely of laboratory-created ingredients.

These new creations, later labeled ultra-processed foods, surreptitiously emerged around the 1980s.

Before this sneaky shift in how many “foods” were being manufactured was realized, however, the effects of consuming these items became quite obvious — a growing epidemic of obesity along with a marked rise in chronic diseases.

And despite the increased scrutiny these types of foods have garnered lately you won’t find any kind of FDA-sanctioned labeling or notice that what you’re considering serving for dinner may look like what’s traditionally thought of as food, only it really isn’t.

The ‘Ultra-Processed Food Group’

Investigations by Dr. Carlos Monteiro, a professor of Nutrition and Public Health in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and other researchers at the University of Sao Paulo led to a first-of-its-kind classification of processed foods called Nova in 2010.

Using Nova, Monterio and others published a paper in 2019 that defines what makes up ultra-processed food.

Ingredients characteristic of ultra-processed foods are either food substances of no or rare culinary use, or else classes of additives whose function is to make the final product sellable, palatable and often hyper-palatable.

Classes of additives used only in the manufacture of ultra-processed foods are flavors, flavor enhancers, colors, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, artificial sweeteners, thickeners, and foaming, anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, gelling, and glazing agents. All of them, most notably flavors and colors, either disguise unpleasant sensory properties created by ingredients, processes, or packaging used in the manufacture of ultra-processed foods, or give the final product intense sensory properties especially attractive to see, taste, smell and/or touch, or both.

Manufactured flavoring agents, such as MSG and dozens of other additives containing brain-damaging free glutamate are key indicators of these ultra-processed foods. And all of these additives that make a non-food look and taste like real food have been given free rein by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Monterio gives this tip as a way to ID ultra-processed foods:

Generally, the practical way to identify if a product is ultra-processed is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the ultra-processed food group. These are either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing.

The FDA has done its part to help in the proliferation of this “ultra-processed food group” by distracting consumers into reading its mandated and relatively meaningless nutrition facts label and declaring these toxic additives to be either “safe” or GRAS — generally recognized as safe.

Sadly, also making the Nova list of ultra-processed foods are infant formulas and “meal replacement” beverages for the elderly and infirm.

As Dr. Monterio said in an interview in 2023, the “main purpose of ultra-processed food is to make products that can replace real foods (to) amplify profits of the food industry.”

And when the food industry has friends like the FDA to help it along, you can bet the farm that more ultra-processed foods will be replacing real farm-grown foods than ever before.

Exactly what are ultra-processed foods and what makes them so unhealthy?

What makes a food “ultra-processed?”

Apologists for Big Food are working hard to make us believe that (with a few exceptions) ultra-processed foods are simply the natural evolution of food processing. Bread, they tell us, is likely the very first “processed” food, originally crafted over 30,000 years ago. Then there are cheeses, beer, and fermented foods – all created by humans to advance how we eat.

But along with the introduction of more and more novel ready-to-eat processed foods (such as canned beans and grape jelly in the 1920s and breakfast cereals hitting the market in the 1940s), something odd happened to large categories of these items. No longer did they retain the basic identity of food itself, with some being made entirely of laboratory-created ingredients.

These new creations, later labeled ultra-processed foods, surreptitiously emerged around the 1980s.

Before this sneaky shift in how many “foods” were being manufactured was realized, however, the effects of consuming these items became quite obvious — a growing epidemic of obesity along with a marked rise in chronic diseases.

And despite the increased scrutiny these types of foods have garnered lately you won’t find any kind of FDA-sanctioned labeling or notice that what you’re considering serving for dinner may look like what’s traditionally thought of as food, only it really isn’t.

The ‘Ultra-Processed Food Group’

Investigations by Dr. Carlos Monteiro, a professor of Nutrition and Public Health in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and other researchers at the University of Sao Paulo led to a first-of-its-kind classification of processed foods called Nova in 2010.

Using Nova, Monterio and others published a paper in 2019 that defines what makes up ultra-processed food.

Ingredients characteristic of ultra-processed foods are either food substances of no or rare culinary use, or else classes of additives whose function is to make the final product sellable, palatable and often hyper-palatable.

Classes of additives used only in the manufacture of ultra-processed foods are flavors, flavor enhancers, colors, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, artificial sweeteners, thickeners, and foaming, anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, gelling, and glazing agents. All of them, most notably flavors and colors, either disguise unpleasant sensory properties created by ingredients, processes, or packaging used in the manufacture of ultra-processed foods, or give the final product intense sensory properties especially attractive to see, taste, smell and/or touch, or both.

Manufactured flavoring agents, such as MSG and dozens of other additives containing brain-damaging free glutamate are key indicators of these ultra-processed foods. And all of these additives that make a non-food look and taste like real food have been given free rein by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Monterio gives this tip as a way to ID ultra-processed foods:

Generally, the practical way to identify if a product is ultra-processed is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the ultra-processed food group. These are either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing.

The FDA has done its part to help in the proliferation of this “ultra-processed food group” by distracting consumers into reading its mandated and relatively meaningless nutrition facts label and declaring these toxic additives to be either “safe” or GRAS — generally recognized as safe.

Sadly, also making the Nova list of ultra-processed foods are infant formulas and “meal replacement” beverages for the elderly and infirm.

As Dr. Monterio said in an interview in 2023, the “main purpose of ultra-processed food is to make products that can replace real foods (to) amplify profits of the food industry.”

And when the food industry has friends like the FDA to help it along, you can bet the farm that more ultra-processed foods will be replacing real farm-grown foods than ever before.

In case you didn’t know

In case you didn’t know, excitotoxic – brain damaging — free glutamate is an essential ingredient in all ultra-processed food. You may recognize it as the essential ingredient in monosodium glutamate (MSG) – which is itself an ultra-processed food. 

Ultra-processed foods: Little nourishment, lots of toxic amino acids

Although the typical U.S. supermarket contains a wide variety of packaged foods, that assortment emanates from 10 giant conglomerates.

These multinationals, such as Unilever, Coca-Cola and Mondelez, have their imprints on practically everything you eat. And more and more of these products are “ultra-processed.”

It used to be that food technologists designed processed foods.  Those would be whole foods that were canned, freeze-dried, or fermented, for example.  But in the 1980s ultra-processed food — products manufactured with substances extracted from foods or synthesized in laboratories — started to line supermarket shelves.

Ultra-processed foods are fractionated-recombined foods consisting of an extensive number of additives and ingredients, but little actual whole food.  They can be identified by the remarkably long list of ingredients – including many unpronounceable ones — found on their labels. According to a recent study, Canadians are taking in practically half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods.

Not mentioned in any study of ultra-processed foods, however, are the toxic ingredients added for color, flavor, shelf life (preservatives), and protein, along with low-calorie sweeteners. Free glutamate, the toxic component of monosodium glutamate, and all of the ingredients in the following list are found in both flavor enhancers and protein enhancers. And some say because they mask the taste of old or rancid food, free glutamate is used as a preservative as well. 

Names of ingredients that always contain free glutamate:

  • Glutamic acid (E 620)
  • Glutamate (E 620)
  • Monosodium glutamate (E 621)
  • Monopotassium glutamate (E 622)
  • Calcium glutamate (E 623)
  • Monoammonium glutamate (E 624)
  • Magnesium glutamate (E 625)
  • Natrium glutamate
  • Anything “hydrolyzed”
  • Any “hydrolyzed protein”
  • Calcium caseinate, Sodium caseinate
  • Yeast extract, Torula yeast
  • Yeast food, Yeast nutrient
  • Autolyzed yeast
  • Gelatin
  • Textured protein
  • Whey protein
  • Whey protein concentrate
  • Whey protein isolate
  • Soy protein
  • Soy protein concentrate
  • Soy protein isolate
  • Anything “protein”
  • Anything “protein fortified”
  • Soy sauce
  • Soy sauce extract
  • Protease
  • Anything “enzyme modified”
  • Anything containing “enzymes”
  • Anything “fermented”
  • Vetsin
  • Ajinomoto
  • Umami
  • Zinc proteninate

Names of ingredients that often contain or produce free glutamate during processing:

  • Carrageenan (E 407)
  • Bouillon and broth
  • Stock
  • Any “flavors” or “flavoring”
  • Natural flavor
  • Maltodextrin
  • Oligodextrin
  • Citric acid, Citrate (E 330)
  • Anything “ultra-pasteurized”
  • Barley malt
  • Malted barley
  • Brewer’s yeast
  • Pectin (E 440)
  • Malt extract
  • Seasonings

The following are ingredients suspected of containing or creating sufficient processed free glutamate to serve as reaction triggers in HIGHLY SENSITIVE people:

  • Corn starch
  • Corn syrup
  • Modified food starch
  • Lipolyzed butter fat
  • Dextrose
  • Rice syrup
  • Brown rice syrup
  • Milk powder
  • Reduced fat milk (skim; 1%; 2%)
  • most things “low fat” or “no fat”
  • anything “enriched”
  • anything “vitamin enriched”
  • anything “pasteurized”
  • Annatto
  • Vinegar
  • Balsamic vinegar
  • certain amino acid chelates (Citrate, aspartate, and glutamate are used as chelating agents with mineral supplements.)

Convenient, relatively inexpensive and heavily advertised, the future of ultra-processed foods seems to be assured (1).  And why not?  The FDA lets the people who manufacture ultra-processed foods declare that they are GRAS (generally recognized as safe), and the general public seems unaware that the fox is guarding the hen house.

Reference

1. Open PR Worldwide Public Relations.  Press release7/3/2019. “What’s driving the Flavor Enhancers Market Growth?  Cargill, Synergy Flavors, Tate & Lyle, Associated British Foods pic, Corbion …”  https://www.openpr.com/news/1794737/what-s-driving-the-flavor-enhancers-market-growth-cargill.  Accessed 7/31/2019.

Is your brain ‘switch’ broken?

There’s a “switch” in your brain that’s supposed to turn off your desire to eat when you’ve had enough.  Is yours broken? 

If you were born after 1957 and your mom ate a fair amount of processed or ultra-processed food, there’s a good chance you suffer from Type 2 Obesity — obesity that is:

◼ produced in a fetus by something a pregnant woman “feeds” to her fetus before birth,

◼ not caused by lack of willpower, laziness, or genetic deficiency,

◼ something you — and your health care provider – are probably not aware of.

It never pays to screw around with Mother Nature

L-glutamate, the major neurotransmitter in humans, becomes excitotoxic when present outside of protein in excess of what the healthy human was designed to accommodate. That excess is readily available to consumers who ingest multiple free-glutamate-containing ingredients during the course of a day.  They will be found in all ultra-processed food, meat and poultry substitutes, protein drinks, supplements, pharmaceuticals, and even Infant formula.

The “Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid” tells the story.

Reference

Samuels, A. (2020) Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid: a review, International Journal of Food Properties, 23:1,412-419, DOI: 10.1080/10942912.2020.1733016

In case you didn’t know

In case you didn’t know, excitotoxic – brain damaging — free glutamate is an essential ingredient in all ultra-processed food. You may recognize it as the essential ingredient in monosodium glutamate (MSG) – which is itself an ultra-processed food. 

Ultra-processed foods: The ultimate in bad eating

The Washington Post published an interesting article recently about ultra-processed foods: “What are ultra-processed foods? What should I eat instead?” by Anahad O’Connor September 27, 2022.

According to O’Connor, “Ultra-processed foods are extra tasty concoctions that we eat every day. They are also linked with chronic diseases and a higher risk of early death.”

What O’Connor doesn’t seem to know however, is that ultra-processed foods also contribute to the obesity crisis that followed the 1957 introduction of the mass-produced excitotoxic – brain damaging – free glutamate component of MSG developed specifically for use in food, see: http://truthinlabeling.org/blog/2023/02/14/a-short-explanation-of-the-obesity-epidemic/