Imagine picking up a bag of your favorite chips at a grocery store and adorning the front with a warning label indicating that the snack you have selected is “super-processed.” What does that mean?
There is no doubt that Whole Foods (fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, etc.) is a better choice all day, every day. Still, so many aisles in grocery stores are dedicated to hundreds, if not thousands, of shiny, packaged, ready-to-eat “food” items (of these products). Foods are quoted because many have zero nutritional value). Other countries such as Chile, Uruguay and Israel are beginning to implement nutrition warning labels on fat, sugar, saturated fat and high calorie products. Still, such a concept has not yet been realized in the United States.
But that’s exactly the commentary published in major medical journals these days. BMJ He said it needs to happen to protect consumers from foods that can be harmful to their health. The report, entitled “Warning: Super-Processed Foods-Calling for Warnings on Foods That Are Not Really Foods,” states that “Consumers are super-processed foods, that is, they contain nutrients but real nutrients.” Widely sold by super-national companies that offer non-genuine alternatives, not genuine food products. “
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In response to an interview question, Trish Cotton, senior advisor and global leader in the food policy program at Vital Strategies, one of the co-authors of the commentary, said: These packaged foods can’t be made in your home or kitchen, but marketing can make them very attractive and difficult to distinguish from healthier foods. “
Cotter and her team believe that consumers don’t have to spend time looking up all the nutrition labels and ingredient lists for products they buy in grocery stores. Instead, these potentially harmful food options should be labeled with bold “super-processed” warning labels to “enable consumers to make healthier decisions in real time.”
What’s the big deal?
Studies have linked a diet high in ultra-processed foods to an increased risk of heart disease, weight gain, cancer, and even death. Eating super-processed foods in moderation is rare, but studies show that high-income countries consume more than 50% of total calories from super-processed foods, and children and adolescents consume even more.
On the other hand, obesity, diabetes, some common cancers, heart disease, etc. continue to increase year by year, and some experts say they have reached a pandemic level. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the rate of obesity has nearly tripled since 1975 and diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980. According to WHO statistics, more than 1.9 billion adults (aged 18+) were considered overweight in 2016. Of these, more than 650 million were considered obese.
In addition, a recent study found that young adults who were fed a super-processed diet for two weeks usually ate 500 calories more per day than young adults who ate an unprocessed diet. People on super-processed diets gained an average of £ 2 in two weeks (some even gained more weight).
So what exactly are super-processed foods?
According to a report released by the Cambridge University Press in February 2019, super-processed foods are not “real foods.” They are “often modified by chemical processes and then assembled into highly palatable food and beverage products that are ready to consume using flavors, colors, emulsifiers, and countless other cosmetic additives. It is a formulation of food substances that are made by other giant companies. Their super-processing makes them very profitable, very attractive and inherently unhealthy. “
Addition of cosmetics such as flavors, flavor enhancers, colorants, emulsifiers, emulsified salts, sweeteners, thickeners, defoamers, bulking agents, carbonizing agents, foaming agents, gelling agents, and brighteners to super-processed foods. Things are also included. Basically, super-processed foods are low-priced foods and products with long shelf life that appeal to the senses of sight, taste, smell and touch. Some experts consider them addictive.According to the commentary from BMJSuper-processed foods are “foods that cannot be made in a home kitchen because they are chemically or physically converted using industrial processes.”
Dietitian Molly Henbury explains: “One way to think about food processing is how many steps you have to take from the farm to eating on a plate. To produce high quality products, make canned pumpkins, bags of frozen strawberries. For instant frozen strawberries, or whole grains need to be molded into spaghetti strands. “
“But if you add a lot of ingredients, you need to add sugar, sodium, fat, and more colors, flavors, preservatives, the food will move away from the” whole “form and become less nutritious. Often, “Hembury concludes.
Multiple sources have super-processed foods as carbonated soft drinks, cakes, cookies, chips, ice cream, candy, cake mixes, frozen desserts, ready-made pizzas, certain mass-produced breads, instant soups, packaged sandwich meats, hot dogs. I have specified. , more. The ingredients of super-processed foods include “various sugars (fructose, high fructose corn syrup,” fruit juice concentrate “, maltodextrin, dextrose, lactose), modified oils (hydrolyzed or ester-exchanged oils) and protein sources (hydrolyzed). Degradation protein, soybean protein) contains separations, fructose, casein, whey protein and “mechanically separated meat”).
For more information, see 8 fast food chains with the most toxic food packaging.
Which products should have the warning label STAT?
We asked them to give some examples of products that require a “super-processed” warning label to be printed on the front of the package. These were the items they identified.
According to nutritionist Amy Shapiro, this is a sodium-containing super-processed corn tortilla chip that is unhealthy, including MSG, vegetable oils, palm / soybean oil, artificial colors, and many non-complete / naturally derived ingredients. Contains ingredients. And that’s not the only tortilla chip on the market with such a terrible ingredient list.
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According to Shapiro, soda is a high-sugar product that “has zero health benefits and is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic health conditions.” She believes that soda is not only cheap, but also addictive and unhealthy, using artificial colors, multiple forms of sweeteners, and more.
“Sold as a healthy snack, this bar contains more than six sugars in one bar,” Shapiro warns. “Sure, it has’whole grains’, but it’s also unhealthy and certainly super-processed because it also contains guar gum and inflammatory ingredients. “
“This product starts with refined wheat flour and adds sugar, processed sausage links, artificial flavors, and other additives to make it a super-processed food,” says Henbury.
“Most of the products sold as desserts are super-processed, including this item,” says Henbury. “The main ingredient is sugar, followed by sugar such as high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup, followed by a long list of added oils, gums, colors, fragrances and preservatives.”
In fruity pebble cereals, sugar is the second ingredient and hardened vegetable oil is the third ingredient. “They use five different artificial colors and flavors,” Shapiro said. In addition, Fruity Pebbles contains the preservative BHA, which has been criticized for being carcinogenic.
Top Ramen is definitely checking the boxes in the super-processed category, Henbury said. And while trying to make top ramen bigger, talk about hungry artists and actors (look at you, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) is widespread, but this super-cheap product is a lot of suspicion. Made of ingredients. These include concentrated wheat flour, palm oil, food colors, silicon dioxide, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, hydrolyzed corn protein and more.
In addition to requiring warning labels for ultra-processed foods, Cotter and her co-authors are calling on government agencies and health food advocates to strengthen and regulate these types of items. In the meantime, there are things you can do to protect yourself.
Shapiro suggested choosing snacks made from natural foods such as pickles, hummus, nuts, seeds and trail mix. She said she had planned her in advance and it was best for her to pack her own snacks and avoid buying super-processed products.
Henbury said he aims to consume a minimum amount of processed foods on a regular basis. She also said it’s okay to eat super-processed foods on special occasions (everything is in moderation, right?). In doing this, she “helps fight obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses,” she said.
“We will continue to look for foods that contain less than five ingredients that look like what I can make at home,” Cotter said until the warning label was affixed. That’s the advice we give to others. “.
