Ultra-processed food (UPF) | TableDebates

Ultra-processed food (UPF) generally refers to one of the four categories of the NOVA food classification (see below) and are used loosely to refer to snacks and fast foods. NOVA describes UPFs as ‘industrial formulations’ of food products, typically mass-produced, that contain few ‘natural’ ingredients. Advocates of NOVA point out that UPFs consist of many additives and food-derived ingredients such as whey, protein isolates, and invert sugar, which are produced and combined through processes that are uncommon in domestic kitchens. They understand these foods to be designed so as to be so appealing that they displace the consumption of healthier, less processed foods, thereby generating high profits for their manufacturers. Foods in the UPF category include biscuits, mass-produced buns and breads, sweetened cereals, margarines and spreads, packaged snacks, ice cream, flavoured yogurts, soft drinks, powdered meals, ready-made meals, and instant sauces and stocks. Proponents of the concept have argued that the consumption of UPF is the primary driver of the global ‘pandemic’ of overweight and obesity while contributing to non-communicable diseases such as metabolic syndrome and certain cancers. It has been argued that the production and consumption of UPFs undermine social and environmental sustainability while perpetuating unequal power dynamics in the food system. Opponents of the concept have contested these claims. They argue that the concept is imprecise and groups together foods with different nutritional characteristics.

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Nature Knows Best? Naturalness in the Ultra-Processed Foods Debate

Is there a naturalness bias against 'ultra-processed foods'?

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The misted glass of a vending machine. Photo by Fredrik Ohlander via Unsplash.

Nature Knows Best? Naturalness in the Ultra-Processed Foods Debate

The idea that more natural food – food which hasn’t been transformed by human and industrial intervention – is best for us is a powerful one. Psychologists have found a strong preference for that which is “natural”, even when people differ in what they understand that term to mean. But naturalness is a muddle – we are often signalled by advertising to see heavily manufactured foods as “natural”; the pioneers of cereal manufacturing were the greatest advocates of “natural” food in the early 20th century; and it’s rare that crops, which have been manipulated by human breeding over millennia, are seen as “unnatural”.If naturalness is a slippery idea, though, it is still undeniably compelling. At the moment, nowhere is the preference for naturalness when it comes to the food we eat more prevalent than in concerns expressed over ultra-processed foods (UPFs). But does the idea that naturalness is inherently best set up a misleading dichotomy between nature and technology that doesn’t serve the interests of a more sustainable and equitable food future? Does a narrow focus on processing itself misplace bigger questions of power and agency on the one hand, and unhelpfully dismiss scientific techniques on the other? We explore these questions in our latest explainer, Nature Knows Best? Naturalness in the Ultra-Processed Foods Debate.https://www.doi.org/10.56661/f76228c7

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A flyer for the new TABLE blog "Nature, livestock & UPF: Reflections on food systems debates from Colombia" by Camilo Ardila Galvis.

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Letterbox, is the UPF concept useful and for what goals

Series 5: Is the Ultra-processed Food (UPF) concept useful, and for what goals?

It is hard to open a newspaper or lifestyle magazine now without finding the concept of ‘ultra-processed food’ somewhere mentioned. Based on the idea that not only a product’s content but the processes involved in its manufacture determine its health value, UPF has captured public attention. How useful is the classification, and what can its use achieve? In this TABLE Letterbox Exchange, Rob Percival, Anthony Warner and Mike Rayner were asked to consider in their debate i) the multiple understandings of the UPF concept, ii) the context and conditions of its successful or unsuccessful use, and iii) the relative goals and outcomes of i) and ii). The Letterbox will feature a total of nine letters. Read more about the origins and terms of the concept in TABLE’s UPF Explainer.