Ultra-processed foods are everywhere.
They’re convenient, inexpensive, heavily marketed and designed to taste good. And while food processing is nothing new, the amount of ultra-processed food in our diets has changed dramatically over the past 20 years.
So, are ultra-processed foods really a problem for our health?
Yes. I believe they are.
But that doesn’t mean you need to avoid every packaged food or feel guilty about eating a biscuit, having an ice cream or grabbing a protein bar occasionally.
The concern is what happens when ultra-processed foods become a routine part of our everyday diet and start replacing the foods our bodies actually need.
What exactly is an ultra-processed food?
Not all processed food is ultra-processed.
Processing food is nothing new. Freezing vegetables, fermenting yoghurt, making cheese, baking bread or putting tomatoes into a tin are all forms of food processing.
Ultra-processed foods are different.
Using the NOVA classification system, ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made using ingredients and processes that you wouldn’t typically use in a home kitchen. They often contain combinations of refined ingredients, flavourings, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners and other additives designed to make the product more appealing, convenient, consistent and shelf-stable.
Think soft drinks, confectionery, many packaged snacks, instant noodles, some breakfast cereals, processed meats, biscuits, cakes, ice cream and many ready-to-eat meals.
But it can also include foods that have been marketed as healthy — protein bars, some protein shakes, meal-replacement products and sports or pre-workout drinks.
One of the areas that is of the greatest concern for me as a naturopath is the amount of ultra-processed foods on the supermarket shelf aimed at babies and toddlers. 85% of the products sold in the supermarket for babies and toddlers are ultra processed. What vital nutrients is your baby potentially missing by eating these foods?
And this is where it gets tricky.
Ultra-processed food isn’t always obvious. It isn’t necessarily covered in bright packaging and labelled as “junk food”. It can be marketed as high-protein, low-fat, gluten-free, natural, plant-based or healthy.
That’s why the front of the packet doesn’t always tell the whole story.
Why might ultra-processed food be a problem?
One of the biggest concerns is that these foods can be incredibly easy to eat in large amounts.
A landmark randomised controlled trial by Kevin Hall and colleagues compared an ultra-processed diet with an unprocessed diet. The meals were matched as closely as possible for calories, carbohydrates, fat, protein, sugar, fibre and other nutritional characteristics.
Yet participants eating the ultra-processed diet consumed around 500 more calories per day and gained weight, while those eating the unprocessed diet lost weight.
That is important because it suggests the issue isn’t simply that ultra-processed foods contain “too much sugar” or “too much fat”.
The way the food is formulated may itself influence how much we eat.
Ultra-processed foods are often soft, easy to chew, highly palatable and formulated to deliver a very specific combination of sweetness, saltiness and fat. They can also be eaten quickly, making it easier to consume a lot of food before our body’s signals of fullness have a chance to catch up.
And this isn’t necessarily accidental.
These products are scientifically designed to be convenient, highly palatable and difficult to resist.
What has been taken out?
There is another part of the story that I think is often overlooked.
When we take a whole food and turn it into an ultra-processed product, we often break down, remove or significantly alter the natural structure of the food.
The result can be a product that is higher in refined carbohydrates or added fats and much lower in the natural fibre, protein and micronutrients that would have been present in the original food.
Think about an apple compared with an apple-flavoured snack. They may both contain “apple”, but they are very different foods.
Whole foods come packaged with fibre, water, protein, vitamins, minerals and thousands of naturally occurring plant compounds. These components help slow digestion, influence satiety and provide nourishment for our gut microbes.
When we regularly replace those foods with highly processed alternatives, we don’t just add more ultra-processed food to our diet.
We also lose the nutritional diversity that comes from eating real food.
And this brings us to the gut microbiome.
What about the gut microbiome?
Our gut isn’t simply a digestive tube. It is home to trillions of microorganisms that interact with our food, immune system and metabolism.
A diet based largely on whole and minimally processed foods provides a diverse range of fibres and plant compounds that support a healthy and diverse gut microbiome.
In contrast, many ultra-processed foods contain very little fibre and are made from highly refined ingredients. They may also contain a range of additives, emulsifiers and sweeteners that can interact with the gut in ways we are still learning about.
We need more research to understand exactly how individual additives and ultra-processed food patterns affect the microbiome. But we already know something very important:
Our gut microbes need to be fed — and they thrive on the diverse fibres and plant compounds found in whole foods.
So when we talk about reducing ultra-processed food, we’re not just talking about reducing sugar, fat or calories.
We’re also talking about making room for more of the foods that nourish us — and our microbiome.
So should we never eat ultra-processed food?
No.
This is where I think the conversation can become unnecessarily extreme.
I don’t tell my clients they can never eat a protein bar, have an ice cream, buy packaged bread or enjoy a packet of chips.
Food is also about enjoyment, convenience, social connection and real life.
What concerns me is our everyday reliance on ultra-processed food.
Research from Deakin University has found that ultra-processed foods contribute around 40% of Australians’ total energy intake. That is a significant amount of our diet coming from foods that are highly industrially formulated.
If breakfast is a highly processed cereal, lunch is a packaged meal, the afternoon snack is a protein bar and dinner comes from a packet or takeaway, ultra-processed food can very quickly become the foundation of the diet.
And when that happens, it’s not just about what we’ve added.
It’s about what we’ve displaced.
The vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, eggs, fish, meat and other minimally processed foods that provide fibre, vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and thousands of naturally occurring plant compounds.
What should you look for when shopping?
You don’t need to become an expert at reading every ingredient label.
But there are some clues.
Look at the ingredient list, rather than relying only on claims such as “high protein”, “natural”, “low fat” or “made with whole grains”.
Some signs that a food is likely to be ultra-processed include:
- A long or complex list of ingredients
- Ingredients you wouldn’t normally use when cooking at home
- Flavourings or flavour enhancers
- Colours
- Intense sweeteners
- Emulsifiers and stabilisers
- Modified starches
- Highly refined oils
- Multiple forms of added sugar
- Ingredients that are primarily there to improve taste, texture, colour or shelf life
You may also see additive numbers such as 621 (MSG), 950 (acesulfame potassium), 951 (aspartame), 955 (sucralose), 322 (lecithins) or 407 (carrageenan).
But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that one additive automatically makes a food unhealthy.
Many additives are safe, and some are naturally occurring substances. An additive number is simply a clue to look more closely at the product.
It’s the overall formulation of the food that matters.
A better way to think about it
Rather than asking:
“Is this food healthy or unhealthy?”
I encourage my clients to ask:
“How often am I eating this, and what is it replacing?”
A packaged food eaten occasionally as part of an otherwise nutrient-dense diet is very different from a diet where ultra-processed foods make up a large proportion of what we eat.
And you don’t need to change everything at once.
Start with one meal.
Swap the highly processed breakfast cereal for oats with fruit and nuts. Replace a packaged snack with fruit and yoghurt. Cook a big vegetable frittata and have leftovers for lunch.
These aren’t complicated changes. They are simply about putting more real food back into the diet.
Small changes are often much more sustainable than trying to completely overhaul your diet overnight.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s to make real, nutrient-dense food the foundation of your diet — and make ultra-processed food the occasional extra rather than the everyday norm.
If you need more advice on what foods to eat to meet your nutritional goals book an appointment with one of our Naturopaths or Nutritionists at Elemental Health.
Naturopath, Nutritionist and Buteyko Practitioner at Elemental Health, St. Ives - Sydney.