If we are what we eat, then we are increasingly composed from substances including synthetic emulsifiers, flavour compounds, bulking agents and stabilising gums (one of the most common being a slime produced by bacteria). Well over half of the average diet in the UK and US now consists of ultra‑processed food (UPF) – or, as one scientist prefers to put it, industrially produced edible substances. Though defining it technically is complex, the simple explanation is that it contains items you wouldn’t normally find in a kitchen.
Sometimes UPF looks like junk food – obviously artificial and high in salt, fat and sugar. But it often comes in reassuring forms such as soup, muesli or yoghurt. “Almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF,” notes Dr Chris van Tulleken drily in Ultra-Processed People, one of several recent books on the subject.
This is despite the fact that, as he also notes, “a vast body of data has emerged in support of the hypothesis that UPF damages the human body and increases rates of cancer, metabolic disease and mental illness”. The problem is not only obesity: the greater risk of heart disease, strokes and early death with higher consumption apply irrespective of weight gain.
Produced by a handful of multinational companies, UPF is created to be cheap to produce and transport, with industrially derived substances replacing costlier ingredients and ensuring long shelf lives. It is also designed to make us buy more – essential in a system where businesses must keep growing to satisfy their shareholders each quarter. Global consumption is rising fast, especially in middle-income countries.
The impact is firstly on individual bodies, but through them on health services. This is a social problem that cannot be solved by telling consumers to check product labels. UPF consumption is not driven by indolence or greed, but poverty, intensive marketing and foods designed to make us keep eating: in one experiment, when diets were precisely matched for nutritional content, people ate substantially more on a UPF-only diet than on a UPF-free one.
Taking on big food is harder than tackling big tobacco has been. It requires addressing a broad range of products that many people cannot simply cut out. But it is possible and necessary. Henry Dimbleby’s 2021 national food strategy set out a bold and clear approach addressing both health and environmental concerns. Commissioned by Theresa May’s government, it has been essentially ignored by her successors.
Addressing poverty is central: when people can afford to eat more healthily, they generally do. Eligibility for free school meals should be extended – and the use of UPF slashed or eradicated in schools, prisons and hospitals. The government should ensure that people learn not only about the risks of UPF, but also about how to eat well. Marketing that targets children should be reined in and warning labels on products introduced, a measure that has proved highly effective in reducing demand for high salt and high sugar items in Chile, for example. This government has no appetite for action: it has shelved the ban on two-for-one offers on foods high in salt, fat and sugar in England, and delayed a ban on advertising such foods on television before 9pm. But intervention is needed to ensure that food consumption is driven by nutritional needs and appetites – not by financialised growth.
