The sickly truth about 'ultraprocessed' foods

More than half of all the kilojoules consumed in the US diet, and nearly 90% of all added sugars, come from ‘ultraprocessed’ foods, according to research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Ultraprocessed foods are formulations of multiple ingredients: not only salt, sugar, oils and fats, but also substances not generally used in cooking, such as flavourings, emulsifiers and other additives designed to mimic the qualities of ‘real’ foods.

Mass-produced soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery and desserts, packaged baked goods, chicken/fish nuggets and other reconstituted meat products, instant noodles and soups are all considered to be ultraprocessed.

The researchers drew on dietary data involving more than 9000 people from the 2009–10 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), an ongoing, nationally representative, cross-sectional survey of US civilians.

They looked at the average dietary content of added sugars and the proportion of people who consumed more than 10% of their total energy intake — the maximum recommended limit — from this source.

Added sugars represented 20% of kilojoules in the average ultraprocessed food product — far higher than the combined energy content of added sugars in processed foods and in unprocessed or minimally processed foods and processed culinary ingredients, including table sugar.

A strong linear association also emerged between the dietary content of ultraprocessed foods and the overall dietary intake of added sugars.

Furthermore, the proportion of people exceeding the recommended upper limit of 10% of energy from added sugars was far higher when ultraprocessed food consumption was high, rising to more than 80% among those who ate the most ultraprocessed foods.

Only those Americans whose ultraprocessed food consumption was within the lowest 20% had an average daily added sugar intake that fell below the maximum recommended limit.

The researchers concluded that cutting back on the consumption of ultraprocessed foods could be an effective way of curbing excessive added sugar intake in the US.

Originally published here.