The Ultra-Processed Epidemic

What ultra-processed actually means

The term "ultra-processed food" was coined by Brazilian epidemiologist Carlos Monteiro as part of the NOVA food classification system, published in 2009. NOVA divides all food into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods (fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs), processed culinary ingredients (butter, oil, salt), processed foods (canned vegetables, cheese, bread), and ultra-processed food products. That last category — ultra-processed — is defined by the presence of industrial ingredients that you would never find in a home kitchen: high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, protein isolates, emulsifiers, humectants, flavour enhancers, and artificial colours.

The key distinction is not how much processing occurs, but what kind. Churning cream into butter is processing. Extracting soy protein isolate, adding maltodextrin and artificial flavours, then extruding it into a shelf-stable bar is ultra-processing. The first transforms a whole food. The second manufactures a food-like product from industrial ingredients.

Ultra-processed food is not food that has been processed. It is industrial product manufactured from extracted and modified substances, assembled with additives you would never find in a home kitchen.

The American diet by the numbers

According to RealFood.gov, the U.S. government's 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines platform, 70% of an American child's diet is now classified as ultra-processed. Internationally, that figure is below 20%. The same source reports that 50% of Americans have prediabetes or diabetes, 75% of adults report at least one chronic condition, and 90% of U.S. healthcare spending — trillions of dollars per year — goes to treating chronic diseases linked to diet and lifestyle.

A 2024 umbrella review published in The BMJ analysed 45 pooled meta-analyses covering nearly 10 million participants. It found that higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with a 50% greater risk of cardiovascular disease-related death, a 48-53% increased risk of anxiety and common mental disorders, a 12% greater risk of type 2 diabetes, and higher risks of obesity, depression, sleep problems, and all-cause mortality. The authors described the strength of the evidence for cardiovascular mortality and metabolic outcomes as "convincing."

A BMJ umbrella review of nearly 10 million participants found ultra-processed food linked to 50% higher cardiovascular death risk. The evidence was rated 'convincing.'

Why these products exist

Ultra-processed foods are engineered for profit, not nutrition. They use the cheapest possible raw materials — refined flour, sugar, seed oils, and chemical additives — and transform them into products with long shelf lives, low production costs, and intense flavour profiles designed to override satiety signals. The food science term is "hyper-palatable": combinations of sugar, fat, and salt calibrated to drive overconsumption. A 2019 randomised controlled trial at the NIH by Kevin Hall found that participants eating ultra-processed diets consumed approximately 500 more calories per day than those eating unprocessed food, even when both diets were matched for available calories, macronutrients, sugar, fat, and fibre.

The government finally agrees

For decades, official U.S. dietary guidance avoided naming ultra-processed food as a category to limit. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines, published at RealFood.gov, changed that. For the first time, the U.S. government explicitly advises Americans to "avoid highly processed food" — including packaged foods with added sugars, artificial flavours, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives, and non-nutritive sweeteners. The guidelines define real food as "whole or minimally processed and recognizable as food," prepared "without added sugars, industrial oils, artificial flavors, or preservatives."