Foody
by Jill-Ann Ouellette
You may have heard about the risks of consuming so-called ultra-processed food, or UPF. It’s been in the news because California’s Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order due to growing concern about UPFs and health hazards. He is requiring state agencies to “crack down on ultra–processed foods and further investigate food dyes.” So, if your New Year’s Resolution for 2025 is to lose weight or cutting back on UPF consumption, you’re not alone.
What Are Ultra–Processed Foods?
Let’s start with processed foods; any food item that has been canned, cooked, frozen, pasteurized, or packaged, which can be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet. The term “ultra-processed” includes the kinds of packaged treats loved by nearly everyone, particularly kids: fruit-flavored yogurt, granola and other snack bars, breakfast cereal, frozen dinners, deli meats, energy drinks and soda, and other packaged foods. Often these items are loaded with salt, sugar, additives, and preservatives, which can harm your health.
To further define Ultra-Processed Foods, they contain ingredients not normally found in a home kitchen and chemicals whose names most people can’t pronounce, such as artificial flavors, colorants, and sweeteners, preservatives, thickeners, stabilizers, and emulsifiers. These taste enhancers, sometimes called excitotoxins, may even be addictive. It’s not surprising they’re considered unhealthy to consume in large quantities. Study after study links the consumption of UPFs to a higher risk of health problems, such as:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Obesity
- Some types of cancer
- High blood pressure
- Depression and anxiety
- Cognitive decline
- Early death!
But these foods, with their bright, fun packaging, novel taste sensations, and sheer convenience, can be the toughest to resist.
Start 2025 with Fresh Food!
The thought of swapping out those easy snack-time treats for simpler, less processed whole foods can seem overwhelming. Here are a few tips to help you get started. Pick any one of them and give it a go!
1. Avoid Going Cold Turkey
The all-or-nothing changes in your diet don’t generally yield lasting changes to your lifestyle—it’s unlikely most people will be successful going cold turkey. Consider reducing the amount of UPFs by half or let yourself eat them on the weekends only.
2. Fill Up Your Plate with Unprocessed or Less-Processed Foods
Try some beans or lentils, whole grains, fresh fruit, and vegetables. You’ll have less appetite for UPF and before long, your desire for them will subside. Cook at home and prepare your meals instead of eating out. Avoid eating pre-packaged snacks. Make your own versions of processed foods, like healthier granola, breads, and salad dressings.
3. Swap Refined Grains for Whole Grains
Switch out those refined grains, like white pasta, white rice, white bread, and tortillas, for whole-grain alternatives, such as brown rice, whole-grain pasta, sprouted-grain bread, and whole-grain tortillas. Top your salads with nuts or seeds instead of croutons. Trade your sugary breakfast cereal for a bowl of oatmeal with fresh fruit. But definitely skip the sugary donuts and pastries!
Not only are whole grains higher in important nutrients, like fiber, but research also shows they can protect against conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.
Kids may resist any “new” version of their favorites at first, and that’s OK. It’s even more important to avoid black-and-white thinking about what your children eat and instead focus on incremental change, since their developing bodies make them particularly vulnerable to toxic chemicals that can harm their health.
4. Cut Down on Fizzy Drinks (or Avoid Them Entirely)
Sugary drinks such as soda contain a huge amount of sugar. A 12-ounce soda contains more than what’s recommended daily for women and about the same amount recommended for men.
Artificial sweeteners have been associated with a wide range of health harms, so diet soft drinks bring their own risks. Plus, studies show that these drinks may be counterproductive—they can lead to weight gain. Do what you can to cut back on sugary and artificially-sweetened drinks, especially how much you give your kids.
The best beverage is plain water, maybe with a splash of lemon or lime. Herbal tea and carbonated water are good choices, too. For some variety, you can infuse water with fresh fruit, a cucumber, or herbs.
5. Snack Better
Even “healthy” snacks, like some yogurts and granola bars, aren’t great for eating at the playground or during a shopping trip. Fruit-sweetened yogurt from the grocery store, for instance, is often ultra-processed, containing harmful food chemicals, including artificial colorants, other “natural flavors,” and lots of sugar.
Keep healthy snacks on hand, add chopped fruit, honey, jam or nuts to plain yogurt. Keeping your kitchen stocked with plenty of portable, nutritious snacks can make it much easier to make healthy choices on the go. If you have extra time, you can also prep some simple snacks in advance. Hard-boiled eggs, turkey roll-ups, cheese sticks, your own air-popped popcorn, homemade kale chips, and overnight oats are a few great treats that you can whip up quickly and keep on hand for the week.
Cut-up fresh fruit or vegetables in baggies in the fridge. Nuts and whole-grain crackers are also great portable snacks.
6. Read Ingredients Labels
It’s important to know what you’re eating, and that’s often spelled out on ingredients lists. Look for and avoid heavy saturated fat, sodium, and sugar.
Focus on products with ingredients whose names you recognize. In general, it’s best to avoid foods containing stabilizers and preservatives, as well as artificial colors, flavors, textures, and sweeteners, among other chemicals. This is especially true of products in a few specific categories, such as processed meat, instant soups, pizza, and other frozen foods.
7. Make Changes Gradually
As with any new habit, change is most successful when it’s incremental. Don’t try to overhaul the way you eat overnight. Consider making just one of these changes. Give yourself time to adjust to new habits before tackling another idea on the list. You can slowly cut back on ultra-processed foods, eliminating one item at a time, or their frequency of consumption.
What’s Ahead for UPF?
There shouldn’t be any question about whether our food contains toxic chemicals. But the federal government has failed to protect us, allowing companies to approve harmful food chemicals without oversight from the Food and Drug Administration. No matter who you voted for back in November, let’s keep an open mind about the future of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, because being healthy goes beyond politics.
In response, states are stepping into the regulatory gap, and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) organization is supporting them every step of the way. They successfully led efforts with Gavin Newsom to ban artificial food dyes in California, setting an important precedent for other states.
And manufacturers are making formulation changes under market pressure fueled by the groundswell of skepticism about UPFs. Many manufacturers are already making healthy, less-processed versions of their products that are shipped to Europe, which has stricter regulations on ingredients. My hope is that the U.S. will quickly have these healthier products on our grocery store shelves.
What You Can Easily Do
If you’re uncertain about what to eat and what to avoid, check out the online resources at the Environmental Working Group. They have a great tip sheet, “Dirty Dozen Food Chemicals,” that offers a list of the 12 worst substances to avoid.
Change your Shopping Routine.
It’s much easier to limit your intake of UPFs when you don’t have any on hand. Next time you go to the store, fill your cart with healthy, minimally-processed ingredients, like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.
Try Prepping Meals Ahead.
Preparing meals in large batches once or twice a week ensures that plenty of nutritious meals are ready in your fridge, even when you’re too busy to cook. It can also make it much less tempting to run through the drive-through on your way home, ordering pizza delivery, or turn to frozen convenience meals when you’re pressed for time.
Eat More Vegetables.
When you’re preparing meals at home, include at least one serving of vegetables to increase your intake of healthy, unprocessed food. This can be as easy as adding spinach to your scrambled eggs, sautéing broccoli for a simple side dish, or tossing carrots or cauliflower into soups or casseroles. Veggies are highly nutritious and a great source of fiber.
Eat Less Processed Meat.
I know no one wants to here this but bacon, sausage, lunchmeat, and hot dogs are associated with several downsides and are even classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. [Healthline.com] You can swap these foods for less processed meats like chicken, salmon, or turkey.
You can also substitute packaged lunchmeats for other sandwich fillings, such as tuna salad, chicken breast, or hard-boiled eggs, or you can eat more plant-based proteins like beans, lentils, tofu, or tempeh.
Try experimenting with just one or two of the strategies listed above each week, then gradually implement more. Remember that you can still enjoy dining out or eating processed foods once in a while, in moderation, as part of a healthy and balanced diet.