Trying to cut down on ultraprocessed foods (UPFs)—or heavily industrialized food products—is clearly a worthy endeavor. An influx of recent studies has consistently linked eating these items with harmful outcomes (like heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes), putting their threat level on an upward trajectory. And yet, actually slashing them all from your diet can feel super limiting, given that an estimated 73% of the US food supply is UPFs. Not to mention, just buying fresh, whole, totally unprocessed foods would require you to cook every meal, which can be impractical. The good news is, there’s a middle ground: Plenty of foods you might think are UPFs are actually lesser-processed items that can play a big, health-boosting role in your diet.
It might seem like splitting hairs to distinguish ultraprocessed foods versus processed foods, but in fact, there’s a wide range of modification that food can undergo, and scientists think the differences are significant when it comes to health impacts. Most of the research linking UPFs, specifically, to bad outcomes uses a classification system called Nova to define them: Group 1 foods are the unprocessed or minimally processed items plucked straight from nature; group 2 foods are culinary ingredients like butter and salt mainly extracted from group 1 items; group 3 foods are processed ones that just involve combining the former two groups, sometimes with preservatives; and group 4 foods are the infamous ultraprocessed ones: industrial formulations largely unrecognizable from a natural source and infused with “cosmetic” additives to make them taste, smell, look, and feel extra-appealing. Examples include potato chips, chicken nuggets, instant noodles, packaged cookies, lunch meats, and sodas.
The research suggests something about group 4 UPFs is uniquely problematic, Samantha Cassetty, MS, RD, a NYC-based registered dietitian, tells SELF. Part of it could be their often poor nutritional value—which is certainly a factor that can make any food, processed or not, less-than-healthy (more on that below). But another theory is that the additives separating these items from their less-modified-but-still-processed counterparts could be to blame, Cassetty says, pointing to research linking emulsifiers, colorants, and non-nutritive sweeteners to negative outcomes. (Not to mention, these chemicals amp up the palatability of UPFs, making it easy to overeat them.) Hence the potential upsides of choosing those easy-to-eat bagged, bottled, canned, frozen, or otherwise processed items that fall lower on the Nova scale—versus going for ones that would get the UPF stamp.
Still, it’s important to know that “ultraprocessed” doesn’t universally mean “unhealthy.”
Two things can be true: UPFs aren’t generally great to consume en masse. And, also, the amount of processing done to a food isn’t always an indication of its healthfulness, Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, a New York–based registered dietitian, certified dietitian nutritionist, and author of Health Shots, tells SELF. She points out, for example, that both protein powder and infant formula are UPFs, and each can play an integral role in a person’s diet. There’s also research to suggest that certain nutrient-dense types of UPFs may not carry the same risks associated with the full category, namely breads, cereals, flavored yogurts and dairy-based desserts, and savory snacks. So the title of UPF, alone, is not always a red flag.
And for much the same reason, lesser-processed foods don’t always equate to healthier options. Sure, they might not contain potentially detrimental additives, but they could still have a not-so-beneficial nutritional profile, Maya Vadiveloo, PhD, RD, a registered dietitian and nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Rhode Island, tells SELF. She uses tortilla chips as an example: They’re basically just corn, oil, and salt—so they’d qualify as a group 3 food—but that doesn’t mean you want to go ham on them, nutritionally speaking. Same goes for something like butter, which is a group 2 item, but which plenty of research has suggested is best to consume only in moderation.
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