Designing healthier and more sustainable ultraprocessed foods

Abstract

The food industry has been extremely successful in creating a broad range of delicious, affordable, convenient, and safe food and beverage products. However, many of these products are considered to be ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) that contain ingredients and are processed in a manner that may cause adverse health effects. This review article introduces the concept of UPFs and briefly discusses food products that fall into this category, including beverages, baked goods, snacks, confectionary, prepared meals, dressings, sauces, spreads, and processed meat and meat analogs. It then discusses correlations between consumption levels of UPFs and diet‐related chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes. The different reasons for the proposed ability of UPFs to increase the risk of these chronic diseases are then critically assessed, including displacement of whole foods, high energy densities, missing phytochemicals, contamination with packaging chemicals, hyperpalatability, harmful additives, rapid ingestion and digestion, and toxic reaction products. Then, potential strategies to overcome the current problems with UPFs are presented, including reducing energy density, balancing nutritional profile, fortification, increasing satiety response, modulating mastication and digestion, reengineering food structure, and precision processing. The central argument is that it may be possible to reformulate and reengineer many UPFs to improve their healthiness and sustainability, although this still needs to be proved using rigorous scientific studies.

Ultra-processed foods consumption and health-related outcomes: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials

“…Strategies have been proposed, such as including these groups in food assistance programs to improve access to natural and minimally processed foods ( 2 ), as well as reformulating UPFs. However, this latter approach has been criticized by those who argue that it could legitimize and encourage the consumption of these types of products ( 34 ).…”

Hydration and Fortification of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) with Grape Skin Phenolics—Effects of Ultrasound Application and Heating

“…Hence, the fortification with GS phenolics could be applied to enhance nutritional value of bean varieties with a naturally low phenolic content or to those varieties that are subjected to large phenolic losses during soaking. Moreover, there is an emerging interest in the use of beans to produce plant-based foods as meat alternatives [41,42]. It is worth noting that many foods belonging to the new generation of plant-based foods are assigned to ultra-processed foods that contain low levels of antioxidants and high levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), whose consumption has been linked to an array of chronic diseases [42].…”

“…Moreover, there is an emerging interest in the use of beans to produce plant-based foods as meat alternatives [41,42]. It is worth noting that many foods belonging to the new generation of plant-based foods are assigned to ultra-processed foods that contain low levels of antioxidants and high levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), whose consumption has been linked to an array of chronic diseases [42]. Previous studies have shown that GS phenolics can inhibit the formation of AGEs [43].…”