Why we will never know the truth about super processed foods.

They are. Black beast According to many nutritionists – mass-produced foods such as chicken nuggets, packaged snacks, fatty drinks, ice cream or sliced ​​brown bread.

How many industrial processes UPFs have gone through and the amount of ingredients – often unknown – is indicated on their packaging. Most fat, sugar or salt; Many call it fast food.

What unites them is their synthetic appearance and taste, which has made them a target for some purists.

There is a lot of evidence that these foods are not good for us. But experts can’t agree on exactly how it affects us and why, and it’s not clear that science will give us an answer anytime soon.

Recent studies have shown many health problems including cancers, heart disease, obesity and depression Connected. As for UPFs, as yet, there is no proof that they exist. Caused by them.

For example, a follow-up study of more than 500,000 people in the US was presented at the recent American Dietetic Association meeting in Chicago. People who ate more UPFs were approximately 10% more likely to die, accounting for their body mass index and overall diet quality.

In recent years, several other follow-up studies have shown a similar link – but that’s not the same as proving it how Determining whether food preparation causes health problems, or which of those processes may be to blame.

So how can we get to the truth about highly processed food?

Dr Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in nutrition and obesity at the University of Oxford, points out that the type of research needed to definitively prove that UPFs cause health problems would be extremely complex.

It needs to compare many people on two diets – one with high UPFs and one with low UPFs, but it is exactly related for calorie and macronutrient content. This would be really hard to do.

Participants must be kept under lock and key to strictly monitor their food intake. The study should enroll people with similar diets as baseline. It will be very challenging logistically.

And participants in the groups had to have very similar habits to prevent people consuming less UPF from having a healthy lifestyle, such as exercising more or getting more sleep.

“It’s going to be expensive research, but you can see changes in the diet relatively quickly,” Dr Astbury said.

Funding for this type of research can also be difficult. There may be allegations of conflicts of interest, because researchers who are motivated to conduct these types of experiments may have an idea of ​​what they want the conclusion to be before they begin.

These experiments can’t last very long, anyway – too many participants will probably drop out. It is impossible to tell hundreds of people to follow a strict diet for more than a few weeks.

And what can these speculative experiments actually prove?

Duane Mellor, head of nutrition and evidence-based medicine at Aston University, says nutrition scientists can’t prove whether certain foods are good or bad, or what effect they have on an individual. They may only indicate potential benefits or risks.

“The data doesn’t show anything more or less,” he says. Claims to the contrary are “poor science,” he says.

Another option is to look at the effects of common food additives found in UPFs in a lab model of the human gut – which is what the scientists are doing.

However, there is a wider issue – the amount of confusion surrounding what counts as UPFs.

In general, they include more than five ingredients, some of which you will find in the usual kitchen cupboard.

Instead, they are typically made from cheap ingredients such as modified starches, sugars, oils, fats and protein isolates. Then they add flavor enhancers, colors, emulsifiers, sweeteners and glazing agents to make them more appealing to the taste and the eyes.

They range from the obvious (sugary breakfast cereals, fizzy drinks, slices of American cheese) to the unexpected (supermarket hummus, low-fat yogurt, some mueslis).

And this begs the question: How useful is a label that puts chocolate bars in the same league as tofu? Can some UPFs affect us differently than others?

To find out more, BBC News spoke to the Brazilian professor who coined the term “ultra-processed food” in 2010.

Professor Carlos Montero also developed the Nova classification system, which goes from “whole foods” (such as grains and vegetables) at one end to “processed culinary ingredients” (such as butter) and then “processed foods” (such as canned tuna and salt). Nuts) up to UPFs.

In Brazil, the system was created after obesity continued to decrease as the consumption of sugar decreased, and Professor Montero asked why. He believes that our health is affected not only by the nutrient content of the food we eat, but also by the industrial processes used to produce and preserve it.

He says he didn’t expect the current focus on UPFs, but says he is “contributing to the revolution in nutrition science.”

However, many food researchers say that the fear of UPFs is overheated.

Gunter Kuhnle, professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading, said the concept is “unclear” and the message it conveys is “negative”, causing people to be confused and afraid of food.

It is true that there is no concrete evidence that the way food is prepared today is harmful to our health.

Processing is something we do every day – chopping, boiling and freezing are all processes, and those things are not harmful.

And when food is prepared at scale by producers, it helps to keep the food safe, last longer and reduce waste.

Take frozen fish fingers for example. They use up leftover fish, give kids a healthy meal and save parents time – but still count as UPFs.

And what about meat substitute products like Quorn? Sure, they don’t look like the original ingredients they’re made from (and therefore fall under Nova’s definition of UPFs), but they look healthy and nutritious.

“If you make a cake or a brownie at home and compare it to a packet of high-flavors, do you think there’s a difference between the two foods? No, I don’t,” Dr. Astbury tells me.

The body responsible for food safety in the UK, the Food Standards Agency, has acknowledged reports that people who eat more UPFs are at increased risk of heart disease and cancer, but says it will take no action until there is no evidence against UPFs. It causes different damage.

Last year, the government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) reviewed similar reports and concluded that there were “uncertainties about the quality of the available evidence”. He had some concerns about the practical implementation of the Nova system in the UK.

Professor Montero is concerned about high-temperature processes such as breakfast cereal flakes and puffs, which he says “degrade the natural food matrix”.

This causes a loss of nutrients and therefore makes us feel fuller, meaning we’re more tempted to make up for the deficit with extra calories, according to a small study.