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Ultra-processed foods make up far too
much of America's diet, experts say
By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
03.17.16
Naomi Woods (left) eats lunch with her classmates at Northeast Elementary Magnet School in Danville, Illinois, Sept.
20, 2011. The curriculum at the public school is focused on health and wellness. Americans are eating a lot of ultraprocessed foods which are packed with sugar, a study says. Photo: AP/Seth Perlman
A troubling new report on America's unhealthy eating habits was released recently. The
researchers behind the study say they can sum up what is wrong with our diet in just
two words: ultra-processed foods.
Extra Sugar, Artificial Ingredients
Ultra-processed foods are those that contain artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners,
stabilizers and other additives. These additives are included to make a manufactured
item resemble real food, to hide unpleasant tastes, or to make a tasteless food
tastier. Ultra-processed foods include things like frozen pizzas, breakfast cereals and
soda.
According to the new study, ultra-processed foods make up 58 percent of all calories
Americans consume in a typical day. Calories from food are necessary, because they
supply the energy that fuels people's bodies. However, too many calories or the wrong
kind of calories can makes people unhealthy and overweight.
Most disturbingly, the researchers found that ultra-processed foods are responsible
for 90 percent of the added sugars that Americans eat and drink.
Extra Weight, Health Problems
Government health experts advise Americans to get no more than 10 percent of their
total calories in the form of added sugars. However, most people are not listening.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) have said
that 71 percent of American adults exceed that 10 percent goal.
All of that added sugar makes people more likely to be overweight or extremely
overweight. In turn, that sets them up for serious health problems like Type 2 diabetes,
heart disease, stroke and cancer — not to mention lots of cavities.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 75 percent of the sugar and
high-fructose corn syrup eaten by Americans is found in packaged foods made by the
food industry. So the researchers behind the new report decided to try to figure out the
extent to which the food industry was feeding America.
What Did You Eat Today?
To find out, they turned to information collected by the CDC as part of its ongoing
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which tracks the eating habits of a
nationally representative group of children and adults. The researchers focused on
interviews with 9,317 people conducted in 2009 and 2010. The survey-takers were
asked to recall every single thing they had eaten in the previous 24 hours. More than
280,000 food items were named.
The survey-takers consumed 2,070 calories per day, on average. About 28 percent of
those calories came from unprocessed or minimally processed foods, such as eggs,
milk, vegetables and fish. 3.1 percent came from cooking ingredients like table sugar
and olive oil. An additional 10 percent were traced to processed foods, including
cheese, canned vegetables and cured meat.
Cakes, Cookies, Salty Snacks
However, ultra-processed foods contributed more calories than all the other food types
combined. They accounted for nearly 3 in every 5 calories consumed. Breads, cakes,
cookies, pies and salty snacks were the most popular ultra-processed foods.
Overall, 14 percent of all calories could be traced to added sugars, the survey revealed.
However, some types of food were sweeter than others.
By definition, unprocessed and minimally processed foods contained no added sugars.
Processed foods got 2 percent of their calories from added sugars, on average. For
ultra-processed foods, that figure was 21 percent.
America Needs To Cut Back
Not surprisingly, the more ultra-processed foods a person ate, the more likely they were
to exceed the recommended 10-percent added sugar limit.
The researchers divided the survey-takers into five equal-sized groups based on their
consumption of ultra-processed foods. Among those who ate the least of these foods,
added sugar accounted for 7.5 percent of total calories. Among those who ate the most
ultra-processed foods, added sugars made up 19.5 percent of total calories.
The significance of these results is clear, the researchers said: If Americans are ever
going to get serious about reducing their intake of added sugars, they will have to cut
way back on ultra-processed foods.