Ultra-processed foods: what are they?
AUT stands for Ultra Processed Food. It is generally an artificialized industrial food, made by recombining various ingredients from the food industry with more or less real food. We find in particular as ultra-transformation markers (MUT) so-called “cosmetic” additives (such as flavor enhancers, thickeners, etc.), flavorings and ingredients from food fractionation, or ” cracking» (hydrolysed proteins, corn starch, glucose syrup, invert sugar, maltodextrin, fiber isolates…). Or, it has been transformed by applying drastic technological treatments such as blowing, cooking-extrusion… AUT is far from the original raw food, because its matrix is degraded and artificialized.
>> An infinity of TUEs: we suspect that barbecue-flavoured chips, surimi sticks, nuggets, soups in sachets, mashed potatoes or chocolate bars are part of the TUEs, but in reality, there are an infinity of TUEs since iThey now account for nearly 70% of labeled and packaged industrial products in supermarkets ! It’s hard to escape them: your sorbet with a pretty picture of fruit (ingredients: glucose-fructose syrup, stabilizers, milk proteins, colorings, flavorings): a TUE. This plant-based “fake steak” (soy and wheat proteins, corn starch, stabilizers, maltodextrin, flavorings): a TUE. Your 0% fat fruit yoghurts (with milk proteins, pectin, gum, sweeteners, flavourings): a TUE.
How to recognize ultra-processed foods?
Generally, its packaging is attractive… sometimes with claims such as “enriched with vitamins”, “reduced in fat” (or sugars), “gluten-free” to make believe that it is healthy. To know the true nutritional quality of the product, it is the list of ingredients that must be studied. If it has more than 5 ingredients, in at least 75% of cases it is a TUE. Ditto if you do not understand the name of the ingredients or if these are missing from the recipe you would prepare at home, such as this chocolate mousse which contains lactic esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, bovine gelatin, transformed corn starch…
Are there any risks in consuming them?
TUEs are generally nutritionally poor, and consuming them in excess promotes overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, depression, cardiovascular disease and cancer. As a precaution, we should limit ourselves to a maximum of 2 portions of TUE per day, i.e. 15% maximum of our daily calorie intake (300 kcal for a woman). However, we are in France at 35% among adults and 46% among children!
But all industrial foods are not to be put in the same basket, and you can choose better products: there are good soups, good dairy products, desserts or biscuits, and even good sauces or vinaigrettes! If we take the example of chocolate mousse, some contain only chocolate, cream, eggs and sugar! It’s necessary to be vigilant : a “healthy” food is not a nutritionally balanced food (none except breast milk), but an unprocessed food.
Can a Nutri-Score A or B hide an ultra-processed food?
Unfortunately, yes ! The Nutri-Score assesses the nutritional quality of a product based on certain nutrients and foods (fibers, proteins, sugars, salt, saturated fatty acids, fruits and vegetables, etc.), but does not take into account the degree of processing of the food, its additives… As a result, 56.5% of large-scale industrial products classified A or B are TUEs! The app that measures the degree of transformation is Siga, based on the Nova classification.
>> What is the NOVA scale? In 2009, the Brazilian research team of Carlos Augusto Monteiro, professor of nutrition and public health, developed a “scale of the degree of processing” of foods, NOVA, which is a reference throughout the world. – – – –
- Group 1 : raw or minimally processed animal or vegetable foods (pasteurization, for example), in which nothing is added: vegetables and fruits, fish, meat, eggs, milk, and these same products in their just pasteurized, frozen or dehydrated version. They are the ones who should be preferred.
- Group 2 : culinary ingredients extracted from natural products, which can be added to group 1 foods for cooking: salt, sugar, oil, butter, spices…
- Group 3 : industrially processed foods using products from groups 1 and 2, without adding cosmetic additives or breaking them down (artisanal cheeses and breads, salted fish, canned vegetables, traditional regional dishes, etc.).
- Group 4 : it is that of TUEs that must, if not be avoided, at least be limited as much as possible.
Our expert: Anthony Fardet, food engineer, author of “Stop ultra-processed foods, let’s eat real food!” (ed. Thierry Souccar).
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