Ultra-processed foods are created in factories. They are pumped full of inexpensive commodity ingredients that are exclusively for industrial use, such as protein isolates, modified starches, dextrose, etc. To convert the industrially manufactured foods into something edible, to prolong its shelf life and to make it look appetizing, multiple difficult- to-pronounce chemicals, preservatives, colourings, enzymes, binders, bulkers, flavourings, additives, emulsifiers, trans-fats and artificial sweeteners are usually added. All of these chemicals can upset our gut communities. The industry has got around this by hiding controversial ingredients under names and varieties that sound less deadly. So artificial colours are masked under E numbers, like E110 or E104, modified starch is called E1422 and so on.
For all practical purposes, a product is identified as ultra-processed if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the ultra-processed food group. These substances are never or rarely used in kitchens, such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, hydrolysed proteins, etc. They usually appear in the beginning or in the middle of the ingredients list. The presence of classes of additives in the list of ingredients also identifies a product as ultra-processed. They are at the end of lists of ingredients and expressed as a class, such as flavourings or natural flavours or artificial flavours.
So, going by the NOVA classification, instant noodles, ice creams, chips, biscuits, cookies, ketchup, cakes, sauces, colas, sugary drinks, candies, crisps, crackers, jams, jellies, instant soups and ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink or ready-to-heat, ‘fast’ or ‘convenient’ packaged products and the like are all ultra-processed foods, and it is not difficult to understand why.
I also want to talk about foods that are assumed to be healthy but are processed junk in disguise. Many products you may not have thought about are actually ultra-processed. For instance, you’d think that multigrain bread is healthy. But the front of food packaging can be very misleading and cannot be trusted. Instead, you need to look at the back of the label. I found multigrain bread from one of India’s oldest food companies packed with over a dozen or two undesirable ingredients. So, the multigrain bread that you toast up for a healthy breakfast comes under the NOVA category of ultra-processed foods. Mass-produced, pre-packaged bread is filled with junk, irrespective of whether it is whole wheat, whole grain or multigrain. A traditional loaf needs only four ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt. Bread that is truly healthy is the one that is close to the original recipe. It is no wonder then that according to the Supreme Court in Ireland, Subway bread is not legally bread! In October 2020, the court ruled that because of the high level of sugar it contains, Subway’s bread is legally closer to cake than bread! It cannot be denied that Subway’s slogan ‘Eat fresh’ fools us into believing that the food is healthy.
On the other hand, a samosa is often looked down upon as unhealthy and fattening because it is made from maida. As a matter of fact, when made at home, mixed with fat-burning spices like jeera, etc. and fried in good-quality filtered oil, the samosa is devoid of any ingredients characteristic of the ultra-processed food group. There isn’t any compelling reason to think of it as harmful. Not that I am advocating that one should eat samosas all day or every day. With regard to grains, a bowl of khichri, for example, sits at the top of the hierarchy, as it is packed with more nutrients than a samosa. But is a samosa healthier than the pack of mass-produced bread picked up from a swanky speciality store? Hell yes!
JUNK IN DISGUISE
Let’s discuss a few more apparently clean foods and try to interpret what their label says.
1. Nut milk alternatives: Cartons of almond milk, cashew milk lined up on the shelves of your neighbourhood supermarket scream ‘health’. But to thicken, emulsify and preserve the milk, an additive called Carrageenan (E407) is used. There is evidence that Carrageenan is associated with leaky gut, is highly inflammatory and toxic to the digestive tract. It has been found to cause cancer in lab rats.
2. Sugar-free delights: Ever asked yourself how the ‘sugar-free’ or ‘no added sugar’ desserts, frostings and sweets taste so sweet? They contain sugar alcohols (e.g., sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol). Though sugar alcohols are processed and commercially produced from sugars itself (such as from glucose in corn starch), marketers don’t need to declare them as sugar and can safely label the foods as ‘zero sugar’ products.
3. Gluten-free innocence: Gluten, the name of a wheat protein that no one outside the scientific community knew of 20 years ago; but today, everyone seems to know its name! I will address whether you should go gluten-free or not in later chapters, but for now, you should know that many of the gluten-free products are filled with highly refined modified starches (tapioca or corn or potato flour), artificial sugars, inflammatory vegetable oils, food dyes, food stabilisers and gums. Just because something is labelled ‘gluten-free’ does not mean it is a healthy choice; it is still ultra-processed junk food.
4. Low-fat miracles: Food products labelled ‘low fat’ are in reality high in sugar. They contain trans-fats and end up having a very similar calorie count to the original product. Here’s how: To maintain the taste and texture of the food that has been stripped of fats, manufacturers need to add or increase sugar in them. If you read the ingredients carefully, you will find that many low-fat products have as much sugar as a candy bar.
It should now be clear to you that what matters most about food is not calories or nutrients, but whether it has been cooked by a human being or a corporation. The quality of your food depends on who is cooking your food. The fact that there are often ingredients in the industrialised foods that don’t ‘have to’ appear on the label adds to the challenge of sorting the good from the bad. The thumb rule is to avoid foods that come in slick packaging with nutrition labels and long shelf lives.
Modern diets consist of these edible food-like products or ‘ingestibles’, as I like to call them, whereas long-established traditional dietary patterns are based on real foods that are minimally-processed and freshly-prepared. The benefits of the latter have been proven as well; let me illustrate with an example. Villagers in Burkina Faso, a country in west Africa, have continued to retain their traditional practices of eating. They subsist on a diet of mostly millet, sorghum, beans and rice. In 2010, a group of Italian microbiologists compared the microbes the young villagers harboured with those of children who were being brought up on Western diets in Florence, Italy. The study revealed that compared to the Florentines, the otherwise poor villagers seemed wealthier in a way that science is only now beginning to appreciate. Despite their relative material poverty, these villagers had higher microbial diversity, whereas a lot of these bacteria were found to be lost in the Western human microbiota. The good news is that the losses aren’t permanent and can be reversed by correcting what we eat. Eliminating ultra- processed foods and feeding your microbes with foods that your family has traditionally been eating over generations is an important first step towards this goal.
The excerpt is from ‘Yuktahaar: The Belly And Brain Diet’ (Penguin Random House India). The author is a celebrity nutritionist.