Ultra-processed foods mark the crisis in today’s food systems, and a group of nutrition scientists is calling on the UN to adopt international policies to discourage both their production and consumption.
The call-published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ)-is being brought forward by Professor Carlos Augusto Monteiro, the creator of the NOVA system for classifying foods, and renowned American nutritionist Marion Nestle, among others.
Ultraprocessed foods, the worst evil
Ultra-processing of food is a harmful industrial practice of producing food with poor raw materials and exorbitant amounts of fat, simple sugars and/or salt (HFSS, High in Fats, Sugar and Sodium). And whatever else it takes to achieve high palatability that can cause consumers to become addicted to these foods. Often also rich in additives to improve organoleptic properties and extend durability.
Big Food
is a major player in the production and marketing of these foods in every corner of the planet, with a plethora of brands that trace back to a dirty dozen
Corporation
. In a logic of industrial finance focused on profit maximization, decidedly POP(Profit Over People), supported by predatory marketing practices towards children and adolescents (UNICEF, 2019). As well as by complacent pseudo-scientific studies, in conflict of interest ça va sans dir. (2)
Ultra-processed food, disease, and socio-environmental unsustainability
Serious and chronic non-communicable diseases-so-called NCDs(Non-Communicable Diseases)-are causally associated with regular consumption of ultra-processed foods. Obesity and type 2 diabetes, but also cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of premature mortality) and cancer, as shown by a large cohort study conducted in the US (Zheng et al., 2021). (4)
Children and adolescents are the population groups most affected, as well as being the most susceptible to the advertising siege that only the United Kingdom has so far planned to ban in relation to junk food. (3) The two sides of malnutrition in excess (of fats, sugars, and salt) and in deficiency (of essential nutrients and micronutrients) are in fact indicated as the primary causes of the
Global Syndemic
underway.
The socio-environmental unsustainability of these productions is another aspect that should not be overlooked. It is no coincidence that the first buyers of palm oil-an emblem of land robbery and deforestation in tropical areas-are the very corporations that grind profits on junk-food, as it turns out. Biodiversity and basic human rights give way to ecocide and the exploitation of even children, to harvest palm rather than cocoa and hazelnuts. Still waiting for effective international rules to affirm accountability and
due diligence
of Big Food and retailers. (5)
NOVA, how to classify foods according to their level of processing
NOVA is the system of classifying foods on the basis of their level of processing, more or less distant from the natural state of agricultural raw materials. Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) have shared this in various international fora, including at the FAO, as a key to identifying the healthiest and least healthy foods. 4 food groups are therefore identified as follows.
1) Unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Fresh foods such as fruits, vegetables, and meats consumed as is (raw or cooked), or subjected to operations to remove inedible parts or elements such as water (e.g., drying) to increase their shelf life.
2) Processed culinary ingredients. Simple foods, first industrially processed, undergoing the processes necessary for their use as condiments in cooking (e.g., oil, butter).
3) Processed foods. These are the foods that belong to Group 1, processed with few ingredients to be better preserved or to make tastier products (e.g., preserves, artisan bread),
4) Ultra-processed foods. Saturated in fat, sugar and/or salt, with a very unbalanced nutritional value and often with various additives as well. (6) The focus is on the latter, which are detrimental to health and increasingly prevalent even in Low and Medium Income Countries(LMICs) because of their low prices that are matched by very low quality.
UN Food Systems Summit, 2021
UNFSS-the Food Systems Summit organized in September 2021 at the UN headquarters in New York at the instigation of the financial oligarchies(World Economic Failure)-expresses a very bad example of the interference of private power in public policy, as seen. In any case, a dialogue on the sustainability and inclusiveness of food systems is planned on this occasion, with a view to the Sustainable Development Goals. (7)
The revision of food guidelines is one of the basic measures that should be promoted at this event, with the specific aim of increasingly encouraging the consumption of fresh and minimally processed foods. At the expense of the ultra-processed ones, whose production and promotion should instead be discouraged by special measures that Big Food has always hindered. Corporations should correct the nutritional profiles of their products still dominated with high fat, sugar and salt, such as
Nestlé-leaks
has just now revealed. (8)
Dario Dongo and Andrea Adelmo Della Penna
Notes
(1) Carlos Augusto Monteiro et al. (2021). The need to reshape global food processing: a call to the United Nations Food Systems Summit. BMJ Global Health.
(2) Nestle (2018). Unsavory truth: How food companies skew the science of what we eat. New York: Basic Books.
(3) Khandpur et al. (2020). Ultra-processed food consumption among the paediatric population: an overview and call to action from the European childhood obesity group. Ann. Nutr. Metab.
(4) Zhong et al. (2021).
Association of ultra-processed food consumption with cardiovascular mortality in the US population: long-term results from a large prospective multicenter study.
. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
(5) Seferidi et al. (2020).
The neglected environmental impacts of ultra-processed foods
. Lancet Planet Health
(6) Monteiro et al. (2017). The UN Decade of Nutrition, the NOVA food classification and the trouble with ultra-processing. Public Health Nutr.
(7) FAO (2021). Science days for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021
(8) Scrinis G, Monteiro CA. (2017).
Ultra-processed foods and the limits of product reformulation.
. Public Health Nutr.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in Food Technologies and Biotechnologies, qualified food technologist, he follows the research and development area. With particular regard to European research projects (in Horizon 2020, PRIMA) where the FARE division of WIISE Srl, a benefit company, participates.
