What we mean by good food
Well-Fed has always worked with fresh food. Right now, in a cost-of-living crisis, people increasingly turn to food with a longer life span — UPF. Food that is cheapest, that they think will last longer, but is full of chemicals,
as noted by Commissioner for Future Generations, Derek Walker.
We need to forget everything we thought we know about food: forget about so-called ‘healthy’ labelling and mass-produced food with low-fat ingredients and substitutes — this has nothing to do with health. Emerging studies on the impact of this food show its impact on health, particularly in children. And much of the UPF we’ve had marketed to us over the last 30 years includes numerous health claims, about its low fat, salt or protein levels. We think we’re eating healthily, yet we’re not.Well-Fed will be the first food business in the UK to remove ultra-processed food from its meals.
UPFs — a background
A team of Brazilian researchers led by Carlos Monteiro noticed the paradox of obesity soaring whilst people were generally buying less oil and sugar. Monteiro created the Nova system of food classification, categorising foods dependent on their level of processing, rather than their nutrient value. Their work led the Brazilian Government to take the radical step of advising its citizens to avoid ultra-processed foods (UPF) outright, in 2014.
The children predominantly affected by UPFs were those bringing packed lunches, secondary schoolchildren and those from lower income households. However, meals provided by schools are not yet considered ‘optimal’. A study by a team of researchers in Maryland, led by Kevin Hall, confirmed the Brazilian scientists’ theory — yet also noted spending 40% more money buying food for the trial participants’ unprocessed diets. Although the trial was set up to match calorific intake on both ultra-processed and the relatively unprocessed diets, participants in fact ate 500 extra calories a day whilst on the UPF diet, when told to eat as much or as little as they liked.
UPF is part of a financialised food system whose purpose is profit, rather than good health. Food is designed to drive consumption of UPFs, to the level where it has now become a widespread ‘addiction’, ingrained in our lives.
What is ultra-processed food?
The most widely-used food classification system, Nova, outlines ultra processed foods (UPF) as foods made up of ingredients ‘typically created by a series of industrial techniques and processes’ (Monteiro, et al, 2019).
Simply, food is ultra processed if:
- it has more than five ingredients that you did not add yourself
- sugar is one of the first three listed ingredients
- it’s got ingredients you find difficult to pronounce
- it’s not in your kitchen to help you cook from fresh
There are also lots of myths around ultra-processed food. Some of these focus on calories, such as that all calories are equal or that low calorie foods are better for you. You may hear that artificial sweeteners and vitamin-supplemented foods are good, or that high levels of processing is harmless. None of these are true.
Ultra processing kills or damages all that is good for us in food.To counter, food companies add vitamins that are useless to our bodies, so a UPF-heavy diet can have significant impacts on our health. A one-month diet of UPF changes a child’s brain structure forever.
A regular diet of UPF increases cancer risk by 10%, dementia by 26%and Alzheimer’s by 14%. There is an increased chance of heart attacks and strokes, diabetes, depression and irritable bowel syndrome, and early death up by 26%.
The figures and evidence are staggering. So what do we do?
Dr. Chris van Tulleken is leading the campaign to raise awareness of ultra-processed foods and their impact.He is an infectious diseases doctor at UniversityCollege London Hospital and one of the BBC’s leading science presenters, investigating the impact ultra-processed foods have on children, in What Are We Feeding Our Kids? for BBC One. He released the book Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food… and Why Can’t We Stop? in 2023.
Van Tulleken points out that, by 2023, our food industry has undergone 50 years of iterative processing, yet UPFs are ‘responsible for pandemic obesity’ at population level (57% in the UK, over 60%US and more for children). In both the UK and US, more than half of calories (on average) come fromUPF, yet we’re only just beginning to understand the how ultra-processed foods damage our health. But the good news is, we can undo damage from UPF by offering better food alternatives and creating a more responsible supply chain.
Whilst the term ‘processed’ may be confusing, in an industry that regularly cuts, cooks, smokes, grinds and salts food (none of which are considered ‘ultra’ processes), he demonstrates how margarine became the first UPF, a practice which has now spread to staples including bread, condiments, sandwiches — even vegan and organic produce. “If there’s a health claim on the packet, it’s almost certainly UPF” he cautions.
He highlights five key ways to identify ultra-processed foods:
- Read the ingredients
- Look for names like emulsifiers, humectants, stabilisers and gums — like xantham, guaror locus bean gum — or healthy-sounding ingredients, like fruit concentrates or natural flavourings and natural low calorie sweetener.
- They are signs of lots of other processing and design technology in foods, he says.
2. Keep on eating it
- Once you’ve been alerted to the types of ingredients you find in UPFs, you’ll notice them everywhere– even in things you thought were healthy.
- This is a powerful response, he says, noted in areas like stopping smoking. You’ll find you enjoy them less as you learn more about them.
3. Don’t worry too much about fats, salt and sugar
- When you’re eating real food, your body will take care of the intake of this intake pretty well.
4. Start to learn how the additives affect your health
- Although we know in the UK that the additives we eat are non-toxic, we don’t know what impact they have on our long-term health.
- And we don’t yet know what happens when additives are combined.
5. What can you do about it?
- Van Tulleken acknowledges that, for many people,UPF is the only available and affordable food. Not only that, but — in many cases — it’s marketed asa healthy food. It’s vital that we don’t stigmatise people for eating ultra-processed foods.
- He suggests we look to governments, doctors and scientists to stop colluding with food companies in their practice of supplying food that is both harmful and addictive.
Our solution is to subsidise the availability of fresh meals, so everyone — regardless of income — can afford to eat healthier and well. We already do this and others, such as supermarkets, could do the same. However, the most potent way of changing a poor food culture into a good one is for Government to legislate for a subsidy to be applied to a recognised ‘healthier shopping basket’, available to everyone. This can be done and we know how to doit; remember Government, took the subsidy route for the utility crisis, so the precedent is there.
In coming years, the UPF industry will be recognised in the same category as tobacco companies. As evidence mounts on the health costs of ultra-processed food, governments will be forced to take action against the financialised growth of unhealthy food producers.
Banning UPFs
Well-Fed has made the commitment to remove all ultra-processed foods from our meals, and calls on the Welsh Government to ban them in schools within the next three years in line with the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
The Senedd Cymru has the legislative competence to pass laws in relation to most aspects of food and drink. The Welsh Government has recently announced it is putting new legislation in place to restrict the placement and promotion of products high in fat, sugar and salt. While the central government Food Standards Agency (FSA)is ultimately responsible for food regulation and policy across the UK, responsibilities have been devolved to Wales for policy on nutrition health claims and nutrition labelling. The policy areas for food and feed safety and hygiene, and food compositional standards and labelling still sit with the FSA.
This has seen the creation of independent food advisory committees for food safety and standards issues in Wales. Local authorities deliver public protection services locally, applying policy and legislation to protect and promote public health, wellbeing and prosperity. They deliver official controls in most food businesses.
In October 2023, researchers writing in the British Medical Journal revealed that addiction to ultra-processed foods could already be appearing in one in seven adults and one in eight children, prompting calls for some products to be labelled as addictive. Consuming such foods could “meet the criteria for diagnosis of substance use disorder,” they reported, based on analysis of 281 studies from 36 different countries.
Our approach contributes to wider public health outcomes.
The House of Lords Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee examined the relationship between food supply and health in the UK in 2020. Its report ‘Hungry for Change’, argues that the UK’s food system is ‘failing’. Its findings include that, for many people, food is the source of considerable anxiety — significant numbers are unable to access the food they need, let alone a healthy diet.
A Commons Research Briefing (Jan 23) notes that12.6% of children aged 4–5 in Wales were obese and a further 14.4% were overweight. It also notes that children living in the most deprived areas of Wales were almost twice as likely to be obese (15.3%) as those in the least deprived areas(8.3%). This data was taken from the ‘most recent comprehensive data on child obesity on Wales’, the 2018/19 Child Measurement Programme for Wales. These are the most recent stats for Wales.
NHS 111 Wales notes that The World HealthOrganisation defines overweight and obesity as a medical condition involving abnormal or excessive body fat build up, that presents a risk to health. In Wales around 12% of children in the reception year of school (aged 4 to 5 years old) are living with obesity.
Government analysis shows that children in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be obese as their peers living in the richest areas.
Obesity is also associated with reduced life expectancy, risking a range of chronic diseases, from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, at least 12 kinds of cancer and liver and respiratory disease, to an impact on mental health.
Ill health caused by poor diet is reported to cost the NHS around £6.1bn every year — and £27bn to the wider economy.
The House of Lords report argued further that industries, manufacturers, retailers and food services perpetuate the demand for less healthy, highly processed products. Not only does this impact on public health, but inhibits efforts to produce food in an environmentally sustainable way. Farmers, it says, are “trapped in a cycle where there is not enough emphasis or incentive on the need for healthy, environmentally sustainable produce”.
The report notes the value of the food and farming sectors to the economy, in terms of financial value and employment — and argues that these powerful levers to improve public health are not being utilised. Evidence seen in our communities bears out these conclusions.
