What you need to know about ultra-processed foods
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In a not-too-distant past, treating oneself to a snack meant having a samosa, aloo chaat, vada pav or jhaal muri. Admittedly, many of these dishes weren’t exactly nutritious but they were all made fresh, and sold within hours, if not minutes, of being made.
Today, particularly in urban India, these traditional snacks are being replaced by ready-to-eat packaged foods such as bars, cookies and cereals, which are marketed as healthy, delicious and convenient. While they are convenient and delicious to the point of being addictive, they are far from healthy because of the amount of processing they undergo to achieve their taste, long shelf life and perfect shape and consistency. These snacks are so far removed from being healthy or nutritious that several global health agencies, doctors, nutritionists and fitness experts have unanimously declared such “ultra-processed foods" as one of the biggest health risks in the world today.
Along with pollution and sedentary lifestyles, ultra-processed foods have emerged as a serious threat to the health and fitness of Indians. The label “ultra-processed foods" is rather new. It was first used in 2009 by the Brazilian nutrition scientist Carlos A Monteiro in a paper titled Nutrition And Health. The Issue Is Not Food, Nor Nutrients, So Much As Processing.
In the paper, Monteiro divided the foods we eat into three groups. Group 1 consisted of whole foods that are minimally processed, and whose nutritional properties are not significantly altered from said processing. “Such processes include cleaning, removal of inedible fractions, portioning, refrigeration, freezing, pasteurisation, fermenting, precooking, drying, skimming, bottling and packaging.
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