Nutrition conference highlights more bad news about ultraprocessed foods

Each week, it seems as though additional (bad) news about ultaprocessed foods is made public. This week is no exception.

As reported by Korin Miller with Food & Wine, a new study found that “people who ate higher amounts of ultra-processed foods were 10% more likely to die from all-cause mortality during the follow-up period of 23 years compared to people who ate minimally processed food.” The study was presented last month at the Nutrition 2024 conference and traced 500,000 people over the course of three decades. “While the study participants who ate more ultra-processed foods were more likely to have a higher body mass index (BMI) and lower overall diet quality, some ultra-processed food fans had a normal weight — and still had a higher risk of death,” Miller adds.

As Salon Food has noted many times, ultraprocessed foods can vary a ton — from protein bars to diet soda, from cold cuts to packaged bread — and often contain “additional ingredients like artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and other ingredients to preserve their texture and longevity. Many packaged foods fall into this category.” Ultraprocessed food consumption is linked with lots of chronic illnesses and ailments, such as Type 2 diabetes, dementia, heart diseases and various cancers, as per Miller, who also lists other studies conducted within the past few years that all seem to reiterate the same main conclusion: we should be eating far less ultra-processed foods than we currently are, to put it bluntly.

Conversely, Miller notes that some technically ultraprocessed foods, like liquid egg whites, raisins and unsweetened raisins are actually quite “good for you,” so it’s challenging to generalize too much.