Ultra-Processed Foods: Should You Really Be Avoiding Them

Hey League of Wild Eaters!

There has been a lot of debate recently about ultra-processed foods and whether they should be restricted from the food supply. But which foods are “ultra-processed” and are they all bad for us?

I am a fan of the 80% rule for most things in life. If you are hitting your goals 80% of the time, that will move the needle favorably towards your goal. It allows for moderation of the non-perfect things we do in life, like missing a workout after a bad night’s sleep or overdoing it at the neighborhood BBQ. I aim for 80% of my nutrition intake to be whole, not-ultra-processed foods. But not everyone defines ultra-processed in the same way which can lead to a lot of confusion.

Not all processed foods are bad for us. Quinoa, wild rice, and whole-grain bread are processed. So are cheese, yogurt, and milk. How those items fit into your eating plan is entirely up to you. As long as we are paying a little attention to labels, these aren’t unhealthy foods, in my opinion.

If they aren’t unhealthy, why do I need to read the label?
Ah-ha, there’s the tricky part. There is a difference between milk and pink strawberry-flavored milk. Plain Greek yogurt isn’t the same as yogurt with a side of candy. If you want yogurt to be healthy, it shouldn’t look like a DQ Blizzard. It’s not terrible for a treat, but it’s best to consider it a treat and not a health food.

Ultra-processed foods are much further removed from their natural state. A potato can be perfectly healthy. You know it grew off the root of a plant. What happens to that potato when it’s turned into a fast food french fry or a potato chip transforms it entirely.

A couple of things that I consider about ultra-processed foods:

They are mostly foods that live in the inner aisles of the grocery store and the freezer section. Frozen pizza, PopTarts, cereal, cookies, waffles, candy and so on. Frozen fruit and veggies can be next to the pizza though, and those don’t count as ultra-processed.
They are meant to be shelf-stable for really long periods of time. Canned soup, boxes of mac cheese, bricks o’ ramen, bread that doesn’t mold even a month later…stuff like that. Yet, packets of salmon and tuna are shelf stable and those are still a pretty healthy option. See how it gets confusing?

So how is a person supposed to figure this out?
My number one rule is: If I can’t identify the ingredients as something I could harvest somewhere in the world, it’s “ultra-processed” and I limit how much I eat of those foods.

Whole foods are the things that recently grew as a plant or lived in the water or on land. Salmon, flank steak, eggs, chickpeas, avocado, cherries, spinach, olives, walnuts, and so on. Those foods are packed with amino acids, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that keep our bodies primed for adventure. The more we eat of those, the better off we are. They are one-ingredient foods that you can identify as their wild selves. The further you have to go to consider the natural state of a food or ingredient, the more processed it is. Milk isn’t the same as the powdered milk from a mac cheese packet, for example. You know milk comes from a cow, even if it’s been pasteurized. Powdered cheese is a bit harder to figure out. No where in nature can you milk a cow and get powdered cheese.

When I eat whole foods 80% of the time, I feel amazing because my body is properly fueled for all of its functions the majority of the time. That means when I enjoy a piece of cake, I don’t feel bloated, or worse – guilty. I remember after eating McDonald’s once I wondered how I could be so full from a 2,000 calorie gut bomb only to still feel like my body lacked proper nourishment. That is a problem of our modern world – that we have fast, easy access to calorie-dense food that lack nourishment because of how processed they are. They might have a ton of carbs, fat, and even protein but they lack vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

That said, often, even the “enemy” foods can be improved if you want to enjoy them once in a while.

I love pizza. Sometimes we order takeout, and yes, sometimes we get frozen pizza. But mostly we make our own. The crust consists of whole wheat flour, salt, olive oil, a little honey, and yeast. The sauce (canned by a relative) consists of tomatoes, onion, garlic, salt, and lemon. I’ll add some black olives, spinach, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms. And then, of course, cheese.

Our homemade pizza still has processed ingredients – the flour, the cheese, the olive oil, even the tomato sauce are all processed in some way. But I can identify everything as being just 1-2 degrees of separation from its natural form.

The frozen pizza label, however, includes: flavoring, sodium nitrite, dextrose, artificial smoke flavor, cellulose powder, sodium ascorbate, BHA, BHT, oleoresin, and other stuff. I’m not claiming that all of those things are “bad” for a person. But if it sounds like something that was on the shelf in the chemistry lab, I limit how much of it I eat. Another “rule” is that if I can’t buy those ingredients in a normal grocery store, it’s probably ultra-processed.

Another example:
As I mentioned earlier, yogurt can be a healthy, high-protein, probiotic food, or something to treat more like a dessert.

Plain yogurt usually contains: Milk and live/active yogurt cultures.

Ultra-processed yogurt might: Have pink and blue swirls with sparkly edible candy unicorns and a little container of crushed cookie pieces. It’ll still have milk and active cultures. But it’ll have a lot of other stuff, too, and a lot of added sugar. Or it might have sugar-filled syrupy fruit at the bottom. I love Noosa yogurt, but the flavoring doubles the calories and makes it more like a rich dessert than yogurt, so that is how I treat it.

Another side note: There are a lot of protein foods being sold right next to the yogurt that are not actually yogurt. It looks like yogurt, has the same container, and often is made by the same company as yogurt. But they don’t have live active cultures in it, so you are missing some of the benefits that come from eating yogurt. They are high protein dairy foods with artificial flavors and colors added, so just something to be aware of!

Many items fall in the middle, such as cheese, and we all decide how they fit into our nutrition plans and our goals. The key for me is how I feel when I eat them. When I eat foods that I can identify closely as coming from nature, I feel my best. I have more energy, I recover faster from injuries and illnesses (and workouts), and I sleep better. If I eat something that takes half the day to digest, causes bloating, or makes me full but doesn’t feel nourishing, I generally don’t eat those things or I limit them.

What do you think about the ultra-processed debate? What does ultra-processed mean to you, and how do you fit it (or not) into your nutrition goals?

Eat close to nature as much as you can. It only enhances the wildness within!

-Kim

Ultra-Processed Foods: Should You Really Be Avoiding Them

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