About UPF
You may now have learned a little bit about ultra-processed food, or UPF.
What is UPF?
In summary, UPF refers to a food that is industrially produced using ingredients not typically found in nature, including hydrogenated fats, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives. These foods are widely available in shops and restaurants and are often marketed as "healthy" and "natural", making it hard to identify and avoid them.
Note that UPF does not include things like semi-skimmed milk and reduced or 0% fat yogurts that haven't had any artificial ingredients added.
Is UPF bad for us?
Recent studies have found associations between high levels of UPF intake and diseases including certain cancers, high blood pressure and cholesterol, dementia, and even early death. Therefore, it is a good idea to reduce our intakes of these foods where we can and replace them with minimally processed and unprocessed alternatives.
How can I tell if something is UPF?
Making UPFs involves modifying ingredients to change their structure, mouthfeel, flavour, and colour, and combining them to create something "hyper-palatable". However, to achieve one of these effects, something else is often sacrificed. For example, turning corn into cheesy maize puffs involves industrially altering cornmeal by making a mushy paste that is pressurised and heated, resulting in a product that doesn't taste very nice - taste is sacrificed. Food manufacturers then add artificial flavourings and flavour enhancers to improve flavour, and market the resulting product as containing "natural ingredients", being "gluten free" and containing "zero cholesterol".
Some examples of UPFs marketed as healthy include cereal bars, protein bars, flavoured rice cakes, lentil crisps, fat free fruit yogurts, and low-calorie ice cream. By learning a bit more about UPF you'll be able to see past the "health halo" effect of these foods.
As a reminder, low fat yogurts, semi-skimmed milk, reduced fat cheese and some lighter butters are NOT UPF if they don't have any extra added ingredients. You may wish to have these products to help you eat in line with the Eatwell guide and reduce your fat and calorie intake.
A good rule of thumb to use to identify ingredients that give foods "ultra-processed" status is to ask yourself whether you could find that ingredient in a supermarket. If the answer is so, it’s probably ultra-processed. Here are a few examples of things to look out for:
- Sweeteners including dextrose, sucralose, and rice syrup
- Thickeners including gums
- "Extracts" including spice extracts
- Protein isolates
- Emulsifiers including lecithins
- Preservatives
- Stabilisers
- Gelling agents
- Flavours
- Colours
- E numbers
How can I avoid UPF?
The best way to avoid UPF is by making food at home. This way you know exactly what's going into your food, and it can also save you money in the long run. You can look for ingredients without UPF ingredients for your cooking, but even a small amount of UPF in something home-made is better than a totally UPF meal you can buy in a supermarket or restaurant.
However, there are some times when you aren't able to cook from scratch, and shops, cafes, and other food outlets are full of UPF, making it tricky to avoid. This website can help with that! Have a look at our Find Foods page to find non-UPF meals or snacks you can pick up when making something from scratch isn't an option.
