Ultra-processed foods: What are they, should we avoid them – or is it just the latest nutribabble?

It’s tempting to label foods as ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ but as registered dietitian Orla Walsh explains, a binary approach does more harm than good

Foods enhancing the risk of cancer. Junk food

Orla Walsh

​There is so much talk about ultra-processed foods (UPF) these days that it’s important to set the record straight and be incredibly clear. The sheer amount of misinformation around this topic is frustrating, but what makes it worse is that there are people who know better creating fear on the topic and using this fear to sell solutions.

To begin, let me explain what processed food is. When food comes from the farm, it is a wholefood. It is a food of one ingredient. For example, an egg, cow’s milk, an apple, carrots etc. When this food goes through any changes, whether to make it safer, tastier, to elongate the shelf life, or to be added to other foods to create another food, it is being processed.