Lots of sugar, fat and salt
Filled with preservatives and artificial flavors and colourants, ultra-processed foods are designed to appeal to consumers with their high levels of sugar, fat and salt, and because they're affordable — and heavily advertised.
The trend to their dominance in the last century in high-income countries such as Canada, the United States and Australia is now rapidly spreading to countries in the southern hemisphere, from Senegal to Fiji to Colombia.
"Today, we see it happening in real time in several regions of the world and having particularly marked effects on vulnerable populations," said Moubarac, a researcher at UdeM's Public Health Research Centre who sits on a World Health Organization (WHO) group developing guidelines for UPFs.
Their health consequences are no longer in doubt: increased obesity, diabetes and hypertension, among others. In a recent study, Moubarac showed that, in Canada, they're responsible for nearly 40 per cent of cases of cardiovascular disease.
The dire consequences of consuming UPFs are cause for immediate action by public-health authorities, he and his co-authors insist.
Private companies dominate
According to them, government policies heavily influenced by the private sector expose all of society to a predominantly ultra-processed food supply, whether in schools, hospitals or the workplace.
For that to change, consumers must fundamentally rethink their relationship with food, Moubarac insisted.
"We too often consider it a commodity," he said, deploring regulators' tepid response to advertising aimed at children—banned in some countries like Chile—and outright censorship around UPFs.
"In Quebec, some organizations prefer to avoid the word 'ultra-processed'," Moubarac pointed out. "For example, Quebec's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) prefers to talk about ingredients, sugars, fats and salt, and food reformulation.
"This strategy leads to the manufacture of products that are less sweet and less salty, but that are not necessarily healthy. The WHO now recommends going beyond nutrients to consider how food is actually processed. We need to put pressure on the MAPAQ to see things that way, too."
Brazil in the vanguard
National policies should place food at the heart of government priorities by valuing it in all its dimensions: as a source of physical health and mental health, an expression of cultural identity, a means of social connection, and a key element of sustainability, Moubarac said.
Brazil, for one, has made a strong effort in that direction. Its national school meal program, for instance, requires that 90 per cent of foods served to students be minimally or not processed at all — and that they come from local agriculture.
"That's what we'd like to see in Canada," said Moubarac. "We'd like food quality to be included in the choice of foods sold in institutional settings because, as it stands now, only price is considered," he said.
According to INFORMAS, an Australian-based global food research network, 99 percent of hospitals in Canada still offer sugary drinks to their patients, he noted.
Consumers should be aware of things like that – and make the right choices, backed by science, he added.
"Our role as researchers is to illuminate the links between food and health and to study the quality of food environments and the public policies that shape them."
