More than 50 percent of the calories consumed by a typical American are from "ultra-processed" foods, according to a new research. These kinds of food are one of the main sources of obesity that leads to serious health conditions.
Ultra-processed foods are food products that have several unnatural or manufactured ingredients that are not normally used when cooking from scratch. These include food colourings, artificial flavourings, preservatives, sweeteners, and other additives.
These ingredients are used to copy the texture, taste, or other natural qualities of a food. It is also used to "to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product," lead study author Carlos Augusto Monteiro, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, told CBS News.
"Different from processed culinary ingredients like salt, table sugar, vegetable oils, and butter, and from processed foods, like cheese and simple bread, ultra-processed foods are hardly part of a diet based on minimally processed foods and freshly prepared drinks, dishes and meals," he said. "Instead, they are manufactured and marketed to replace those foods, drinks, dishes and meals."
Some of the ultra-processed foods are tasty packaged snacks and baked goods, instant noodles and soups, reconstituted meat like fish and chicken nuggets and soft drinks.
According to Tech Times, there is a study where the researchers ask 9,317 participants to provide a list of the food they ate within the past 24 hours. The survey revealed more than 280,000 different foods.
The participants consumed an average of 2,070 calories a day. Roughly 28 percent of these are from slightly processed to unprocessed foods like vegetables, milk, egg and fish that do not contain added sugar. Around 3.1 percent came from ingredients like table sugar and olive oil while 10 percent are from processed food products like cheese, canned vegetables and cured meat.
The study shows that additional sugars account for over 20 percent calories found in a typical ultra-processed food. Overall, 14 percent of all calories consumed are from excess sugar.
21 percent of calories from the ultra-processed food are from added sugar while only two percent is for processed foods. Among the participants whose diets are mostly ultra-processed foods, more than 80 percent are over the sugar's upper limit of 10 percent.
