You’ve likely heard health experts say that eating whole foods and skipping processed foods is a key to optimal health. A December 2022 study, for example, presented a pretty scary statistic linking ultra-processed foods to cognitive decline, saying that people who ate more than 20% of their daily calories from processed foods had a 28% faster decline in global cognition and a 25% faster decline in executive functioning, compared with people who ate less than 20%.
If you’re wondering what an “ultra-processed” food is, you’re not alone. It’s a complicated topic.
Most foods are at least minimally processed — usually for preservation or safety reasons — so completely staying away from all processed foods can be difficult, if not impossible. It’s also unnecessary.
“Processed food tends to get a negative reputation, but there are many minimally processed foods that are actually good for us,” Ashlee Wright, a registered dietitian at Orlando Health, told HuffPost. “If we think about foods, like baby carrots, nuts, chicken and fish, these have to be processed in some way, but they only have one ingredient.”
At the other end of the processed foods spectrum are ultra-processed foods, like frozen meals, doughnuts, cookies and candy. These typically contain dozens of ingredients, many of which you’ve never heard of and can’t pronounce. These are the items nutritionists suggest limiting.
Still, nutritionists acknowledge that understanding the difference between processed and ultra-processed foods is difficult. Here are some tips to help you sort them out.