Access the pdf here
Editor’s note. Marion Nestle
wrote this communication on her own
website,
www.foodpolitics.com, in
response to Carlos Monteiro’s
November WN commentary on
ultra-processed products. It also
appeared as a feature in The
Atlantic. As a result, and also as a
result of similar support from
Michael Pollan on his website,
www.michaelpollan.com, the
commentary to date has been accessed
by over 15,000 people throughout the
world. We print Marion’s
communication as an excellent
summary of the main points of the
commentary.
In the November issue of
World Nutrition, the
on-line journal of the World Public
Health Nutrition Association (of
which I am a member), Carlos
Monteiro, a professor at the
University of São Paulo, writes:
‘The big issue is ultra-processing’.
Because his commentary is so
lengthy, I am taking the liberty of
extracting pieces from it, not
always in the order presented.
The most important factor now,
when considering food, nutrition and
public health, is not nutrients, and
is not foods, so much as what is
done to foodstuffs and the nutrients
originally contained in them, before
they are purchased and consumed.
That is to say, the big issue is
food processing—or, to be more
precise, the nature, extent and
purpose of processing, and what
happens to food and to us as a
result of processing.
Monteiro makes it clear that all
foods and drinks are processed to
some extent. Fresh apples are washed
and, sometimes, waxed. Drinking
water is filtered. Instead, he
distinguishes three types of
processing, depending on their
nature, extent, and purpose:
Type 1: Unprocessed or minimally
processed foods that do not change
the nutritional properties of the
food.
Type 2: Processed culinary or food
industry ingredients such as oils,
fats, sugar and sweeteners, flours,
starches, and salt. These are
depleted of nutrients and provide
little beyond calories (except for
salt, which has no calories).
Type 3: Ultra-processed products
that combine Type 2 ingredients
(and, rarely, traces of Type 1).
The purpose of Type 3
ultra-processing is to create:
durable, accessible, convenient,
attractive, ready-to-eat or
ready-to-heat products. Such
ultra-processed products are
formulated to reduce microbial
deterioration ('long shelf life'),
to be transportable for long
distances, to be extremely palatable
('high organoleptic quality') and
often to be habit-forming. Typically
they are designed to be consumed
anywhere—in fast-food
establishments, at home in place of
domestically prepared and cooked
food, and while watching television,
at a desk or elsewhere at work, in
the street, and while driving.
Monteiro argues: ‘The rapid rise in
consumption of ultra-processed food
and drink products, especially since
the 1980s, is the main dietary cause
of the concurrent rapid rise in
obesity and related diseases
throughout the world’.
As evidence, he notes that
ultra-processed products as a group
are:
Much more energy-dense than
unprocessed and minimally processed
foods and processed culinary
ingredients taken together.
[Contain] oils, solid fats, sugars,
salt, flours, starches [that] make
them excessive in total fat,
saturated or trans-fats, sugar and
sodium, and short of micronutrients
and other bioactive compounds, and
of dietary fiber.
Relatively or even absolutely
cheaper to manufacture, and
sometimes—not always—relatively
cheaper to buy.
Often manufactured in increasingly
supersized packages and portions at
discounted prices with no loss to
the manufacturer.
Available in 'convenience' stores
and other outlets often open late or
even 24/7, and vended in machines
placed in streets, gas stations,
hospitals, schools and many other
locations.
The main business of transnational
and big national catering chains,
whose outlets are also often open
until late at night, and whose
products are designed to be consumed
also in the street, while working or
driving, or watching television.
Promoted by lightly regulated or
practically unregulated advertising
that identifies fast and convenience
food, soft drinks and other
ultra-processed products as a
necessary and integral part of the
good life, and even, when the
products are 'fortified' with
micronutrients, as essential to the
growth, health and well-being of
children.
Overall, he says:
Their high energy density,
hyper-palatability, their marketing
in large and super-sizes, and
aggressive and sophisticated
advertising, all undermine the
normal processes of appetite
control, cause over-consumption, and
therefore cause obesity, and
diseases associated with obesity.
His groups the main points of his
argument in three theses:
Diets mainly made up from
combinations of processed
ingredients and unprocessed and
minimally processed foods, are
superior to diets including
substantial amounts of
ultra-processed products.
Almost all types of ultra-processed
product, including those advertised
as 'light', 'premium', supplemented,
'fortified', or healthy in other
ways, are intrinsically unhealthy.
Significant improvement and
maintenance of public health always
requires the use of law. The
swamping of food systems by
ultra-processed products can be
controlled and prevented only by
statutory regulation.
Lest there be any confusion about
the significance of this proposal
for public health nutrition, an
accompanying editorial for which the
WN editorial team is responsible,
poses a serious challenge. It
begins:
This editorial is about the
significance of food processing, and
in particular of 'ultra-processed'
food and drink products. It is also
about the nature, purpose, scope and
value of nutrition science, which as
conventionally taught and practiced,
is now widely perceived to have run
into the buffers or, to change
metaphor, to have painted itself
into a corner.
The editorial argues that
nutritionists' focus on nutrients,
rather than foods, has led to the
assumption that if foods contain the
same nutrients, they are the
same—even though it is never
possible to replicate the
nutritional content of foods because
too much about their chemical
composition is still unknown:
This notion is an exquisite
combination of stupidity and
arrogance, or else of intelligence
and cunning. For a start, similar
results can only be of those
chemical constituents that are at
the time known, and actually
measured.
These are important ideas, well
worth consideration and debate. I am
struck by their relevance to the
latest survey of soft drink
availability in American elementary
schools. Despite the efforts of the
Clinton Foundation and the voluntary
actions of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola,
the availability of soft drinks to
young school children increased from
49 percent to 61 percent just in the
year from 2006-07 to 2008-09. Soft
drinks, in Monteiro's terms, are
ultra-processed. Doing something
about them requires statutory
regulation.
Consideration of the effects of
ultra-processing might help us look
at what we feed our kids in a more
constructive way. This is important
work.
Marion Nestle
Department of Nutrition,
Food Studies, and Public Health
New York University, NY
www.foodpolitics.com
Acknowledgements and request
Readers are invited please to
respond. Please use the response
facility below. Readers may make use
of the material in this editorial,
provided acknowledgement is given to
the Association, and WN is cited.
Please cite as: Nestle M.
Ultra-processed products.
[Communication] World Nutrition,
December 2010, 1, 7: 306-309.
Obtainable at
www.wphna.org
The opinions expressed in all
contributions to the website of the
World Public Health Nutrition
Association (the Association)
including its journal
World Nutrition, are those of
their authors. They should not be
taken to be the view or policy of
the Association, or of any of its
affiliated or associated bodies,
unless this is explicitly stated.
|
