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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to crack down on ultra-processed foods, a key policy priority of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. The biggest obstacle standing in his way? Figuring out what an ultra-processed food is.
“By April, we will have a federal definition of ultra-processed foods,” RFK Jr. promised on The Joe Rogan Experience in February. “Every food in your grocery store will have a label on it—it’ll have maybe a green light, red light, or yellow light, telling you whether or not it’s going to be good for you.”
The agency is now weeks behind this deadline, and appears to be no closer to landing on a definition. As The New York Times recently reported, “behind the scenes…the process of defining ultraprocessed foods is still very much in the air. Agencies are struggling to agree, and it is unclear when a definition will be released.”
“It’s not final until it’s final,” Calley Means, a senior adviser to RFK Jr., told the Times. Means added that the definition would include the combined consultation of scientists, agency staff, and other stakeholders.
One widely cited definition of ultra-processed foods that the agency could adopt is the Nova system, developed at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nova defines these foods as “industrially created…with the addition of multiple ingredients that may include some [unprocessed] ingredients,” which are naturally occurring foods like milk, eggs, and meat that have “no added salt, sugar, oils, or fats.” Ultra-processed foods also include “additives to enhance the taste and/or convenience of the product.” This includes foods that are usually not considered unhealthy, such as bread, packaged meat, fish, and vegetables, and baby formulas.
The primary issue with creating a definition so broad is that it does not tell consumers which ingredients are supposedly causing health problems. Experts themselves are regularly struggling to classify foods in the Nova system because it relies on “descriptive criteria” and does not “allow for robust and functional food assignments.”
For example, plain yogurt has been classified as minimally processed—a term that describes foods that have had sugar, oil, or salt added to them to increase shelf life or enhance taste—but the Nova definition states that nonalcoholic fermentation, the process by which yogurt is made, is characteristic of processed foods. Similarly, foods containing whole grains—like bread and cereal—are categorized as ultra-processed, but consuming them is associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease.
“Defining ultra-processed foods is like defining what’s a car and what’s a truck,” Jeffrey Singer, a physician and general surgeon, tells Reason. “‘Ultra-processed’ and ‘processed’ are too broad, too ambiguous, and should be abandoned.”
“If we’re interested in knowing what is in food that can harm us,” he adds, “we should get much more granular and study the specific ingredients…and the dosage amounts.”
Indeed, this is what is often missed in the food regulation debate: While it is common knowledge that it is best to avoid large amounts of saturated fats, occasionally eating so-called ultra-processed foods is not the death sentence that some politicians are making it out to be. How healthy a food is has less to do with the method in which the food is produced and more to do with its calorie density and nutritional content. For instance, the calories in a cheeseburger come mostly from the beef, bun, and cheese, not from the preservatives in the ketchup.
Labeling foods with a green, red, or yellow light based on these dubious definitions may discourage consumers from eating foods that are actually good for them. For instance, some studies suggest that excluding some ultra-processed foods, such as breads and breakfast cereals, may lead to “lowered intakes of key nutrients,” which would be particularly concerning for at-risk groups, such as women of childbearing age.
Meanwhile, the added costs of new labeling requirements are likely to be passed down to consumers, which could price some people out. Already, MAHA food policies in some states are expected to add billions of dollars in costs to grocery stores and consumers in “the short term,” according to a recent analysis by the Policy Navigation Group.
“There are trade-offs that matter,” says Singer. “I might want to take my chances on a food that is also processed with certain ingredients that, taken in large quantities, might cause me harm, but starvation can cause me even greater harm.”
The MAHA campaign against ultra-processed foods has all the hallmarks of a modern policy fad: vague definitions, exaggerated claims, dubious science, and total confidence that more regulation must be the answer. If politicians cannot even agree on what ultra-processed means, it raises the question of whether they have any business regulating it.
The post No One Can Define 'Ultra-Processed Food.' Why Is RFK Jr. Trying To Regulate It? appeared first on Reason.com.
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