It has somehow been 18 years since Michael Pollan offered perhaps the most concise instructions for people looking to eat better: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The last part of that points to a larger debate over how natural or processed the food we consume should be. Earlier this year, an article at Stanford Medicine declared that “ultra-processed food is starting to overwhelm the American diet.” A recent study also suggested that eating ultra-processed food can be bad if you’re hoping to lose weight.
If you are concerned about ultra-processed foods, a recent study offers some encouraging news and some more unsettling information. The CDC recently released data on the consumption of ultra-processed food in the U.S. from August 2021 to August 2023. The good news is that adults seem to be eating less ultra-processed foods than they were a decade ago. The study notes that “the consumption of mean calories from ultra-processed foods among adults decreased” in this period relative to data taken in 2013 and 2014.
That’s the data on adults’ eating habits. For kids, the data paints a different picture — one where 61.9% of calories taken in by people from the ages of one to 18 were from ultra-processed foods, peaking with people between the ages of six and 11. For the 19-and-over set, that statistic dropped to 53%.
Another notable – though potentially unsurprising – item revealed by these numbers has to do with family income. The lowest rates of ultra-processed food consumption were connected to families with higher incomes. Or, in the agency’s words, “the mean percentage of total calories consumed from ultra-processed foods was lower in those with the highest family income.”
A Survivor’s Guide to Ultra-Processed Foods
They’re cheap, convenient and wrecking your health. Here’s how to spot them, what they’re doing to your body and the smartest ways to cut back.For kids and adults alike, the same category of ultra-processed food was responsible for the highest number of calories: sandwiches. “Sweet bakery products” was second for both groups, with things diverging after that. Kids got more calories from pizza, for instance, while adults consumed more calories in the form of “breads, rolls and tortillas.”
Consumption of ultra-processed food has been on the decline since 2017-2018, which is encouraging news for people concerned about its effect on their health. Will this downward trend continue? We’ll know more in another two years.
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