How To Find Out if Your Snack or Meal Counts as an Ultra-Processed Food

If you've never heard of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) before, you may be confused by the terminology. The phrase is used to describe foods that have been made mostly from food substances, like oils, sugar, starch, fats, and proteins. Some of the ingredients will have longer names — like hydrogenated fats — and some will include industrially processed ingredients.

The phrase processed foods, on the other hand, includes any food item that has been changed in some way during production.

As people have learned more about these UPF, they've become more aware of some of the health concerns raised by experts, and as a result have tried to avoid eating them. However, it can be hard to tell which foods count as UPF and which ones are simply processed, making it hard to cut them out of your diet completely.

Keep reading to find out how to identify ultra-processed foods, and to see some examples of the foods that fall into this category.

According to Harvard Medical School's health blog, finding out if the food you're about to eat counts as a UPF is as easy as turning it over and looking at the ingredient list. That's because UPFs typically have a laundry list of ingredients listed near the nutrition label, and they often include those larger and multi-hyphenated words.

And if you're at the grocery store, it can be even easier to find these foods without having to read the ingredients based on where they're located.

That's because these foods won't be found with the fresh produce, but instead, they'll be the bakery, deli, or cold storage sections.

Of course, you'll still need to check the ingredient list if you want to determine if the food you're about to eat is an UPF or simply just processed, since many of these items are branded to look like healthy food options, even when they aren't. So what should you do when you come across one of these foods?

So what should you do when you find one of these UPF? According to Harvard, you should put it back in favor of something with the "shortest list of ingredients possible."

ABC News reported that a diet high in UPF has been linked to an increase in colon cancer in women. As such, many health experts are advising people to avoid UPF whenever possible. So, what are some examples of ultra-processed foods? They include everything from the totally innocuous, like:

• Flavored yogurt
• Instant soup
• Instant noodles
• Processed meat
• Cereal
• Energy Bars
• Baby formula
• Prepackaged snacks
• Ice cream
• Chocolate
• Margarine

• Soda
• Chicken nuggets
• Sweetened drinks
• Packaged bread
• Candy
• Chips
• Meal replacement powders

Seeing just how many items fall into this category, you may be wondering how so many foods were allowed to be sold when they contain ingredients that are being tied to adverse health outcomes.

Well, according to ABC News, this is because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows them to be sold because they are "generally recognized as safe," which ABC says allows them to skip over safety regulations.

That means that the responsibility of correctly identifying and avoiding UPFs largely falls to the customer, which can sometimes make it tricky to avoid these foods when you want to eat a diet full of whole foods and natural ingredients.