They’ve been described as the new cigarettes and are linked to cancer, obesity and an early death.
But a dietician who ate nothing but ultra-processed foods (UPFs) for a month has revealed why she believes they have been unnecessarily demonized by the health and scientific community.
Jessica Wilson, 42, from California, made headlines last year for her experiment which saw her consume almost exclusively foods with more than five ingredients, including pre-packaged and frozen meals and takeaway food.
Now, in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com she reveals that ‘UPFs can be part of a healthy diet and policymakers need to change the conversation’.
One of Ms Wilson’s biggest frustrations of the lack of a clear universal definition for UPFs, which she says just confuses consumers.
From her research, she says she has been given ‘multiple definitions of UPFs from different researchers and doctors’ and she was once told that a fresh croissant from a bakery in Paris would be considered a UPF because milling flour from wheat is considered a form of processing.
‘People are grasping for straws and trying to insert themselves into a trending topic and it’s not a good look,’ the diet expert says.
After taking on the UPF diet challenge, Ms Wilson says she has adopted a more relaxed approach to food which has helped reduce her stress levels.
Jessica Wilson (in a soda top) made headlines last year for her experiment, which saw her consume almost exclusively foods with more than five ingredients
Meanwhile, society has become more obsessed than ever with reading food labels and plagued by what she calls ‘analysis paralysis’.
While burgers, chips and chicken nuggets are some of the best-loved examples of products that fall under the umbrella UPF term, Ms Wilson found from her experiment that there lots of UPFs that aren’t bad and actually nutritious.
Research shows that more than half of the calories consumed in the US come from ultra-processed food sources, a statistic that has been held up as a bad thing.
But Ms Wilson believes this simply shows they are ‘essential to many people in our current society’ due to their affordability and being processed doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
A typical day on Ms Wilson’s UPF diet started out with a Trader Joe’s egg sandwich for breakfast, with the packaged creation containing eggs, turkey sausage, and American cheese, all sandwiched between two fluffy egg patties instead of bread.
The sandwich contains a range of additives including the coloring Beta-Apo-8′-Carotenal, which has been shown to increase cancer risk in smokers in some studies.
Ms Wilson would also have gluten free toast and a homegrown tomato.
For a snack, her preference was a cashew yogurt with flaxseeds and jam, while for lunch her top choice was canned chili accompanied by a corn tortilla and baby carrots.
Rounding out her day, a favorite dinner was a pre-packaged pasta and meatball dish with a RX protein bar for dessert.
RX protein bars have more than five ingredients, so Ms Wilson says they would be considered ultra processed in some people’s eyes even though all of their ingredients are natural.
For instance, the brand’s strawberry flavor only contains dates, egg whites, almonds, cashews, strawberries and natural flavors.
While 80 percent of Ms Wilson’s diet consisted of UPFs, the remaining 20 percent came from vegetables, fruits, eggs, nuts and seeds.
Two weeks into her diet, Ms Wilson was surprised to report a range of benefits.
She found she was less hungry, she moved around more unintentionally, she experienced less fatigue, needed less caffeine and she wasn’t as ‘grumpy’ after work.
Even her wife, Elisha, commented that she was ‘complaining less and doing more’.
By the third and fourth weeks, Ms Wilson said the positives continued but she struggled slightly with keeping track of the things she ate and she got ‘bored’ of the UPFs she had in rotation.
However, once she had finished the challenge, the dietician she actually felt than she had before.
To her surprise, she also toned up and noticed a difference to her physique.
The diet expert told this website: ‘I don’t use a belt daily but I do use a waist leash to walk my dog and that leash got looser and I needed to tighten it.
While burgers, chips and chicken nuggets are some of the best-loved examples of products that fall under the umbrella UPF term, Ms Wilson found from her experiment that there lots of UPFs that aren’t bad and actually nutritious
Instead of focusing on demonizing UPFs, Ms Wilson believes that policymakers in the US should look at the relationship between income inequality and fruit and vegetable consumption
‘So my weight did not change but I had an improvement in body composition.’
When it came to came to selecting UPFs, Ms Wilson used the Nova food classification system for guidance, opting for Nova 4 products.
Nova 1 covers minimally processed, natural ingredients, such as fruit, vegetables, meat and fish.
Nova 2 are cooking ingredients processed from raw ingredients, such as oil, salt, butter.
Nova 3 are processed foods made by adding culinary ingredients to raw ingredients, such as fresh bread and canned veg. Canning, pasteurising, freezing and drying are all forms of processing.
Nova 4 are industrially processed foods that couldn’t be produced in a home kitchen. That’s UPFs.
However, Ms Wilson is not convinced by this classification system and says it is ‘very confusing’.
She ate 80 percent processed foods but allowed herself a few wholefood snacks like this juice
She told this website: ‘If we look at the Nova classifications for foods, what is supposed to distinguish a category 4: ultra-processed food from a category 3: processed food it is not always clear. Let’s take additives.
‘Additives are often the buzz word for what makes something unhealthy… I think celebrity doctor Dr Mark Hyman called them “body snatchers.”
‘Egg lecithin is often used as an additive and there can be beneficial properties to it.
‘Xantham gum is often an additive in gluten-free foods that most of us would not demonize.
‘Additionally, baby formula is listed as a category 4 ultra-processed food, and has additives for increasing shelf life and food safety.
‘I have yet to see the science that says that for babies it is healthier having nothing to eat rather than formula, yet as adults, we are shamed and called out for eating certain foods.’
The diet expert got 80 percent of her daily calories from highly processed foods for almost four weeks and she monitored the way her body reacted as she went
The NOVA classifying system for processing foods ranks things into four categories based on their ingredients and their manufacturing process. Some dietitians say these guidelines leave room for interpretation
From her experiment, Ms Wilson says her biggest takeaway has been that not all UPFs are bad and there is ‘too much confusion around them’.
She believes that there needs to be a better understanding around the products on our grocery store shelves.
The food expert adds: ‘There’s a lack of conclusive and comprehensive science and a lot of that comes from a lacking clear definition of an ultra-processed food.
‘I have been given multiple definitions of UPFs from different researchers and doctors.
‘Even Dr Hyman said there are ‘many’ definitions of ultra-processed foods, which sounds like there isn’t a singular, clear definition that we can use for research.
‘Another frustration is that people don’t connect that so many “healthy products” like protein shakes, electrolytes and supplements are industrially processed – they’re just more expensive and exclusive.
‘Their favorite wellness or celebrity influencers, think Dr. Mark Hyman, Jillian Michaels, Andrew Huberman and even Kourtney Kardashian, are pedaling UPFs, but somehow those don’t count. UPFs can be part of a healthy diet and we need to be having a different conversation.’
Instead of focusing on demonizing UPFs, Ms Wilson believes that policymakers in the US should look at the relationship between income inequality and fruit and vegetable consumption.
She concludes: ‘Focusing on and addressing the macro level disparities in our country will reduce our reliance on UPFs… and solve a bunch of other problems too.’
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
