Yahoo Lifestyle These Are the Most and Least Processed Foods at Your Grocery Store
Some just may surprise you.
Food & Wine / Getty Images / Mass General Brigham
Ultra-processed foods are linked to a host of serious health conditions, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, making them products most people want to avoid. However, because these foods are found in so many products at the grocery store, it can be tough — and incredibly confusing — to determine which items fall into this category.
To help, a research team at Mass General Brigham in Boston created a website called TrueFood. The site breaks down the most and least processed grocery foods commonly found at Whole Foods, Target, and Walmart locations across the country. The foods are broken into one of four different categories to help users find, say, the least processed type of popcorn or yogurt, says Giulia Menichetti, PhD, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and investigator in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Instead of labeling foods as “ultra-processed” or not, the website gives products a score, with numbers closest to zero having the least amount of processing.
Ultra-processed foods are foods that have been altered from their natural state, with sugar, oil, salt, or other ingredients added. They also contain artificial colors, flavors, additives, and preservatives to help the foods maintain their texture and extend their shelf life. Think: flavored potato chips, sodas, and
Up to 70% of the country’s food supply is ultra-processed, making it incredibly difficult to completely cut these foods out from our diets. The products are also cleverly designed to draw you in, says Lu Wang, PhD, an epidemiologist and research assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “These foods are often sophisticatedly packaged, intensely marketed, and are engineered to be more palatable by using combinations of different ingredients,” she points out.
Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images
Some ultra-processed foods at the supermarket are better than others. The trick is to learning how to tell the difference. That's where TrueFood comes in.But there is a range of ultra-processed foods. “Some ultra-processed foods, like protein powders or cereal, could be part of a healthy diet,” says Dena Champion, RDN, a dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “Not all ultra-processed foods are created equally, so it’s important to keep that in mind.”
The TrueFood website also includes information like an ingredient “tree” that breaks down exactly what goes into the food to help you determine whether it’s an ultra-processed product that could fit well into your dietary goals.
What else can I do to avoid ultra-processed foods?
Again, not all ultra-processed foods are created equal, and you don’t necessarily need to avoid all of these to have a healthy diet. But if you want to purchase fewer ultra-processed foods in the future, it can be helpful to stick with the outer ring of the grocery store, says Morgan Dickison, RD, a dietitian at Weill Cornell Medicine. “This means focusing on produce, the deli, and bakery for fresh bread,” she says. “Avoid the center aisles, which tend to have more packaged products.”
Learning how to read nutritional labels is important, too. “If there are long words in the ingredients list that you can’t identify or understand, the food is likely ultra-processed,” Dickison says.
Read the original article on Food & Wine
