Reversing our reliance on ultra-processed food

People power and a level playing field

Ultra-processed food has been leaving a bad taste in mouth since this piece by Bee Wilson and then on the tip of our tongues thanks to Dr Chris Van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People. So, how bad is it? And what can we do about it? I curated and chaired a panel discussion on how our food system has led us to rely on Ultra-Processed Food and how we can subvert the system at Groundswell, the regenerative agriculture festival. It was full of great insights, passion and a tad unruly at one point in a nearly-full 800-capacity tent. I thought I’d share the topline with you. Always keen on your thoughts in the comments too!

Pic: My stellar panel at Groundswell, by Zoe and team.

First, a bit of background…

UPFs are not food. They are industrially-produced edible substances, designed to be hyper-palatable, i.e. we can't stop eating them. They are also convenient, non-perishable and relatively cheap.

• 57% of the British adult diet is comprised of them. We have the most UP diet in Europe.

• British children have the highest levels of UPF consumption in Europe (65%).

• The Food Foundation has a new report about how children's health is in decline, which is a grim must-read.

• UPFs have been found to cause 25% of all mortalities in Europe along with alcohol, tobacco and fossil fuels in a recent report by World Health Organization.

I wrote it about it here, too.

My panellists made important and valid points, some more popular than others!

Sue Pritchard CEO of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission talked about their Food Conversation Project, which engages a diverse group of people around the country on change went first. She called for a level playing field driven by legislation, with businesses stepping up to drive change rather than waiting for this legislation to arrive.

Lulu Grimes, managing editor of (BBC) Good Food and Olive Magazines at Immediate Media brought hope to the tent with positive consumer trends. She said new, cost-effective ways to cook are making it easier for people to pick real food (microwaves, slow cookers, air fryers etc) and we need a mindset shift about what constitutes cooking. Immediate is publishing a UPF free Good Food cookbook, which they wouldn't if there wasn't a market.

Dr Nena Foster, Nutritionist and D&I consultant, talked about some of the realities and inequities on the ground, food education and breaking barriers. She suggested making it simple for people to institute change. One of her top tips is to shop around the periphery of their supermarket (butcher, baker, veg etc), which was very well received in the tent.

James Kingham brought the retail perspective from Waitrose & Partners. They are already seeing consumer demand for les processed food and are reacting accordingly. Regeneratively farmed bread has done better than expected, and reformulations are under way in conversations with manufacturers. His consumer choice message didn't go down as well, but these are businesses after all and James isn't a spokesperson for industry.

I shut the dissent in the tent down quite firmly. The voice of corporates is essential if change is to happen and they’re not going to attend events to be publicly humiliated or shouted at. Without them, we’re just a gathering of the converted, navel gazing and agreeing with each other. Shouting “I'm in charge here and I’m shutting this down” was a career defining moment for me. (Or career ending, we’ll soon find out…).

Thoughts from the ground

I stepped in with some of my own views on the matter. UPFs emancipated women like me and means we can go to work. I've heard it said that we should eat like our grandparents did, but the reality is that we don't live like our grandparents did. Anna Taylor of the Food Foundation said at another session that the answer isn’t as easy as teaching people to cook as those people are mostly women, who unfairly shoulder the burden of responsibility for domestic chores.

The stakes are higher when you’re a single parent, and these family units are on the rise. My favourite ironic story, which I amused the crowd with, was when I went to a UPFs event, leaving my two teenagers with a packet of instant noodles and an apple each as I didn't get time to sort dinner. They didn't touch the apples. Think I may have shared this in my previous post here, sorry. I’m running out of jokes (but not my sense of humour, yet).

Said teenagers have terrible food habits outside home, and their mum has been cooking with and for them, and teaching them about food since they were tots. They grab canned coffee and jammy doughnuts before and after school and hang out at the MacDonalds outside school. Don’t get me started on crisps and sweets. So education alone isn't the answer. People can be powerless against the food offer around them, the young and impressionable more so. Inequity, availability all matter. And willpower is no match for marketing (I would know!).

Interestingly, identifying which products are processed vs unprocessed is not so easy. The same product categories can have processed and UPFs version. I love a shortcut but have started looking for long lists of ingredients with a cocktail of items I wouldn’t buy to cook with to identify UPFs. Evidence is emerging of more consumers looking for these “clean labels” when they shop. If you need more help identifying them, Nena Foster has another tip: “Anything in a shiny packet is immediately suspect”.

Call me the eternal optimist, but I have faith in people and buying power, corporates follow the money and protect their reputation, and a new Government is about to form in Britain that we’re all watching for change. Perhaps it’s time to be ultra positive that change, even if it takes time and is complicated, will eventually happen!

PS - Dr Chris’s book is worth a read. Not the easiest to digest, but sobering and necessary.