Talk:Ultra-processed food

POV

This appears to be very one-sided and ignores the considerable criticism of the concept of UPF. The topic is clearly relevant, but there is a clear discrepancy between the discussion in the media and general public, and that in the scientific community where it more nuanced but also more critical. The current article does not reflect this and appears to suggest that this is an accepted concept.

Ggck2 (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Ggck2 please point to reliable sources criticizing the work. I am not sure what kinds of criticism you mean, but the concensus in the scientific literature is that they are connected with negative effects. Sadads (talk) 15:59, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Of course. For example this one [1], and there are others as well.

It is difficult to find a neutral review as the topic appears to be quite controversial. While some studies show an adverse effect, others, such as this one [2], are a bit more ambiguous.

I need to declare a COI here as well as I have published a review on the topic, and hence I would find it inappropriate to add to the main article, but considered it appropriate to highlight the lack of balance.

Ggck2 (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, you believe that the article is unduly negative toward ultra-processed foods. You brought this up on the article talk page, but you need to be specific about what changes you want. You referenced a source. I think the objection is that while ultra-processed foods are unhealthy, it's not because they are ultra-processed, but because they are high in sodium, sugars, fats  and/or other unhealthy additives and low in fiber and nutrition.

So maybe the process could benefit mankind if used correctly and there are lots of unhealthy foods that are not ultra-processed. I suggest taking a less confrontational approach and returning here if and when you don't make progress. TFD (talk) 04:03, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the article is not neutral as it does describe only one point of view (i.e. the negative impact) and dismisses critics as "influenced by the food industry" (as e.g. @Sadads wrote in the revision). The problems is that there is no review or article that both sides would agree to be reasonable neutral as opposition to the concept of UPF is generally seen as biased - but to name a few:

• the definition is ambiguous as there is no single definition that everyone can agree on. Some include the purpose of processing (i.e. making profit), others don't. Some include additives, others don't. Observational studies investigating the effect of UPF often have to rely on several experts to make decisions and make assumptions (e.g. bread in the UK is UPF, but in France it is not). Beer is another example, which can be UPF depending on production methods
• observational studies sometimes rely on food-frequency-questionnaires - but many of those are not suitable to estimate UPF intake reliably as they simply don't have the resolution
• the results are confounded by socio-economic factors: the group of people consuming high UPF often have other risk factors for disease, so it becomes difficult to disentangle

The study by Hall has shown higher energy intake with UPF - but this is a primary source.

So shouldn't one make very clear that this is a somewhat controversially discussed topic? Ggck2 (talk) 08:26, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Here from WP:NPOV/N. After skimming the article, I have to say it fails the NPOV smell test, in that I got a sense of the primary contributors' opinions on the topic. It has a decided "here's why this thing is bad" element to it. I recognize that this is a term that exists, but it feels dangerously close to a WP:POVFORK of convenience food (which itself suffers from some of these same problems). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien those are definitely two different articles -- convenience foods looks at how they are sold, while ultraprocessed food focuses on the public health/policy choices aorund these things. From a seperate article perspective too: the main reason for keeping it seperate is that UN and other public policy agencies and several other prominent research orgs have produced research and recommendations solely based on the definition of the concept. I think the problem is that the criticism of the definition could be framed earlier on with a bit more summary. However, I get the impression that @Ggck2 -- is an author of some of the criticisms.

Additionally, Ultra-Processed food is not a nutritional category (or meant to be) but a commercial/industrial category -- and most of the studies are corollary from a public health perspective. Nutrition and public health related food research took a hard fork many decades ago (there was a podcast I recently listened about this can't find it now), and they use two different methodologies for finding "truths" -- one more biochemical and trial based and the other based on systems effects and social interventions. I doubt you would be able to get both groups to agree because they are looking at different evidence, and have different standards for what is "good" for the food system. Sadads (talk) 00:29, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I have written about UPF and have made this clear - hence I would find it inappropriate to contribute to the article - but I don't think it would stop me from commenting as I do have some expertise. The concept is far from universally accepted among nutrition scientists because there are numerous problems with the definition, but this is not reflected in the article here. There are recommendations by the FAO, but most national organisations are very quiet about it (IIRC, France and Brazil do use it, but EFSA, FDA or UK does not).

Ultra-processed food is commonly used as a category of food - whether it is commercial or not is an interesting question (some of the definitions require this, others don't). Being involved in nutrition and nutrition related public health, I seriously question that these two separated decades ago - both is exactly the type of research I am involved in and a lot of nutrition funding is exactly looking into links between nutrition, health and public health nutrition (one example is the UK's TUKFS programme [[3]]).

But in the end, this does not really address the initial question, i.e. whether this article is NPOV or not - and I think not including criticism and dismissing critics for having industry links does not make it NPOV. Ggck2 (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Ggck2 I tried clarifying the criticism in the lead, per the discussion here using the sources already in the article and mentioned in the discussion. I could agree that the overall article needs a lot of work -- and the useful thing would be citations from non-experts critiquing the definition, more broadly. I am happy to read and summarize them, or if you have suggestions on how to improve sections happy to do it.

That being said -- the overwhelming evidence that highly processed and engineered foods are both a) addictive and b) leads to eating behavior's that is correlated with a number of public health issues -- is hard to avoid, and is the dominant opinion of press and the literature I have seen. Though we should include the criticism, this is more a matter of WP:UNDUE rather than NPOV-- placing too much emphasis on the criticism of the definition, reflects a substantial minority group of investigators doing good work from an academic perspective (i.e. making sure we are using language and science precisely), but doesn't necessarily represent the overwhelming weight of opinions from sources using the concept "Ultra-processed food", Sadads (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Sadads - I don't think that 'overwhelming evidence' is really a consensus. If you look at this comment here [[4]] (and I appreciate that this is not ideal), you will notice that the concept is still under a lot of discussion. Hence my criticism regarding neutrality. My only experience here is with nutrients and bioactives - where there are very clear rules against the use of primary literature - and this article does not meet these criterias.

If it is permissible, I would really like to have @Zefr's opinion as this editor has been shown to be quite critical of unfunded claims. Ggck2 (talk) 06:33, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Best if we have a proposed statement accompanied by a reputable review, of which there are several in the article. Zefr (talk) 16:26, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there is no secondary literature quoted in the article - there are some meta-analyses available, but they rely exclusively on observational data which is a bit hit (24h recalls, diaries) and miss (FFQ), but that would definitely be better. But this doesn't really address the main criticism, which is that the definition is ambiguous (see e.g. here [[5]] for a comparison of expert classifications).

As @Thebiguglyalien commented: the current article is not neutral but focuses on one side (all bad) and dismisses criticism (linked to industry). Considering that most people who work with food processing have links to industry (not many people outside do food processing), this is not really surprising, but does not mean they are invalid. Ggck2 (talk) 08:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

A valid criticism of the NOVA method of categorising foods as "ultra-processed" is that fortified breakfast cereals will be classified as ultra-processed foods and lumped into the same category as sugar-sweetened beverages, processed meat, and ready meals. The problem here is that many breakfast cereals, especially fortified and ones that have a good fibre content are not unhealthy foods. The British Heart Foundation have noticed this [6] and there is epidemiological data to support it, for example this review [7] that found that breakfast cereals were associated with a lower mortality risk whilst processed meat and sugar-sweetened beverages significantly increase the risk. However, there is a large agreement that most ultra-processed foods are not healthy. There are only a few exceptions, breakfast cereals are the most notable. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:52, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I have tried to take out the stronger statements - I think there are a lot of nuances that need to be addressed that are (IMHO) beyond the scope of this article. Ggck2 (talk) 18:21, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

The article still needs more work, but could I suggest that enough has been done to remove the POV tag? AndrewNJ (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Removal of POV Tag

@Sadads - you have removed the POV Tag without discussing it here and after introducing a number of extensive changes to the text. I think it would be better to discuss this here before making such changes and agreeing on a version, not simply making extensive edits and removing a tag. Ggck2 (talk) 21:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I've tried to add a bit more about the scientific debate, though the article could still use more work. For now, is it good enough from your perspective to remove the tag? AndrewNJ (talk) 22:25, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, this is considerably better! How do we go about discussing the tag?

I think the problem is that it is a topic that is still under a lot of discussion and it will be difficult to find a consensus either way. I wonder whether it would be better to focus on NOVA and have UPF as one subsection - would this be clearer? Ggck2 (talk) 17:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Given that nobody else has responded and you started the discussion, if you are happy, then it can presumably be removed for the time being? Doubtless both you and others will continue to add more nuance.

There is now a separate Nova classification article. AndrewNJ (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you - I will.

Would it make sense to merge UPF and NOVA articles?Ggck2 (talk) 12:14, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Brilliant; it's most helpful to have experts in the field who are willing to contribute!

Merging is an interesting question. I think it needs to be considered in the context of a series of closely related articles:

• Food processing
• Ultra-processed food
• Nova classification
• Convenience food
• Junk food
• Hyperpalatable food

One could even include Comfort food and Food marketing in this constellation. Some languages also have an article on processed food (e.g. French has Procédé agroalimentaire, Aliment industriel, and Aliment ultratransformé – but German has none of these).

The people behind Nova do not clearly communicate which paper represents the latest version of the classification. This makes the Wikipedia page helpful for collating citations; and I think there is enough literature on Nova specifically to warrant a separate page. This also exists in French, German, and Polish.

I can on the other hand imagine merging Food processing, Ultra-processed food, and Convenience food -- possibly even Junk food and Comfort food -- into a single 'Food processing' or 'Processed food' article.

If you would like to discuss this further we should probably start a separate thread; see Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers for the formal procedures. AndrewNJ (talk) 20:41, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

How would Comfort food fit in? It may refer to food that is high in salt, sugar, and/or fat, similar to much ultra-processed food; it may also refer to traditional dishes (nostalgia), often with a simple preparation, very different from ultra-processed food. Nø (talk) 07:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

As one who has been working on the article Frozen meal, I'd like to just chime in that it seems ridiculous to me that English Wikipedia has no article about Processed food but delightedly jumps (in the double-dog dare style) to "Ultra-processed food". Just for reference, Google says there are 22.9 million results for "processed food" BUT NOT "ultra-processed", yet only 2.12 million results for "ultra-processed food" alone. Yet, here we are, redirecting from the much larger topic to the smaller but more sensational-sounding topic. I would support @AndrewNJ: with any effort to merge under a new article called "Processed food". - Swiss Mister in NY (talk) 00:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

“Hyperpalatable”

Hyperpalatable food links here (and there is no article Hyperpalatability), but this article has only one reference to palatable/palatability, describing it as a frequent characteristic of ultra-processed food. This means that we are currently of no assistance to someone trying to understand the concept of hyperpalatability, which is used (sometimes hyphenated) in publications such as [8] (“to make the final product palatable or often hyper-palatable”). Wiktionary does define it, as “Extremely palatable; often applied to ultraprocessed foods designed to appeal to consumers”.

Should we either have an article on hyperpalatability (though I doubt there is much to say) or mention the concept in this article? PJTraill (talk) 09:46, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I've started a separate Hyperpalatable food article. AndrewNJ (talk) 09:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Virtually all food is processed in some way?

The article states that "virtually all food is processed in some way." This to me seems highly dubious. What about fruit, nuts, salad vegetables, milk? I've read the ref and I can't see anything in it to justify such a statement. 2001:BB6:47ED:FA58:8114:7082:2543:D756 (talk) 13:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't find the exact quote "virtually all food is processed in some way" on the article. From what I can see there was a line similar to that but it has now been removed from the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

"Most" would be more appropriate than "virtually all". However, goods sold in supermarkets have been handled in various ways, that may perhaps be called "processing". Nø (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I think this depends a lot on the point of view: a food scientist considers washing already a type of processing, and so almost all foods are processed. This needs to be explained better. Ggck2 (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

As it happens, the wording we are discussing was removed in this edit: diff. Nø (talk) 11:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Milk is unprocessed only when you drink it warm straight from the udder. Already on the farm it is refrigerated, causing irreversible changes in its casein, and equally irreversible changes in its fat. On its way to the carton (which has to be lined with plastic, so much for the "sophisticated plastic packaging") it is strained, heated, centrifugally separated, part of it removed,remixed, reheated, homogenised and refrigerated again. 2.64.3.83 (talk) 08:30, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Definition of UPF

The article starts with a definition of UPF as "an industrially formulated edible substance derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds". There are two references given for this, but none of them actually uses this description, or anything similar to it. The definition at the start of the page needs to be backed up by references that support it. Given that the NOVA classification scheme is the most common definition used for UPF, wouldn't this be a better reference and definition of UPF? Howard Wright (talk) 20:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Howard Wright, this is why WikiBlame exists. User:AndrewNJ, care to explain Special:Diff/1177000096? I am not convinced that the edit improves the lede graph in any way that Wright expects, nor does it appear to match the guide that the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources in WP:LEAD. --Artoria2e5 🌉 13:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The definition of ultra-processed food as 'an industrially formulated edible substance derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds' is specifically derived from these passages:

Monteiro 2010:

They are confected from various refined and processed materials whose total cost is a small fraction of the price of the product. Any ‘wholesome’ touch is often supplied by added micronutrients, whose presence is emphatically advertised. Some food technologists have celebrated products like these as ‘space age food’. Critics who prefer relatively unprocessed food call them ‘edible food-like substances' [citing Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma]

Monteiro 2011:

Products are here classified as ultra-processed not only because of their nature as unhealthy edible substances, but also because of their underlying and basic social, economic and environmental consequences.

Monteiro et al. 2019:

Ultra-processed foods are formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, that result from a series of industrial processes.

Monteiro's 2010 and 2011 articles are foundational to the literature, part of a series that he published when he was first proposing his arguments surrounding food processing for the Nova classification. The 2019 article is a widely cited summary of more recent thinking. AndrewNJ (talk) 03:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

It is necessary talk with Durkheim.

What is an UPF?

If we don't have a definition for this object, so... what research we could do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoCV5m1NqXY Luiz Eduardo - Bromat (talk) 04:56, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Definition of UPF 2

We need a proper objective technical definition of 'Ultra Processed Foods' . Without this the article is meaningless. Too often the term is just used as a derogatory term to denegrate foods the author does not approve of for reasons that often have nothing to do with food safety or health benefits/disbenefits. Refs 1 & 2 for example says that bread is a UPF, because the author believes that South Americans should not eat food made from wheat, because wheat is not indigenous to South America! This has nothing to do with how it is processed or whether it is healthy or not. Gliderman (talk) 14:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I would like to replace the portal paragraph by:

UPC is a contraversial food classification which replaces the traditional individual classication of foods based on their composition. It postulates four classes of foods based on a mix of sociological arguments and some aspects of their production.

The processing concept of Monteiro and his followers is completely at odds with the science of nutrition, thus making it necessary to jump through the hoops to exclude "good" foods from the UPF "definition". It is equally valid as classifying foods by their colour, red is bad (red meat) green is good (veggies) and finding a way to exclude carrots.

The de facto definition of UPF is that it is the food which people who know nothing about food processing dislike, be it for respectable reasons, such as nutritional quality, or for political reasons, such being profitable for the producers/sellers. The statistical evidence for the deletorious effects of UPF comes from the arbitrary inclusion or exclusion of "bad" or "good" foods.

Cheese is not UPF, in spite of being idustrially made, by tens of processing steps, including high temperature heating and inclusion and exclusion of components. If you include the industrially produced milk, starter culture and the enzymes which are indespensible for cheesemaking, it's literally hundreds of processing steps. Potato chips are UPF despite being made by just washing, cutting and frying (adding a few more if even oil production is included). PetrDejmek (talk) 09:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources? Bon courage (talk) 10:15, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

@Gliderman

What this and other articles on UPFs do not have is a set of objective criteria that can be used by an assessor without reference to processing steps. The criteria should refer only to the physical and chemical composition of a food.

Such criteria could refer, for instance, to proportions of macro-nutrients, to the particle size of ingredients, and to the proportion of organic structure (undestroyed cell walls, for example).

By this methodology, natural cheeses are likely to be classified as UPFs, and that feels right.

Or maybe you know where such a definition exists. 188.30.79.168 (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree. Honestly I would go so far as to say this article shouldn't exist if there is no way to define the topic of the article. In that case the article must exist as a meta-article that discusses primarily the fact that "Ultra-Processed Food" doesn't have a clear definition and as such cannot be scientifically researched. It seems to me it's more of a catch-all buzz word. If you can't explain the difference between "processed food" and "Ultra-Processed food" in a single sentence it's hard to argue it even exists. A food is either entirely unprocessed, as it exists in nature, or it is processed. Even washing the dirt off a potato is an industrial process. How is that fundamentally different from anything labeled "Ultra-Processed " ? OivinF (talk) 17:38, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Well, it should exist if the topic, no matter how nebulous or vague, gets enough notability. Just because something’s not definable or nebulous does not mean it doesn’t belong in an encyclopedia. We have an article on Aether (classical element), don't we? Same for junk food.

As for actually defining it… well, I think we agree that:

• "Substance" is a dubious word to use when we actually mean matter. The substance link is orange for a reason. Also, what happened to "food"? Doesn't "edible substance" just resolve to "food"? (Before you throw the "for nutritional support" part at me: if someone can live on burger and diet coke, it means that they are using it for the purpose of nutrition, i.e. getting energy and molecules necessary for life from it. Even water is a nutrient.)
• The category typically includes classical junk food and their calorie-reduced variants.

... and work from there. I would really like to undo the controversial edit too, but I am gauging that someone's gonna oppose it and we will need to have a big talk.

--Artoria2e5 🌉 01:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

NPOV

The article needs a rewrite to make it clear that a) ultra-processed food is not an objective category, nor has it received universal acceptance among experts, and b) that the subject is highly controversial among experts.

The lede in particular is particularly egregious, as has been already pointed out. Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Eldomtom2 -- see the consensus making process above in the section title POV and subsequent discussion. Though some fields (i.e. Nutrition) question the framework, many others (including epidemiology and public health, and a growing number of governments, as well as a growing body of public science communication). The evidence for "controversy" is not very strong in any of the sources that have been shared so far, and the burden of proof on anyone claiming not a neutral point of view is on the person claiming its not so. Please share sources, or other evidence that the definition is being challenged. Sadads (talk) 12:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I see no real consensus as having been formed. Furthermore, I am very disturbed by how blithely you brush off "some fields" questioning the framework.

Here is a long list of recent reliable sources critiquing the concept in varying ways and to various extents:

• https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/ultraprocessed-foods-in-public-health-nutrition-the-unanswered-questions/914A38B934EBA5632F865623219A3493
• https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1389601/full
• https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/7/1013
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2161831323002910
• https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.826162/full
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/beyond-ultraprocessed-considering-the-future-role-of-food-processing-in-human-health/F0C80692DBC8871DE4BC4ED1AACF7D8F
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924224422004459
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-study-on-ultraprocessed-fake-meat-and-heart-disease-really-found/
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1

--Eldomtom2 (talk) 19:49, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Science-Based Medicine has published an article on ultra-processed food recently [9] and why the term is problematic, might be worth including on the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)