Smart choices amid ultraprocessed foods

We are inhabiting that time zone of human evolution where your choice of food is a swipe away, where you can find a specific ingredient for your recipe at the touch of a click.

When your corporate job does not spare any time for you to cook, numerous food delivery options come to the rescue. What has spiked this entire process to revolutionise our food as we witness today is the packaged, processed, and ultra-processed food.

Splitting them further, unprocessed or minimally processed food goes through drying, milling, grinding, crushing, freezing, or pasteurisation to get rid of unwanted stuff and make them suitable for consumption.

Fruits, veggies, lentils, and rice can be a few examples. The taste is still intact as there is only a single foodstuff. Processed food before packaging goes through tedious processing that rips it off of its indigenous composition, nutritional value, and authentic taste. Moreover, it is fortified and added with additional preservatives, salt, sugar, and unhealthy fat to prolong shelf life.

Hence, they contain more than one ingredient and if you read the labels, breads, canned fish, cookies, biscuits, tinned vegetables, and artificial juices, are some common findings.

Ultra-processed foods on the other hand have many more added ingredients such as artificial flavours, colors, stabilisers, hydrogenated fats, or palm oils. They are industry-formulated or lab-grown from natural sources or artificially synthesised from organic compounds. Sauces, dips, frozen sausages, hams, ice creams, carbonated drinks, instant soups and noodles, junk foods, crisps, morning cereals, etc. top the list of regular consumption.

The food industry has drastically transformed and is becoming a rare sight with each passing day to find food ingredients that do not come packaged and processed, particularly in the urban and modern cities sparing the countryside.

The store aisles are flooded with packaged and processed stuff; not to mention they have granted access to the global food components but at what cost?

According to research findings published in the National Library of Medicine, “food processing can produce potentially toxic compounds such as furans, heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, acrolein, advanced glycation end products, industrial trans-fatty acids, and acrylamide. Ultra-processed foods also generally have a long shelf life, which could result in the migration of contaminants such as phthalates, bisphenols, mineral oils, and microplastics from contact packaging.

Studies have suggested that these contaminants may have carcinogenic properties and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.”

It all depends on our choices and wise decisions to pick the right stuff and not be swayed by fake taste and marketing gimmicks in the name of health.

The following tips can be helpful to get your food as fresh and as authentic to your platter:

Fresh is an option worth falling for always. Be it fruits, vegetables, meats, or dairy; picking fresh that can be sourced locally as much as possible, your nutritional build-up will never be compromised.

Organic is not any better. Unless and until it is seasonal, local, and fresh produce it is still a classic option.

Always check the labels. The fewer the number of ingredients, the better.

Do not ignore the labels that say emulsifiers, anticaking agents, antifoaming, glazing or gelling, or thickening agents. They are the culprits and should never be a part of regular consumption.

Beware of your favourite takeaway or dine-in restaurant. Chances are high that they might be serving foods that are ultra-processed owing to their ease, availability, and high palatability.

Go in for handy simple homemade recipes, and make them your takeaways at your workplace. The effort will be worth it.

Just as importantly, awareness is your tool. Use it judiciously to safeguard your body and health.