How much Ultra-Processed Food are Americans eating?
In the 1800s, the average American's diet looked very different from what it does today. The food that was available to people came from local food purveyors and consisted of real food ingredients.
The following century brought many changes to the food system. Due to the effects of industrialization, a growing population, and war, the U.S. and other nations faced a need for food that was “safe” and could last for a long time on shelves without spoiling. Armies had to eat and a growing middle class found convenience in quick, prepackaged meals. As a result, new innovations like canning and pasteurization helped advance Western nations.
These new ways of processing food did increase food security across the country. There are also levels to processing food and the early methods were more so focused on making real food ingredients safe and durable. So in no way am I here to dismiss all the technologies that we use to process real food ingredients today.
However, with time, food processing technology got better and the possibilities of what we could do grew. We went from methods of preserving food to new categories of food to creating it out of ingredients that have nothing to do with real food. The study of food science even became a thing and many universities started offering degrees in this field. I would argue that we are now in an era in which food processing has become so advanced that we are creating calorie-rich products that are edible but are not true food.
Most of the food Americans eat today is processed, and a large amount of it is ultra-processed. People eating a Standard American Diet are eating food that is calorie-rich but nutritionally depleted. It might fill all the checkboxes on the macronutrient side of things but is utterly devoid of the micronutrients found in fresh animal and plant foods. As a result, most Americans are overfed but undernourished.
Ultra-processed food makes up a significant slice of the average American’s diet. Over the last couple of decades, there have been several surveys and studies that examined what the average American is eating. From these, we know that ultra-processed food is on the uptrend.
Juul et al. analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). They were looking at what survey participants ate from 2001 to 2018. The analysis showed that ultra-processed food consumption rose from 53.5% to 57%, a trend that was consistent among all sociodemographic subgroups, except Hispanics
A similar trend can be seen in children. Wang et al. analyzed data from the same survey, but from 1999 to 2018. They found that of 33,795 US youths aged 2-19 years the total energy consumed from ultra-processed foods increased from 61.4% to 67.0%. At the same time, the percentage of total energy intake from unprocessed foods decreased from 28.8% to 23.5%.
If these numbers are shocking, realize that the trend is going toward more and more ultra-processed food, especially with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In fact, 2020 was coined the Year of Comfort food by some, because “feel good” foods had made a huge comeback. A poll of about 2000 adults conducted during this time found that two in three people were reverting to comfort foods such as pizza, hamburgers, fries, etc. On average they ate these foods at least 5 times a week and almost 70% said that they would continue to eat these foods post-pandemic. And we all know people who reverted to eating more junk food during this pandemic.
So why is it so concerning that more than half of the average American's diet is coming from ultra-processed food?
There is increasing evidence that these foods could be leading to poor diet quality and a host of chronic diseases. One of the noncommunicable diseases linked to poor diet quality that we are facing as a nation is diabetes. Currently, 1 out of 3 American adults is prediabetic, meaning that they are on the path to having diabetes.
What can you do to reverse this trend? Here are some things to consider.
Look for foods with fewer ingredients, because this often means less processed
Limit already prepared or quick-cook foods.
Cook your own meals and keep them simple
Recreate a healthy version of your favorites
Find local food purveyors or source your own food from your region
What worked the best for me is focusing my diet on meat and veggies. I cook simple foods and try to fill my meals with nutritious ingredients. I also look for whole food at the grocery store, source from local farmers, or hunt, fish, and forage for ingredients in my region.