If I was having so much trouble translating the concern over ultraprocessed foods into tangible actions I could take, I thought, surely the average consumer is bewildered, too. And that\u2019s before they start tallying up<\/a> the costs.<\/p>\n So I decided to take my reporting skills straight to the grocery store.<\/p>\n And that is how I ended up in the snack aisle with Mande, who, in the 1990s, helped design the nutrition facts label that packaged foods are required to display. He has worked at the Food and Drug Administration and US Department of Agriculture, and now is a professor at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a nutrition advocate.<\/a><\/p>\n I invited Mande to accompany me on my usual grocery run at a couple stores in Washington, D.C., where I live \u2014 Trader Joe\u2019s and Harris Teeter \u2014 picking his brain about the things my family buys on a regular basis to see how we are faring when it comes to ultraprocessed foods and nutrition.<\/p>\n As we walk through the aisles, he helps demystify the shelves, from ingredients lists to nutrition facts. Here is his practical advice.<\/p>\n Ahead of our trip, I had steeled myself for the scrutiny awaiting my family\u2019s grocery selections, predicting a demoralizing result. My fear proves to be true, at least when we peruse the cheese section.<\/p>\n \u201cUltraprocessed,\u201d Mande says gently, inspecting the ingredients on the \u201cMexican cheese\u201d I\u2019m buying for taco night. He points to the \u201canti-caking agents\u201d and \u201cmold inhibitor\u201d listed at the end.<\/p>\n Nearly 75 percent of the American food supply<\/a> is estimated to be ultraprocessed, supplying more than half of our calories<\/a>. According to Kennedy, such foods are \u201cpoison.<\/a>\u201d But what makes a food ultraprocessed? There is no single agreed-upon definition (though the Trump administration is soliciting feedback in the hopes of developing one).<\/p>\n The term derives from a classification system<\/a> first proposed by Brazilian researchers in 2009 and largely applies to food with chemical additives or made by industrial processes.<\/p>\n By this definition, they\u2019re in almost every section of the supermarket. From sliced breads, breakfast cereals, lunch meats, and yes, even dairy, it\u2019s a challenge to find anything outside of produce that\u2019s not ultraprocessed. I\u2019m relieved when Mande votes my chips and my go-to snack bar (mostly made of nuts) as arguably on the bubble.<\/p>\n I ask him how much I should worry about my ultraprocessed cheese. \u201cYou know,\u201d he sighs, \u201cit saves you time.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s right. It feels like a victory to find products my young children will actually eat while juggling the demands of a budget, busy schedule, intense pickiness, and the mountain of recommendations about how to raise kids with a healthy relationship to food.<\/p>\n Mande\u2019s advice? Try not to stress about everything. The main concern with ultraprocessed food, he says, is the way companies break food down into an unrecognizable form, mix it with added sweeteners and chemicals, and then reformulate it into something that is easy to eat \u2014 and eat way too much of.<\/p>\n \u201cThe things that make ultraprocessed food bad are twofold: It\u2019s hyperpalatable and it\u2019s calorically dense,\u201d Mande tells me. \u201cThe food\u2019s really being designed to be over-eaten, that\u2019s what those ingredients allow them to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to eat food that\u2019s nutrient-dense, not calorically dense.\u201d<\/p>\n We are standing in the frozen foods aisle, and Mande is looking at the nutrition facts on a package of stir-fry. \u201cWhere I always start is here,\u201d he says, pointing to the list of ingredients on the back.<\/p>\n Mande says he looks closely at the first three things, because ingredients are listed in order of most to least present in the food. The first three should be recognizable and nutritious \u2014 things you\u2019d generally want to consume, he says. If the second or third ingredient is sugar or some other sweetener, proceed with caution.<\/p>\n As you continue down the list, be wary of ingredients that are unrecognizable or clearly an additive or preservative. Not all ingredients with funny names are automatically bad, though, and the fact that a food contains a preservative or ingredient to extend its shelf life is not immediately disqualifying.<\/p>\n There are things to look out for, however.<\/p>\n Take artificial dyes, for example. The administration has made a big deal of persuading companies to remove them from food, falsely claiming<\/a> at times they\u2019ve banned them. Some states have issued bans and companies are responding to pressures to phase them out, which nutrition experts say is overall a positive move. While there is evidence for some dyes being more harmful than others, experts note they are a key element to making ultraprocessed food attractive, especially to children.<\/p>\n Just because a dye (or other ingredient) is listed as \u201cnatural\u201d doesn\u2019t make it healthy.<\/p>\n \u201cCyanide is deadly. It is natural,\u201d Mande quips.<\/p>\n Ultimately, he says, \u201cYou have to decide how much that\u2019s going to concern you \u2014 that it\u2019s ultraprocessed,\u201d keeping in mind the totality of what you\u2019re eating.<\/p>\n He recommends picturing a plate, and determining whether half is covered with produce, whole grains, and protein. \u201cIf [the ingredients] are those things, then you\u2019re off to a good start,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Next, Mande points to the nutrition facts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing you need to know about the \u2018percent daily value\u2019 is, if the number is five or less, it\u2019s low, and if it\u2019s 20 or more, it\u2019s high,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so some things you want low, some things you want high.\u201d<\/p>\n So as we browse, Mande and I keep a keen eye out for added sugars, saturated fat, sodium, and dietary fiber.<\/p>\n In the prepared foods aisle, the saturated fat and sodium levels were the big offenders \u2014 often over 20 percent of the daily value. The dino-shaped chicken nuggets (a frequent necessity to get our kids to eat protein), are arguably ultraprocessed, but the main red flag is the higher sodium level. I am relieved that the granola bars my kid gravitates toward actually have a mostly recognizable ingredient list. But they have a fair amount of added sugar \u2014 something Mande warns is priming our kids to expect everything to be sweet.<\/p>\n In each case, Mande advises that I consider whether there is family history of health conditions to worry about (such as high blood pressure as it relates to sodium, or heart disease as it relates to saturated fat) and how those foods fit in as a proportion of the rest of what we are eating.<\/p>\n He notes that it\u2019s added sugar to worry about \u2014 the freeze-dried fruit my kids adore have sugars in them, but they\u2019re from the fruit and not added, making them less of a concern.<\/p>\n Turning the corner to the pasta aisle, it seems like a good time to talk about carbs. Mande points to dietary fiber as a useful measure of how refined a carb-heavy product is, whether bread, pasta, chips, or crackers. This is an example of something you want the percentage in the higher category.<\/p>\n He teaches me a trick: Ideally, the grams of dietary fiber should be 10 percent or more of the grams of total carbohydrates. For instance, a bag of spaghetti with 40 grams of carbohydrates per serving should have at least 4 grams of dietary fiber. (That chip that gave me so much hope? That was 14 grams of carbs per serving and 3 grams of dietary fiber \u2014 a solid 21 percent.)<\/p>\n Regulations around claiming a product is \u201cwhole grain\u201d are loose enough that it can be hard to trust marketing, but if the dietary fiber is 10 percent or more of the total carbohydrates, that product is a better choice. If it\u2019s excessively high, on the other hand, that may be a tell that it\u2019s mostly an ultraprocessed food pumped with fiber additives.<\/p>\n A gluten-free noodle made with red lentil flour is by far the best nutritionally that we see. One made with brown rice barely exceeds the dietary-fiber percentage of the standard pasta.<\/p>\n A gluten-free boxed mac and cheese marketed as a healthy option, meanwhile, fails the test, fortified with a bunch of vitamins labeled with such descriptions as \u201cextracted from broccoli\u201d \u2014 healthy sounding, but nutritionally insignificant. But an unassuming option that comes with noodles made from chickpea flour is indeed a higher fiber, higher protein choice (both were very high in sodium). And Mande said simple tricks such as adding peas to a boxed mac and cheese can help if you just need an easy meal to get through the week (been there).<\/p>\n As we pass the tortilla section, he persuades me to try a whole grain version for our next taco night instead of regular to up the fiber, after I picked up a bag of the red lentil pasta to mix in with the tri-color spirals my kids are used to. (To my surprise, my picky kids actually end up eating both; on taco night and when I prepare a dish with the two pastas.)<\/p>\n There is some data backing up the idea that small changes such as these are worth it, including in the scientific review published alongside new dietary guidelines<\/a> rolled out by the Trump administration, which place a heavy emphasis on eating \u201creal food\u201d \u2014 protein, produce, and whole grains.<\/p>\n One extra serving of whole grains<\/a> per day lowers diabetes risk by 18 percent and the risk of death from all causes combined by 13 percent, according to Michael Goran, a researcher at the University of Southern California who was a member of the committee that did the review. Cutting ultraprocessed food calories by 10 percent a day could lower the risk of diabetes by 14 percent.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not always easy to know what\u2019s good and bad, even when you\u2019re with an expert. Holding a box of standard round crackers, I opine that even though they are heavily refined and have some added sugars, they have to be better than a bag of Doritos, right?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true,\u201d Mande says, wanting to actually compare the labels. He suggests a basic corn tortilla chip, with fewer ingredients and possibly more fiber, might be the better option.<\/p>\n As our tour winds down, I take stock of what I\u2019ve learned. I feel heartened that my family\u2019s diet is not quite as bad as I feared, though probably still too high in added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat, and too low in dietary fiber.<\/p>\n The truth is that with many of my questions (What additive ingredient is the worst? Are all ultraprocessed foods equal? Where is the line?), Mande just couldn\u2019t answer, because the research hasn\u2019t been done.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, the whole nutrition field is just stricken by the fact we don\u2019t invest in the science,\u201d he says. \u201cSo most things we don\u2019t know \u2014 it wouldn\u2019t be hard to know\u2014we just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n He shows me some of his favorite cookbooks for someone in my shoes (How to Cook Everything Fast by Mark Bittman and Simply Ancient Grains by Maria Speck), because, he said, if you\u2019re going to try to navigate this morass, \u201cWhat you need is a plan.\u201d Mainly, he emphasizes finding a routine that works for each family.<\/p>\n But I leave with another takeaway: Consumers shouldn\u2019t feel like failures for not figuring this out on their own. We are being bombarded with products and marketing that confuse us and give us few healthy options, often a trade-off for convenience and corporate profits.<\/p>\n If it feels impossible, Mande says, it\u2019s because it is impossible. He encourages me by saying that doing my best \u2014 not reaching perfection \u2014 is the goal. Every expert I\u2019ve spoken with has advised making whatever improvements in my diet feels manageable, whether it\u2019s cutting a few ultraprocessed foods here or picking whole grain options there.<\/p>\n But collectively, they say, consumers should demand better.<\/p>\n \u201cThe answer is we have to fix the system,\u201d Mande says. \u201cYou can\u2019t as a consumer sort this out and protect yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Before I head home, I grab a tube of ready-to-bake biscuits. We make them for a breakfast-for-dinner night to accompany eggs and veggies.<\/p>\n I scan the label, applying the lessons Mande has taught me. They have virtually no dietary fiber, but they do have added sugars, and a fair amount of sodium and saturated fat, and in his words, are \u201cdefinitely ultraprocessed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d I say, pausing before I put them in the cart. \u201cCan\u2019t win \u2019em all.\u201d<\/p>\n Tal Kopan can be reached at tal.kopan@globe.com<\/a>. Follow her @talkopan<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/O476ENYZVVCAXDUCX7UTIB6DNQ.jpg\")
illustration by Mark Wang for the Boston Globe; photograph from Adobe Stock<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WZOM7E34HZBSPGOEVLMHFFVSJY.jpg\")
Mark Wang for the Boston Globe<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TVH2BL7B2FGE5MNVCS5GUPZD2I.jpg\")
illustration by Mark Wang for the Boston Globe; photograph from Adobe Stock<\/p>\n![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/EYKEN52ITZDULMKFO2QFL5LPFI.jpg\")
illustration by Mark Wang for the Boston Globe; photograph from Adobe Stock<\/p>\n![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ODJY3YP5BNEITMCFBBGRHCQRKE.jpg\")
Mark Wang for the Boston Globe<\/p>\n