{"id":305340,"date":"2025-11-21T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305340\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:00:08","slug":"we-know-ultra-processed-foods-are-bad-for-you-but-can-you-spot-them-take-our-quiz-ultra-processed-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305340\/","title":{"rendered":"We know ultra-processed foods are bad for you \u2013 but can you spot them? Take our quiz | Ultra-processed foods"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major global report released this week linked ultra-processed foods to harm in every major human organ<\/a>. For people in the US, the UK and Australia, these foods make up more than half the calories they consume each day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not always easy to tell which foods are ultra-processed.<\/p>\n

The term was coined in 2009<\/a> by researchers at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo, as part of their Nova food classification system<\/a> that sorts foods into four groups:<\/p>\n

Group one: unprocessed or minimally processed foods including whole fruits and vegetables, milk, oats and rice.<\/p>\n

Group two: processed basic ingredients used in cooking including salt, sugar and vegetable oils.<\/p>\n

Group three: processed foods made by adding items from groups one and two. Includes canned legumes, bread and cheese.<\/p>\n

Group four: ultra-processed foods which are commercial products made from extracts of foods, often with added chemicals, flavours and other ingredients you wouldn\u2019t find in a home kitchen.<\/p>\n

While there can be health harms from an unbalanced diet of foods in any of the groups \u2013 for example, those containing too much salt<\/a> \u2013 researchers say the problem with group four is that the processes used to make them and the industrial ingredients they contain mean they are not \u201creal food\u201d and are more likely to cause health problems.<\/p>\n

But they can be hard to spot. A long ingredients list with names you don\u2019t recognise (hello maltodextrin and soy lecithin) is a giveaway for ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re unsure, the Open Food Facts<\/a> app lets you search for products and see their category. In the meantime, test your knowledge of ultra-processed foods with our quiz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major global report released this week linked ultra-processed foods to harm in every major human organ. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-305340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}