Léo RamosUltra-processed food: tasty but higher in caloriesLéo Ramos
If you want to maintain a healthy weight and lower your risk of cardiovascular problems, don’t stock your home with processed, ready-to-eat groceries. These products, called ultra-processed foods, contain preservatives, dyes, and stabilizers, not to mention added sugar, fat, and salt. They include cake, cookies and crackers, soups, white bread, prepared food, and soda – tasty, high-energy goodies that can be eaten anywhere and any time. A team from the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) took a survey to find out how much of these products are found in Brazilian homes. They discovered that when more ultra-processed food is available, the rate of overweight and obese people is higher. Relying on data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the researchers analyzed the quantity of ultra-processed goods purchased in a week by 56,000 households across the country. In homes where a smaller proportion of the diet consisted of such products (that is, 220 out of 1,581 total calories), the rate of overweight and obese people was lower: 34.1% and 9.8%, respectively. In households where one-third of total calories came from ultra-processed foods, these rates were 43.9% and 13.1% (PLoS One, March 2014).
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