By: Chloe Trellopoulos
June 5th, 2023
I love them. You love them. We all love them. But are they really good for us? In the U.S, the consumption of ultra processed foods has increased over the past two decades. Science urges us to switch from diets that bring cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer to diets that promise us a healthy future. But what really is good for you? And what are the impacts of these ultra-processed foods?
Over the past two decades, the consumption of ultra-processed foods has increased, making the average American living in the United States have a more processed diet. The reason for this shift to a more ultra-processed food diet isn’t really prominent other than the fact that we find these foods more appealing to our taste buds, especially with the impact of the pandemic.
In the article, “Americans Are Eating More Ultra-Processed Foods”, the lead researcher, Filippa Juul, said “”In the early days of the pandemic, people changed their purchasing behaviors to shop less frequently, and sales of ultra-processed foods such as boxed macaroni and cheese, canned soups, and snack foods increased substantially. People may have also eaten more packaged ‘comfort foods’ as a way of coping with the uncertainty of the pandemic.””
Many students here at Carver even eat ultra-processed foods – snacks – on a daily basis, even without the presence of school.
“I eat snacks everyday,” Samira, a student here at Carver, says
“Very often,” said Julietta.
“On a daily basis, like once or twice,” Chimdi said.
“Like all the time,” Elijah states.
Although their tastes can be appealing, we all should still be cautious of what we put in our bodies. Eating these ultra-processed foods can cause inflammation inside our bodies and can result in many chronic diseases as our life progresses.
“[The] most common [health issues] when we're linked to unhealthy diets are heart disease, obesity, diabetes, hypertension. Those are really linked to not eating healthy,” says Kristen Prendergast, a partner of Carver High School and a worker for the Nutrition Education Program for EatRight Philly.
Labels such as organic, healthy, and natural are slapped onto foods and we think that they really benefit us. In actuality, they were organic, healthy, and natural before they were manipulated and transformed to where the benefits of the food before do not matter.
According to an article by Heart&Stroke, “What we eat has a big impact on our health, and ultra-processed foods like candy, soft drinks, pizza and chips do not contain enough of the beneficial nutrients that the body requires. The more ultra-processed foods we eat, the poorer the overall nutritional quality of our diet.”
Identifying these ultra-processed foods may seem to be difficult, but there are many easy ways to help differentiate between what’s healthy and beneficial for you and what can bring harm to your body in the long run. One way to differentiate is by looking at the Nutrition Facts Label.
“When you're looking at the nutrition facts label, I always focus on the items that had the least amount of ingredients because if you have a long list of ingredients, most likely it's like it would be processed and there's a lot of those additives in it. So just utilizing that back label is how to identify,” says Kristen.
So what exactly is a healthy diet? The question is difficult to answer because there isn’t an exact one.
“What's healthy for one person might not be healthy for another. But I think [that] eating the right foods [to] make your body feel good and make you feel good. So, it's not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ with healthy diets. It's what feels right for your body,” Kristen states.
Basically, in general, allowing your diet to include foods from all food groups will benefit you, not just from chronic diseases and internal issues. Food variety to your diet is the key to maintaining balance.
According to an article by The University of Georgia, “Foods contain different nutrients, and no single food can provide all the nutrition our bodies need.”
Even if there isn’t a solid healthy diet, –since the idea of being healthy varies for everyone–being aware of what goes in your body and making the right decisions on your diet will bring ease to your daily life.
“It's just a matter of making that healthier choice more often than not, so I would say just being conscious of our choices to be healthier,” Kristen says.
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