What Researchers Know about Ultra-Processed Foods

AUSTIN, Texas - July 23, 2024 - PRLog -- Modern food science has brought us many benefits. Many of today's food products are available in relative abundance, packaged in ready-to-eat convenient servings, have long shelf lives that prevent spoilage, and are relatively inexpensive to produce.

Critics point to the potential drawbacks of processed foods, often dubbed "ultra-processed foods" or UPF; they maintain that ultra-processed foods are too calorically dense, containing too much fat, sugar, and salt at the expense of insufficient fiber and nutrients. They contend this combination (sometimes called HFFS, for high in fat, salt, and sugar) leads to overeating (e.g. food addiction), obesity, and other negative health outcomes.

In the following section, we'll take a look at some of the key innovations in the food laboratory, starting with fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, followed by additives, preservatives, and unwanted contaminants entering the food supply.

A Brief History Of Fats During The Rise Of Industrial Food Production

In northern Europe, dietary fats for cooking were typically derived from the milk of domesticated animals (in the form of butter) or slaughtered animals (cows, pigs, etc.) that were rendered to create fats (tallow), while southern Mediterranean diets relied heavily on olive oil as a primary source of dietary fat.

This changed when the French Emperor Napoleon III demanded a lower-cost beef tallow substitute to feed his troops, leading Mège-Mouriès to invent "oleomargine" in 1869 (the patents first went to Jurgens, later today's conglomerate Unilever.)

Early margarine used beef tallow as a raw ingredient, but in 1871, American inventor Henry W. Bradley invented a new hydrogenation process to create margarine from cottonseed and other seed oils.

In 1911, researchers at Procter & Gamble introduced a "crystallized cottonseed oil." Marketed under the brand name Crisco, this hydrogenated oil remained soft at room temperature, offering greater convenience to home cooks compared to traditional animal tallows.

Shortages during the Depression and World War II led American margarine manufacturers to favor seed oils over beef tallow, a practice that continues to this day. German manufacturers, facing extreme shortages during World War II, developed a chemical process to create artificial fats from coal that were then turned into margarine.

The use of trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) was phased out in the US in 2018 due to health concerns; it was largely replaced with total hydrogenated oils, often produced from soybeans or palm oil.

Today's food scientists can create a variety of emulsified fat products that are technically fat-free (such as fat-free mayonnaise or flavored "buttery" spreads) to meet customer demand for diet ingredients.

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