Studies linking the consumption of ultra-processed foods to serious health problems such as obesity, diabetes and tumors are increasingly numerous and convincing. Yet the food industry continues to deny and downplay these risks, attacking the credibility of researchers and pressuring governments to avoid any form of regulation. An investigation by the Financial Times reveals Big Food's strategies and conflicts of interest in what is emerging as one of the most crucial public health battles of our time.
The “revolutionary” paradigm of ultra-processed foods
It all begins in 2009, when the Brazilian nutritionist Carlos Monteiro coins the term “ultra-processed foods” to describe foods that have undergone multiple industrial processes, such as the addition of preservatives, flavors, or the removal and addition of nutrients. Monteiro noticed that although Brazilian families were spending less on sugar and oil, obesity rates were on the rise. The paradox was explainable: they consumed more highly processed foods.
It was a conceptual breakthrough that laid the foundations for a new line of research. The "Nova" food classification system created by Monteiro, in fact, not only evaluates the nutritional content of foods, but also the processes to which they are subjected before arriving on the plate. In the following years, dozens of studies use this approach to investigate the links between consumption of ultra-processed foods and chronic non-communicable diseases.
The results? They are alarming: these industrial formulas, which range from snacks to breakfast cereals to ready meals, encourage hyperconsumption but can leave the consumer undernourished but obese. A mix of carbohydrates and fats that triggers the brain's reward system, pushing you to eat more to sustain the pleasure given by these products.
Deny, deny, deny. Counterattack if necessary. Doubts, conflicts of interest and lobbies
As science accumulates evidence, the food industry (dominated by global giants such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mars and Kraft Heinz) is starting to see accusations of ultra-processed foods as a threat to its business model. A model based precisely on these high profit margin products. The reaction? An intense campaign against any hypothesis of regulation, which in many ways follows the tactics adopted in the past by the tobacco and alcohol industries.
The analysis of the Financial Times on US lobbying data (the cradle of ultra-processed food, a real testing ground) is enlightening. It reveals that in 2023, food and beverage companies spent $106 million on lobbying. AND almost double that of tobacco and alcohol combined. With an increase of 21% compared to 2020, driven above all by pressure on the issues of food processing and sugars.
But Big Food doesn't just deny or open its purse strings to influence policy makers. As already seen with cigarettes, it also seeks to sow doubts about the validity of the research of scientists like Monteiro. “The strategy I see the food industry using is denial. Deny, denounce and delay”, he summarizes Barry Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London and consultant on multisensory experiences of food and drink.
A winning strategy so far: only a handful of countries (including Belgium, Israel and Brazil) currently refer to ultra-processed foods in their dietary guidelines. With the weight of evidence continues to accumulate, public health experts believe the real question is no longer if, but how and how much this knowledge will be translated into standards.
The long arm of Big Food in research and institutions
To understand the extent of this battle, we must proceed patiently to reconstruct the pervasive network of links and financing that for decades has linked the food industry to the main food and nutrition science departments in the world. Connections that help Big Food to "manufacture doubts", financing analyzes that exonerate companies. Either they suggest that the charges against them are unproven, or they simply pull the wool over their eyes by “throwing the ball into the stands.” A 2018 analysis found that the authors of studies critical of Monteiro's Nova system almost all had ties to the ultra-processed industry. Regulatory bodies and scientific advisory boards are also often intertwined with these multinationals.
Researchers studying human nutrition at the University of Reading in the UK, for example, received £262.832 in research funding from food multinational Mars between 2018 and 2023, according to a recent access to information request. PepsiCo provided £61.756 to researchers in the same period.
Financial Times
Then, a bit like the gun lobby with the "right to self-defense", there is the question of "freedom of choice", the sector's workhorse for opposing labels (and taxes). In Brazil, where it is considering raising the excise tax on ultra-processed foods, the industry says the limits would penalize consumers by reducing options and raising prices. A topic, I cannot deny, that is relevant in a nation where hunger is a serious problem. Not to mention the classic passing the buck of companies and "unwitting collaborators" on social media: if their products are bad it's because they lack personal willpower or physical exercise. Sure why not.
You feel like being in denial: ultra-processed foods are the elephant in the global public health room
Don't fool Big Food: denying, attacking and postponing can only work up to a certain point. Against legal and lobbyist barricades, the international scientific community is uniting in denouncing the impact of ultra-processed foods on global health costs. Because if it is true that technological advances have made food more accessible and convenient, it is equally true that the situation is becoming unsustainable in terms of avoidable chronic diseases.
The “epidemiological transition” he talks about Tim Lang, professor at the Center for Food Policy at City University of London, is now there for all to see. As countries become richer, they abandon traditional diets of simple, whole foods to embrace the “miracle” of ultra-processed foods. A process that the industry has boasted of as a success for decades, and which now risks coming back like a boomerang. With interest.
This is why the game on ultra-processed foods promises to be long and with an outcome that is not at all obvious. On the one hand, science, which patiently and methodically accumulates data and broadens consensus on the need to act. On the other, multinationals, with their tried and tested weapons of lobbying, revolving doors, influence and lawsuits. At the center, what is at stake: the future of the health of billions of people and the very sustainability of health systems. A challenge which, like climate change, will require vision, courage and determination. But also the awareness that every delay has a price in human lives. And that we can no longer afford to pay for it.
