this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026

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Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/world@lemmy.world

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.

UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.

UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits.

There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers’ efforts to optimise the “doses” of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University.

One of the authors, Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

And none of them were really what we would call “soda”. Heck the closest to that would be modern root beer. But considering the lack of other “medicinal” herbs, they definitely don’t count.

Obviously nobody was making regulation Coca-Cola, but the dividing line is getting a lot less clear already. Why is a distillate of some cursed local herb fine, but fresh-squeezed cochineal dye not?

A lot of candies, not all of them. Certain candies have emulsifiers and other ingredients that didn’t exist historically, so you couldn’t get that texture or such.

I actually have emusifiers in my kitchen, and I didn't have to buy them anywhere weird. At this moment I have no idea if it's more or less involved to make them than celery salt, which you mention, and which itself has to be industrial-era.

You probably can find a candy that would meet this bar, but at some point it's less of a category and more of a meaningless list of a few very specific foods that are major diet constituents for very few people.

I should say that the inconsistent, mishmash category of UPFs that exists does show evidence of being harmful, and there is a lot of work trying to pin down which part, exactly. And which has given confusing results to date; I think this is the last thing I read on it before it was paywalled.

And a lot of modern chewing gum is plastic, so I think I don’t have to explain why that’s not possible in the kitchen.

Just stopping to point out that's not food, you aren't supposed to swallow it. It's about equally as close to candy as to a teething ring.

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Obviously nobody was making regulation Coca-Cola, but the dividing line is getting a lot less clear already. Why is a distillate of some cursed local herb fine, but fresh-squeezed cochineal dye not?

That question is called moving the goal posts. We were talking about soda, not something else.

I actually have emusifiers in my kitchen, and I didn't have to buy them anywhere weird.

That you bought an ingredient produced via industrial processes doesn't negate that the ingredient was made with industrial processes. It's not really a "traditional home cooked meal" if you're still using something that requires extensive machinery or chemical processes to create - even if you didn't create them in your kitchen.

Your argument on using the additives in your kitchen as a point that it's not ultra processed anymore is equivalent to me buying chemistry supply and making some paracetamol and saying it's not a pharmaceutical drug but more akin to a herbal remedy because I made it myself.

Just stopping to point out that's not food, you aren't supposed to swallow it. It's about equally as close to candy as to a teething ring.

And yet it's sold in the candy section and has calories via sugar. Weird that this is the one you were able to easily identify as ultra processed.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

That question is called moving the goal posts. We were talking about soda, not something else.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's conchineal in some sodas to make them red. It was honestly just the first food dye I thought of.

The issue with a soda is the ingredients, right? Otherwise it's just mixing.

It’s not really a “traditional home cooked meal” if you’re still using something that requires extensive machinery or chemical processes to create - even if you didn’t create them in your kitchen.

A coffee maker or airfryer is extensive machinery. And even cooking something over a primitive campfire would be a chemical process, so neither of these are really an obvious, airtight definition.

If you require a machine to be used to make ultraprocessed food to be extensive, than that's called a No True Scotsman fallacy, or just circular reasoning.

Your argument on using the additives in your kitchen as a point that it’s not ultra processed anymore is equivalent to me buying chemistry supply and making some paracetamol and saying it’s not a pharmaceutical drug but more akin to a herbal remedy because I made it myself.

Exactly. Where the process happens shouldn't matter. I'm not making this conundrum up, right? Food researchers are struggling with it too.

You're quoting "traditional homemade" a lot, so I'll point out that the traditional part is itself relative. Unless it's mammoth over a campfire it's not going to go back forever. What is normal cooking like mama used to do, and what is scary frankenfood bioscience is perception.