What is an ultra-processed food (UPF)? For the majority of consumers who do not wish to read the original multi-paragraph description, various shorthands have arisen. They are ‘foods your grandmother wouldn’t have eaten’, ‘foods wrapped in plastic’, and even ‘foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce’.
Safe to say, the meaning of a UPF is contested, and poorly understood.
Plant-based meat, however, has been firmly placed in the ultra-processed food category. In a survey by the British Nutrition Foundation, plant-based meat was the second most commonly associated food with UPFs. With this comes many of the negative connotations that are associated with the category.
To untangle the complexity in the UPF debate, in its latest video, ProVeg International’s New Food Hub chat with food systems researcher Jenny Chapman, author of the new report, Processing the discourse over plant-based meat: understanding nuance in the ‘ultra-processed food’ debate to build acceptance and trust in plant-based meat.
Jenny Chapman provides a valuable social and historical context to the evolution of the UPF category. Crucially, she reminds us, that the UPF framework was developed as a sociopolitical framework, not a strictly nutritional one. Carlos Monteiro, who developed the framework, was thinking in the specific context of 2009 Brazil, where he was concerned not only with health and nutrition, but also with social and food culture change.
According to Chapman, the framework is a “really good way to identify food made in factories by large companies”. However, the UPF category was not designed to identify foods purely based on health outcomes (hence why foods high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat are grouped together with wholemeal bread and infant formula). So, ‘it’s not really fair for us to criticise a classification for being bad at something it was never intended to do’.
The report provides five recommendations for stakeholders and influencers from across the food system, and provides a range of tangible actions to improve consumer trust and acceptance in plant-based meat. To watch the full interview and download the report, visit the New Food Hub.
Find more expert quotes and analysis in the full piece on the New Food Hub, and contact their expert team directly at [email protected].
