UPFs should also be heavily taxed due to impact on health and mortality, says scientist who coined term
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are displacing healthy diets “all over the world” despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the nutritional scientist who first coined the term.
Prof Carlos Monteiro of the University of São Paulo will highlight the increasing danger UPFs present to children and adults at the International Congress on Obesity this week.
“UPFs are increasing their share in and domination of global diets, despite the risk they represent to health in terms of increasing the risk of multiple chronic diseases,” Monteiro told the Guardian ahead of the conference in São Paulo.
We already have a traffic light system on foods and it is largely ignored, partly because few people have the time and energy but also because you have to look at your diet as a whole and not judge it by individual items. I also think these UPF studies have a bit of a conservative agenda.
Why do people eat more processed food? Because there isn’t a homemaker spending hours a day preparing meals as a full time job. Proceesed and convenience foods are massively egalitarian and I think let more people join the workforce.
So many public health problems would be solved if we publicly funded cafeterias to provide subsidised breakfast, lunch and dinner to any member of the public. Economies of scale on providing those meals would make them incredibly cost effective and the improved health among working class people would lead to increased tax receipts which are would (at least partially) mitigate the cost of such a policy.