Ultra-Processed Foods Are Reshaping Global Health

For decades, the food industry has insisted that ultra-processed foods — those engineered in laboratories with artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives — are safe. The science is now telling a very different story.

A landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who eat the most ultra-processed foods have a 62% higher risk of premature death than those who eat the least. The link to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers is now well-established.

Yet ultra-processed foods now account for more than 60% of calories consumed in the United States — and the figure is rising in developing countries as Western food companies expand their markets.

We are in the middle of a public health crisis that is hiding in plain sight, says Dr. Carlos Monteiro, the Brazilian nutritionist who coined the term ultra-processed foods. And the food industry has spent billions of dollars to keep us from seeing it.

But the tide may be turning. Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have introduced front-of-package warning labels that have measurably reduced consumption of unhealthy foods.