Dr. Marion Nestle, longtime NYU professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, with additional faculty roles at UC San Francisco and Cornell, is best known for analyzing the intersections of food, politics, and health, often exposing how government policy, corporate lobbying, and food industry marketing shape what we eat.
Feature Image Credit: McMaster University
Coming soon to a supermarket near you: Non ultra-processed!
With all the fuss over defining the term ultra-processed, public and private groups are filling the gap with labels that identify foods that are not ultra-processed.
I know of three ultra-processed labeling initiatives so far.
I. Leading the way is the Non GMO Project. It already is licensing foods meeting its non ultra-processed standards to carry this seal.
The Non-UPF Verified Standard
II. California is considering a front-of-package label to indicate foods that are not ultra-processed; it expects only about one-third of processed supermarket foods to meet its criteria.
III. And in Europe, Nutri-Score (as I written about previously) is considering adding something about ultra-processing to its current labels. Even food products meeting its A criteria can be ultra-processed.
Comment: While fusses about the definition of ultra-processed continue, labels like these ought to help people recognize and cut down on such foods. As for me, I’m not too worried about the definition. As one of my colleagues put it, as with pornography. everyone recognizes an ultra-processed food when they see one.
The post Coming soon to a supermarket near you: Non ultra-processed! appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
