Giving Compass' Take:

• A study from the  Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University reveals that the United States packaged food and beverage supply is ultra-processed.

• How can donors support a healthier food supply?

• Read about how food labeling is broken for consumers. 

The United States packaged food and beverage supply in 2018 was ultra-processed and generally unhealthy, according to the study.

Since about 80% of Americans’ total calorie consumption comes from store-bought foods and beverages (packaged and unpackaged), the food and beverage supply plays a central role in the development of chronic disease including obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The study aims to provide new information for consumers, researchers, and policymakers to encourage food manufacturers to reformulate or replace unhealthy products and to inform the US government about where action may be necessary to improve the healthfulness of packaged food and beverages.

For the study, scientists analyzed 230,156 products and, using the NOVA Classification System, found 71% of products such as bread, salad dressings, snack foods, sweets, sugary drinks, and more were ultra-processed. Among the top 25 manufacturers by sales volume, 86% of products were classified as ultra-processed.

“Our team has previously shown that breads, in particular, have 12% higher sodium content in the US in comparison to the UK, where national sodium-reduction strategies have contributed to lowering sodium levels in packaged foods,” Baldridge says.

To that end, the study team last summer launched the US version of FoodSwitch, a mobile phone app that allows consumers to scan packaged foods to determine their healthfulness. If a product doesn’t exist in the app’s 268,000-product database, then the app asks the user to crowdsource the information by uploading photos of its barcode, nutritional label, and packaging to update the app’s database of foods.

The scientists in this study ranked foods based on their healthfulness number defined by a Health Star Rating system, which scores packaged foods between 0.5 stars (unhealthiest) to 5 stars (healthiest) to provide a quick look at the nutritional profile of packaged foods.

Read the full article about ultra-processed foods by Kristin Samuelson at Futurity.