Eating ultra-processed foods can be healthy. I should know, I’m a dietitian.

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I place my bike in the last position of the rack while the cars circle the parking lot. As I pass through the automatic doors, I feel that familiar rush of forced air. I’m finally at my local Trader Joe’s. Grabbing a red plastic basket, I try not to get distracted by plants I don’t have room for and would probably forget to water. I’m here on a mission: stock up on ultra-processed foods that will get me through the week. From pasta sauces to pre-made salads with their plastic dressing packets, to frozen stir-fry mixes, to delicious dumplings and oat milk for my coffee, TJ can take all my grocery money in exchange to make my life much easier.

Ultra-processed foods are once again in the spotlight. The first week of the year felt a lot like Ultra-Processed Food Awareness Week. The New York Times brought us “The Well Challenge: 5 Days to Happier, Healthy Eating.” It all started with a quiz to help us identify the ultra-processed foods in our grocery cart. It was informative…if a little confusing. We learned that Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream isn’t ultra-processed, as it only contains five ingredients that we probably recognize. Turkey Hill French Vanilla Ice Cream, on the other hand, is ultra-processed, due to its artificial flavors, dyes like yellow 5, and an emulsifier called cellulose gum (aka carboxymethylcellulose, if you want to make that sound even scarier).

That same week, the Washington Post gave us a resource for choosing healthier versions of ultra-processed sliced ​​bread, peanut butter, chicken nuggets, Greek yogurt and deli meats. And the New Yorker published a long article titled “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?” » The emphasis was of course on ultra-processed foods. The message is clear: we need to take a hard look at what we eat.

I started studying what makes a food ultra-processed in the summer of 2023. At that time, famous British doctor Chris van Tulleken was gaining attention for an experiment he performed for his book. Ultra-processed people: the science behind non-processed foods. In it, he details a month of his life consuming 80 percent of his diet from ultra-processed foods, an attempt to replicate the amount that appears in the average British diet. After van Tulleken ate a variety of fast foods, frozen meals, and sugary cereals for 30 days, he reported lack of sleep, anxiety, laziness, constipation, and feelings of unhappiness. He generalized his experience, suggesting that any a diet rich in ultra-processed foods would have the same result. The British and American media ate it up. NPR published a photo of van Tulleken scooping flakes from a huge bowl of cereal. On the BBC, he stood next to a giant pile of savory and sweet treats, with a few cans of vegetables placed to the side for added contrast. Men’s Health magazine featured a photo of van Tulleken, his disembodied hands aggressively crushing store-bought bread into his grimacing face.

To me, it all seemed overly dramatized and incredibly reductive. As a dietitian, I regularly see in my patients the analysis paralysis that accompanies trying to absorb the latest urgent advice about what not to eat, and this story about ultra-processed foods was no different. My patients started looking at the ingredients and naturally wondered if they could continue to eat their almond milk lattes and veggie burgers. So I decided to find out for myself what it would be like to eat a diet deliberately high in ultra-processed foods. In September, I decided to replicate van Tulleken’s experiment.

What is an ultra-processed food? This can be difficult to tell. I presented the NOVA food classification system rubric to a chemical engineer who manages the food processing plant used for teaching and research at the University of California, Davis. We both looked at the printouts and tried to clearly delineate what constituted a Category 4 (ultra-processed) food and not a Category 3 (processed) food. We found the categories fragile; Placing a food in one or the other was a matter of judgment, with experts often disagreeing over which foods fell into which category. (In the NOVA classifications, ice cream is specifically listed as an example of a Category 4 ultraprocessed food, but according to last week’s Times quiz, this is not always the case. This is not an error of anyone’s part, but rather an error an illustration of how fuzzy it all is.) From what the engineer and I have determined, the NOVA classifications put Forager Project’s organic cashew yogurts, the hot dogs Oscar Mayer, Olipop, baby formula, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and the AG1 supplement touted by wellness influencer Andrew Huberman, all in the ultra-processed foods category.

Over the course of the month, 80 percent of my diet came from ultra-processed foods, as best I could define them. But even though van Tulleken deliberately replaced snacks like nuts with chips, I made no nutritional compromises with my diet. I ate this cashew yogurt, along with Aidells chicken and apple sausage, soyrizo (a vegetarian chorizo ​​dupe), protein shakes, gluten-free bread, and countless Trader Joe’s snacks and prepared meals and Costco.

At the end of my experience, I felt better than before. I went from skipping lunch during the week, because on Sunday Jessica wasn’t interested in meal prep, to having meals and snacks filled with veggies and protein on hand. I wasn’t tired of deciding what to cook because everything took five minutes or less to get to my plate. Plus, everything was good. It was easy to take a super-processed main dish and add some fruits and vegetables on the side. I no longer needed afternoon naps and overall my anxiety was less. Most importantly for me, my partner noticed that I was more pleasant in the evening.

Yes, in theory it would be great if my breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks came from unprocessed or minimally processed foods. I think we can all agree that a pasta sauce made on the stovetop from tomatoes, basil, oregano, and rosemary that we grew in our garden would probably taste better than the tomato basil marinara from Trade Giotto. And I wish we could all live in a reality that took that into account. But many of us work well over 40 hours a week, sometimes working multiple jobs, with long commutes and alternating shifts just to pay our bills and manage our student debt. The time it takes to prepare a meal is often infinitesimal, and if we have to wash, cut, season and cook a vegetable, it just might not happen. And that’s where Trader Joe’s Asian-Style Vegetables, with Ultra-Processed Stir-Fry Sauce, comes in for me. (I doubt my life would improve if I came home after a hard day at work and ate unseasoned vegetables, without the aid of delicious prepackaged toppings.) Surprisingly, I don’t think my stance on nutrition is different from that of the media. Food awareness week. On the fifth day of the Times’ Well Challenge, the final recommendation was: “add produce to your plate.” A major concern is that Americans are choosing ultra-processed foods. instead nutrients. Yet in many cases they may be one and the same.

Here’s what I’ve learned from my experience and from the media coverage since: Ultra-processed foods is a long scientific term for something with a flimsy definition. It doesn’t list the nutritional value, but it looks really stylish in print. Eating only fast food, chips, and cookies will probably make you feel bad, but that’s not news. I think most people can get by at the grocery store not by becoming food scientists and worrying about every ingredient – as if any of us need one more thing to stress about! – but following the basics of nutrition, trying to get protein and produce food. on our plates as best we can.

I will continue to eat ultra-processed foods, like the majority of people. I’ll stash a few protein bars in my purse and store Trader Joe’s meals in my freezer. I will also continue to eat fruits and vegetables directly from the produce aisle, buy salmon from the deli counter when I can afford it, and try to drink enough water. I look forward to a society that will help us all afford and eat minimally processed foods, and in the meantime, I will eat my Trader Joe’s Eggwich at peace.

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