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The risk of early mortality increases exponentially with each amount of ultra-processed food we eat, according to a new study published in the Journal of internal medicine.
According to new research: Eating ultra-processed food increases our risk of early death by 14 percent. But the risk doesn’t stop there. It increases with each 10% increase in the amount of these highly processed foods that we eat.
“Ultraprocessed foods are manufactured industrially from multiple ingredients that usually include additives used for technological and/or cosmetic purposes,” the authors of new research said in their study that was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
“Ultraprocessed foods are mostly consumed in the form of snacks, desserts, or ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat meals,” the study authors continued, adding that the consumption of such foods “has largely increased during the past several decades.”
The authors of the study concluded that roughly 61% of the diet of American adults comes from ultra-processed food. But Americans are hardly alone. In fact, two other major industrialized Western nations consume even more processed foods than Americans do.
The diet of Canadians is made up of 62% of ultra-processed foods, and in the UK, ultra-processed foods makeup 63% of the diet there.
Experts attribute the rise in consumption of processed foods to one main factor: Time. The fast-paced world we live in keeps people pressured for free time. Thus, people turn to solutions that provide a quickly made meal and processed foods offer that solution.
Simply put, the convenience factor of ultra-processed foods steers people towards choosing foods that are considered grab and go or ready-to-eat. Nutritionally, these processed foods are among some of the most unhealthy available.
The answer to better health and longevity is to avoid processed foods as much as possible. However, because that is not always possible, experts recommend that people should look for products that have the least number of ingredients and those that list ingredients they understand.
Ingredients that have numerous compounds and where the names of compounds are not readily understood – should be a red flag.
