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A reminder here that while there's an important directional claim behind stuff like this, "ultra-processed food" is an extremely silly category that does violence to the argument.
UPFs include:
* Whole wheat bread (most supermarket bread is stabilized, which you might not like aesthetically, but it isn't doing anything to your health)
* Almost all yogurt products, flavored or otherwise
* Literally all baby formula
* Any kind of plant-based meat replacement
* Many supermarket hummus brands (again: stabilizers and emulsifiers)
You get to "ultra-processed" simply by making things shelf-stable, and shelf-stability isn't an actual health problem (kind of the opposite).
You get to problematic through hyperpalatability, which is another, different target of modern food engineering. Hyperpalatable foods are almost always UPFs, but the other direction doesn't hold at all.
I don't think even that is problematic by itself. You need to apply hyper palatable techniques to high calorie nutrient poor food for it to be a problem.
Getting people addicted to something that's mostly protein or fiber or water packed with important micro nutrients would not be a bad thing at all. That's not what the food companies are doing (because empty calories are cheaper) but it's a perfectly good strategy we need more of.
That's a large assertion to make without evidence. Personally, I'm suspicious of all antimicrobial agents' effects on gut microbiota and the knock-on effects on health.
There are three substances that are predominantly used to inhibit mold growth, though: calcium propionate, potassium sorbate, and sodium benzoate.
The first two are extremely well understood and considered safe globally. The third is still considered safe, but might have some interactions with vitamin C that lead to benzene formation to the tune of several parts per billion. The FDA considers this safe, and has for some time.
You said dislike. I said suspicious. One's an opinion, the other an invitation for science.
> vinegar, salt, and any fermented foods that suppress microbial agents?
In the gut microbiota broad system sequencing experiments I've consumed reports from, even altering diet from one primary food source to another can result in complete restructuring of the gut ecosystem as quickly as within 24 hours. And switching back to the original food source didn't return to an identical gut ecosystem. Many studies show direct connections between gut microbiota and specific and broad health impacts.
So I think suspicious is right. There is much yet to be learned.
Boy do I wish people would talk like this, instead of the "ultra-processed foods" bullshit.
The Atlantic had a stupid as hell article a few days ago with a title that really boils the entire op down: Nobody Knows What Ultra-Processed Food Is"
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/08/kennedy-ultraproc...
"Ultra-Processed Food" is a phrase. It is not a thing. If you want to use it for its media traction, and "nobody knows what it is," define it before you use it.
Instead, everybody has gone for "it is so mysterious," then goes on to cite a bunch of studies about "ultra-processed foods," treating it as a category that categorical statements can be made about.
Name the chemicals, name the processes. They don't because these chemicals and processes are endorsed by massive conglomerates who can pull advertising and lobbying money. When you're vague as hell about everything, it's a case-by-case basis that only affects people who can't bribe as well as others.
And about the people talking about sugars, salt and fats crammed into everything, I'm convinced they never cook. That's taste, and you can pour it in yourself just as well as a corporation. The reason people love it is because it tastes good. Salt isn't even bad for you, it's in fact very, very good for you because it makes micronutrient-rich foods palatable.
Arguing that standard manufactured foods and foods marketed to children are too rich is a different argument, and most importantly for this conversation has nothing to do with the ultraprocessed foods question. Massive food companies are perfectly happy to remove all the fats and sugars from your food and replace them with some weird alcohol sugar or a new form of teflon they just invented a week ago, and to charge you a premium for the privilege of eating it. They literally did that throughout the 80s and 90s.
The narrative intentionally confusing what the above refers to as "hyperpalatability" (a term which is as good as any) with "ultra-processed" (a propaganda term) is a gift to the food industry. It in fact even favors monopolies who can afford to put in the bizarre chemical constructions they'll use as alternatives, and to pay regulators to look the other way.
"Ultra-processed foods" is a phrase meant for advertising - even the prefix "ultra-" reminds me of a cigarette ad, describing the filter. The filter was a device which ostensibly makes cigarettes healthier, but instead allows you to smoke far more than you would otherwise, and leads to worse health outcomes. Isn't smoking bad? Smoke our ultra-filtered cigarettes and breathe easy!
However, it focuses more about how the foods were marketed, and in particular, that the same marketing playbook developed by tobacco companies to market Marlboro and Camel cigarettes was then used to sell Kool-Aid and Miller beer.
Basically, the execs at Phillip Morris and R. J. Reynolds realized that beer, Kool-Aid/sugar drinks, Oreos and cigarettes were more or less all the same type of products - affordable, habit-forming small luxury goods people enjoyed putting in their mouths, and applied the expertise they'd developed on one type of this market (cigarettes) to the rest of it.
Everyone apparently knows that those are good things, so they don't count.
I guess all I'm saying is that for the majority of people eating yogurt, it's an ultra-processed food.
Hyperpalatability is a different issue. The main issue is that our foods are chemical factories. Turning it into a "food is too good" problem is just a trick to blame the consumer for not being mature enough to forgo pleasure.
Food being good is not a crisis. Xylitol giving people heart attacks might be. Ingredients concocted in a lab never being studied at all until someone sues is a problem. Shifting the argument to "cheeseburgers are bad because they're good" is a really obvious distraction.
There is literally no profit in making foods "hyperpalatable." Food companies would be just as happy selling you food that tastes like shit. If anything, in actuality commercial food has become worse and less palatable over time due to substitutions of cheaper ingredients. The argument is being shifted from an important one about power to a dumb moral panic. The people who love this are orthorexics who love telling people how their health is their own fault because they are self-indulgent. There is nothing more self-indulgent and self-praising than this discourse.
That argument is hyperpalatable to orthorexics.
Yoghurt is one you seem to be mistaken on. Yoghurt can be considered group 1, it just often contains thickeners, sweeteners, flavourings, etc. Especially if low-fat.
You're right of course that hyperpalatability is a bigger problem. And you don't have to agree that UPFs are something you need to avoid. But I don't think that makes it a silly category.
Ultra-processing is not just used to make more calorie-dense palatable food. It’s also used to make less calorie-dense food and enrich food with vitamins and macros you need for healthy living, like fiber.
I mean, compare the ultra-processed high fiber tortillas to the natural tortillas. The high fiber ones have less calories, less carbs, are more satiating, and are overall healthier. They also taste worse, I.e. are less palatable.
Ultra-processing and palatability are really orthogonal IMO. You can use processing to make palatable food, but you don’t have to. Look at traditional fast food - burgers, fries, fried chicken. You can trivially make any of that with no processing. It’s still unhealthy and ultra palatable. Cutting up a chicken at home and deep-frying it doesn’t magically make it healthy.
Or go one step further, and look at the frying itself. We have access to processed refined oils. But if you don’t use them and go the old fashioned way, with lard frying, is it healthier or less palatable?
No, actually, it’s tastier and much less healthy. You get 10x the saturated fat and way more calories.
And I’ll get ahead of the anti-science anti-seed-oil people who just read that. We know, for a fact, that eating more saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease and cancer. Just because something is naturally or minimally processed does not make it healthy, health is much more complex than that.
I would point out that many whole foods are generally shelf-stable (over at least weeks, if not months) without requiring the introduction of chemical stabilizers that don't otherwise "belong."
Chemical stabilizers are generally needed for shelf stability in ultra-processed foods, because of one of the other defining characteristics of ultra-processed foods: their matrix has been disrupted (or constructed anew) such that the food is now highly labile (biochemical term: "labile organic matter"), i.e. very easy to break down into nutrients. Which applies not only to you breaking such foods down in your gut, but also to bacteria and fungi breaking these foods down on the shelf.
And as it so happens, because these foods are labile, any such nutrients that do come from breaking down the food, come very quickly. Labile carbohydrates are high-glycemic-index insulin-spiking carbohydrates. Labile fats are atherosclerosis-inducing fats. Etc.
Your body evolved to process (metabolize, remove from circulation, etc.) metabolic inputs in an environment where most available foods were the opposite of labile (a.k.a. recalcitrant organic matter). So most meals would give a slow/gentle level of metabolic throughput; with rare spikes of higher throughput from the rare natural labile food, and then plenty of low-throughput time to recover from such events. Your body didn't evolve to be able to deal with getting high-throughput metabolic input spikes from every meal.
And this is why the the presence of chemical stabilizers in a food is actually a very helpful criterion in the definition of "ultra-processed food"! The necessity of stabilization tells you that the food is likely labile (as otherwise, why would they have needed to stabilize it?) — and therefore is unhealthy to be consumed on a continuous basis. (Unless it's milk and you're a baby.)
But note that the stabilizer isn't itself the problem. Bread is ultra-processed even without a stabilizer, because bread is a labile food with weak matrix integrity. The bread you bake at home is ultra-processed; you're the one who ultra-processed it!
The "rules" for UPFs don't assert home-baked bread as a UPF, but that's because the point of the UPF designation is to label commercial foods, and more specifically, to draw a hard-line boundary based on objectively-measurable characteristics that industry players can't argue with or lie about. And lability / matrix integrity, while quantifiable, isn't something with a clear objective way to reduce it to a single number†; so any definition of UPF based on lability would result in endless arguments/pushback from industry players insisting the FDA is "calculating it wrong."
But in your own personal life, the definition of "ultra-processed" you should be carrying around in your head and evaluating foods by, should be one that includes lability.
† (Instead, lability is a high-dimensional measurement of how efficiently any single digestive enzyme, and/or any specific combination of enzymes, and/or any enzyme paired with a cofactor [e.g. a bile salt], will break apart the given food's matrix to release bio-accessible nutrients.)
You're completely lost me here. You're asserting that because food goes bad, it shouldn't be consumed on a regular basis. That just doesn't track, even a little bit.
Maybe your assertion hinges on the definition of "continuous basis"? I don't know what that means, but, taking it face value, it sounds like nothing should be consumed on a continuous basis other than air.
> The bread you bake at home is ultra-processed; you're the one who ultra-processed it!
This doesn't track either. The common Nova classification for ultra processing leans heavily on the kinds of processes that happen in factories. It's the flour itself that makes bread ultra-processed, since the flour is ultra-processed. When I realized that the four-ingredient bread I make at home for my family is considered ultra-processed, I started paying a lot less attention to the entire discussion.
Ice cream didn’t make much of a spike - all that fat. Waffle with maple syrup and peanut butter is completely different profile than waffle without peanut butter.
Most important thing for my blood sugar was portion size. Eat a lot, get a big spike.
Frustrating to me that people argue so much about “processed” vs “unprocessed” food. The real issue I believe is portion sizes.
A boiled or fried egg is processed, but not ultra-processed. (The ovalbumin matrix in egg is denatured but not destroyed by just heating it up. Just like the protein matrix in a steak is denatured-but-not-destroyed by just heating it up.) It's still a whole food, per se.
But scrambled eggs, or an omelette, are closer to being ultra-processed; simply because you've mechanically emulsified the egg together, and in the process, have broken down that matrix. (Same reason that ground beef is ultra-processed.)
At that point, very small further additions can push what you might still think of as "just cooked eggs" into being ultra-processed. For example, just adding a sufficient amount of salt while cooking scrambled eggs could produce an ultra-processed result, since the disrupted matrix allows the salt to get in and break down cells and tissues, and then cooking those lysed cells and chemically-denatured tissues results in higher resulting lability / bio-accessibility of nutrients than cooking would have on its own.
But also, on a separate point: raw egg, like milk, is already one of those rare naturally-labile foods. (That's why developing embryos can make use of the nutrients therein. It's also why salmonella loves raw eggs.) Raw egg is not necessarily especially easily digested by humans (none of our gut enzymes are particularly good at taking apart a non-denatured ovalbumin matrix), but many species have evolved into obligate ovivory for a reason.
Also supermarket whole wheat bread is very different than real bread if you look at the ingredients. It’s more like bread adjacent.
Density of what?
> * Ultra-processed whole wheat bread
> * Ultra-processed yogurt products
> * Literally all baby formula
> * Ultra-processed plant-based meat replacement
> * Ultra-processed hummus brands (again: stabilizers and emulsifiers)
There, fixed that for you.
(I don't know about baby formula, but granting you that one.)
There, fixed that for you.
I think that it's also literally all plant-based meat replacers (meaning products intended to mimic meat, rather than just replacing meat with plants).
Homemade wheat bread made of just wheat/water/salt is an entirely different thing from most "whole wheat bread" in the food industry.
Same for yogurt etc.
>What stands out to me is that the real transfer wasn't a specific ingredient or recipe, it was institutional knowledge: how to engineer repeat consumption and then market the hell out of it
But this really is the gist of it. The execs from the Tobacco industry saw the writing on the wall, and moved over to the food industry where the knowledge of making things addictive to consume was applied to food.
They do have a strong education system that teaches cooking and food budgeting and related.
They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.
> Among adults 19 to 30 years old, approximately 42% reported cannabis use in the past year, 29% in the past month, and 10% daily use (use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days). Among adults 35 to 50, reports of use reached 29%, 19%, and 8%, respectively.
https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2024/08/canna...
Those numbers are huge, in absolute terms. Marijuana provably results in higher rates of obesity by simulating appetite in multiple different ways.
In my own experience, marijuana use directly correlated with bodyweight. Even relatively little marijuana resulted in serious cravings, often late in the evening. I don't think you need a study to validate this, it's an extremely widely understood effect.
When you have millions of people consuming an appetite enhancer, it's almost crazy to suggest that it doesn't play a significant role in UPF consumption or health in general.
Most of that's from a much stronger national guidance on weight control + societal expectations, but IIRC they also are gaining weight. Their ultra processed foods (in the salt and preservative sense) are also why they have one of the highest rates of stomach cancer.
> They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.
Not sure if I'd categorize the US as in a marijuana epidemic (and this is coming from someone who doesn't consume it and dislikes being around it) but even if we were, the states with the highest marijuana usage (west coast and NE) and the states with the highest obesity rates (deep south) are almost non-overlapping circles. If we're tying a drug to be obesity rates I'd be much more willing to believe it's the American propensity to chug large amounts of cheap 100-120 calories a pop beer.
There are 'smoking boxes' on some train platforms, but I rarely see those in use by more than a few people out of the several hundred who may be waiting. Marijuana is also 'highly' illegal but also not exactly hard to find for people who are 'hip' and it's also not aggressively enforced, much like speeding.
Also, Japan doesn't actually have a 'colonial history' having never been colonized by another nation.
I'm thinking you have just heard about Japan by rough description?
It was never colonized but I've often heard it talked about in a similar way due to the effects of the Commodore Perry and the post WWII occupation (i.e. see their infamous pornography laws), as well as neighboring affects from China's colonial history.
I don't see this mentioned in the transcript. What is the basis for you mentioning it? Seems like a weird thing to throw in without explanation. I say this as someone that does not consume cannabis, btw, so this is not a defense of cannabis usage.
Japan may come up a lot in discussions about longevity, but doesn't Japan have a drinking culture that is very unhealthy? It's pretty well established that alcohol has a serious impact on health in numerous ways. There is even a condition called alcohol-related dementia.
Still Japan is developing a weight problem too.
1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10260628/
1. Flour/Dough Treatment Agents (Bleaching, Maturing, Conditioning)
Azodicarbonamide (ADA) : Dough-conditioning/bleaching agent; oxidizes flour proteins to improve elasticity and whiteness. Currently found in some supermarket sandwich breads and hamburger/hot dog buns.
Potassium Bromate (KBrO₃) : Oxidizing agent that strengthens gluten structure and increases dough rise/volume. Classified a possible human carcinogen (IARC 2B); banned in the EU, Canada, and UK; California has banned it starting 2027. Still federally permitted in the US in trace residual amounts. Regional and bulk/wholesale bakery bread products.
Chlorine Gas / Chlorine Dioxide : Bleaching and maturing agents for wheat flour. Currently used in "bleached flour," a listed ingredient in many cake-mix and biscuit-mix products.
Ammonium Chloride (synthetic) : Yeast nutrient/dough conditioner that accelerates fermentation. Used in some commercial bread and cracker doughs as a processing aid.
2. Synthetic Antioxidants & Preservatives
Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) / Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT) ; Synthetic antioxidants preventing fat/oil rancidity. NTP lists BHA as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen." Some current chewing gum and packaged-snacks.
Tert-Butylated Hydroquinone (TBHQ) : Synthetic antioxidant preservative used at very low levels to extend shelf life of oils and fried/processed foods. Pop-Tarts (Kellanova) and Little Debbie snack cakes.
Propylparaben : Antifungal preservative. EU treats it as effectively banned over endocrine-disruption concerns; California has banned it in food starting 2027; it remains FDA-permitted and is under an active FDA chemical-safety review opened in 2024. Advocacy groups (EWG) have specifically petitioned makers like Entenmann's and Sara Lee to remove it.
Thiodipropionic Acid & Dilauryl Thiodipropionate : Synergist antioxidants used alongside BHA/BHT in fats and shortening.
Stearyl Citrate : Antioxidant/chelating agent in margarines and oil-based dressings.
Ethoxyquin : Antioxidant/color stabilizer, originally developed as a pesticide; used to preserve color in ground spices. Bulk and store-brand ground paprika and chili powder spice blends.
Stannous Chloride : Antioxidant/color-retention agent for canned foods. Canned white asparagus.
3. Emulsifiers, Stabilizers & Texturizers
Polysorbate 60 & Polysorbate 80 : Emulsifiers for oil/water blending in baked goods, ice cream, and creamers. Cool Whip (Kraft) and Coffee-Mate liquid/powdered creamers.
Synthetic Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC / Cellulose Gum) : Thickener/stabilizer preventing ice-crystal formation. Common ingredient in many mainstream ice creams (store-brand and name-brand alike — check the specific carton) and low-fat salad dressings.
Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate (SAIB) : Weighting agent keeping citrus flavor oils suspended. Used in some citrus-flavored sports drinks and sodas currently on the market.
Dioctyl Sodium Sulfosuccinate (DSS / Docusate Sodium) : Wetting agent improving dispersibility of powders. Used in instant cocoa/hot chocolate mix formulations.
Oxystearin Anti-crystallizing agent keeping liquid vegetable oils clear under refrigeration. Used in some refrigerated bottled vegetable/salad oils, typically store-brand.
4. Synthetic Colorants
Titanium Dioxide : White opacifying/color additive. Banned as a food additive in the EU (2022); still FDA-approved federally (up to 1% by weight), under an open FDA safety review since 2023, and subject to a pending California ban effective 2027. Per FDA data cited by food-safety reporting, over 4,300 candy products currently contain it, along with many white frostings, powdered coffee creamers, and donut glazes.
FD&C Citrus Red No. 2 : Colorant with one narrow legal use: coloring the skins of Florida oranges (not the flesh, not general food products). Currently applied to some Florida orange peels sold in grocery stores.
Fast Green FCF (FD&C Green No. 3) : Synthetic green dye, low usage volume relative to other approved dyes. Currently found in some mint-flavored candies and canned green vegetable products with added color.
5. Anti-Caking & Coating Agents
Synthetic Magnesium Silicate (Synthetic Talc) : Anti-caking agent absorbing moisture in powders. Used in some current powdered spice blends and pre-shredded cheese as an anti-caking coating; brand presence varies enough that I'd want you to check the specific product's label rather than take a brand name from me.
Sodium Ferrocyanide (Yellow Prussiate of Soda) : Anti-caking agent in table and processed salt. Present in some current table salt formulations, including certain Morton's products, and in salt used within processed snack seasoning blends.
Modified Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) Coatings : Glossy protective film coating on high-sugar snack pieces. Yogurt-covered raisins and pretzels.
Synthetic Petroleum Waxes : Food-grade paraffin/microcrystalline waxes for candy shine and moisture barrier. Hard candies and chocolate-coated candy shells.
6. Chelating & Minor Functional Agents
Calcium Disodium EDTA : Chelating agent binding trace metals to prevent oxidation/discoloration. Kraft Mayo and Miracle Whip-type sandwich spreads, and in canned beans and some canned soft drinks.
Zinc Lactate : Zinc salt used for anti-cavity/breath-related function rather than classic preservation. Sugar-free chewing gums marketed for dental benefits (e.g., certain Trident and Orbit formulations)
7. Fortification Agents
Synthetic Iron Sources (Carbonyl Iron) : Reduced elemental iron powder fortifying "enriched" flour. Wonder Bread, most white sandwich breads, and in many fortified breakfast cereals.
8. Processing Solvents & Residues
Acetone : Industrial solvent used in extraction of some resins/oleoresins and fat/cocoa-butter processing; trace residues can remain.
Methylene Chloride (Dichloromethane) : Solvent used for coffee/tea decaffeination via direct extraction. FDA permits a 10 ppm residual limit specifically for this food use. "Traditional process" decaffeinated coffees that don't specify "Swiss Water" or "CO2 process" on the label .
9. Agricultural & Livestock Inputs (Not Added Directly to Food , Present via Animal-Derived Ingredients)
Ractopamine : Beta-agonist fed to pigs and cattle before slaughter to increase lean muscle growth. Banned in the EU, China, and Russia; still FDA-approved for US livestock. Because it's a feed input rather than a processing additive, it never appears on any processed-food label.
Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH/rBST) : Synthetic hormone used to increase dairy cow milk yield. Banned in the EU, Canada, and Japan; still FDA-approved in the US. Most major retailers and chains (Walmart, Kroger, Starbucks) now source rBST-free and label accordingly, so current use is concentrated in dairy supply chains that don't carry that label. Think about all the 'strawberry milk' and 'chocolate milk' drinks without this label.
So, no Japan does not have the same kinds of Ultra-Processed foods as the US, and for MANY other reasons doesn't have an obesity crisis.
They do have a functional educational system, and have plentiful availability of fresh fruits and vegetables within walking distance of nearly every citizen. The idea of US inner city 'fruit free' areas is perplexing in the extreme to their perceptions of "American Greatness."
There's someone at the factory who basically spends their time eating samples from new batches to ensure they're exactly as expected.
Personally, my instincts would favor Huel over fast food, too. I'd be very interested in any study that tested this rigorously. Huel is far from anything "raw," but so long as all the nutritional components are still in there, one has to wonder if it's just as healthy.
UPFs is exactly the smooshing, and is generally done to maintain palatability whilst saving money, not even in an attempt to make a healthy food. Sure, Huel has a different goal, but I'm not sure the end result is any different. Just because it's not hyper palatable, it doesn't mean it's healthy.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
It's harmful and dangerous with corporations with a proven history of lying and disregard for human lives and well being. Especially ones with a record of developing and optimizing addictive products.
Like tobacco, cocoa is not an essential food and also has psychoactive components. Thus companies formed around industrializing the material must develop methods of persuasion and navigate oppositional socio-political pressure. Like the sibling comment's observation that "any more "ethical" tobacco company got out competed," the most successful were especially suited for adopting other food production lines both from an industrial-technical and a socio-political perspective.
People still smoke. any lies the tobacco companies sold to the public were either so old that few alive heard them, or believed them when they were told.
some other light reading on this topic:
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2026.3085...
> Buying into the food industry also facilitated the tobacco companies in applying the knowledge, skills, and strategies developed from their tobacco businesses to another business domain in ultraprocessed foods and beverages. For example, Philip Morris applied its aggressive marketing tactics developed from its tobacco businesses to market ultraprocessed foods to the US public. Furthermore, US tobacco companies and their food companies were systematically involved with developing hyper-palatable foods, which have elevated addictive properties.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16332
>Tobacco-owned foods were 29% more likely to be classified as fat and sodium hyper-palatable foods (HPF) and 80% more likely to be classified as carbohydrate and sodium HPF than foods that were not tobacco-owned between 1988 and 2001 (P-values = 0.005–0.009).
https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/cigarette-giants-bought-food-compan...
> Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds led the transition to sweetened beverages in 1963 when it purchased Hawaiian Punch from Pacific Hawaiian Products Company, according to the documents. The beverage previously had been promoted to adults as a cocktail mixer, but R.J. Reynolds sought to beef up the drink’s “Punchy” mascot – a counterpart to the “Joe Camel” cartoon character the company used to promote cigarettes – and featured it on toys, schoolbook covers, comics, tumblers, clothing and TV commercials. Punchy became the “best salesman the beverage ever had,” according to tobacco industry documents.
> In the ’60s and ’70s, the company conducted taste tests with children and mothers to evaluate sweetness, colors and flavors for Hawaiian Punch product line extensions. The children’s preferences were prioritized, the authors noted.
> By 1983, R.J. Reynolds introduced the nation’s first juice box, marketed as a “handy little carton that comes with its very own straw.” This innovation was largely responsible for a 34 percent jump in sales, according to industry documents.
other fun things might include just reading the Wikpedia pages on major food companies like Kraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods_Inc.#Financial_exp...
> At the end of 1988, Philip Morris Companies purchased Kraft for $12.9 billion. In 1989, Kraft merged with Philip Morris's General Foods unit—makers of Oscar Mayer meats, Maxwell House coffee, Jell-O gelatin, Budget Gourmet frozen dinners, Entenmann's baked goods, Kool-Aid, Crystal Light and Tang powdered beverage mixes, Post Cereals, Shake 'n Bake flavored coatings and numerous other packaged foods—as Kraft General Foods. Its aggressive product development was reversed after the merger, as it became slow in addressing issues on its product lines due to its size, and also company politics.[4]
> In 2000, Philip Morris (renamed Altria in 2003) acquired Nabisco Holdings for $18.9 billion and merged the company with Kraft Foods the same year.[212][4] Also in 2000, the company acquired Balance Bar.[213] In 2001, Philip Morris sold 280 million Kraft shares via the third-largest IPO of all time, retaining an 88.1% stake in the company.
Liquid Death is a perfect example of manufactured demand.
Huh? Ultra processed foods got very popular long before the 1960s. Wonder Bread came out in 1921. Kellogg came out with corn flakes in the 1900s. Etc.
Very different from some basic corn flakes or bread being mass produced.
Eggo waffles predate RJ Reynolds getting into this by 10 years.
Twinkies were introduced in the 1930s.
I'm not defending ultra-processed foods nor tobacco companies. I'm just saying the authors have a major blind spot if they think the concept or popularity of ultra-processed foods started in the 1960s.