It it no secret that I have little faith in the many stories about the dangers of ultra-processed foods – I’ve written about this before. One reason is the poor quality of the definition: it is so ambiguous that it can’t easily be explained to the general public, and even experts seem to be unable to agree. In this study, there has been a considerable amount of disagreement for a number of food groups – including fruits and savoury snacks.

The other reason is the lack of reliable data on ultra-processed food intake – incidentally a criticism also made by the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).

One problem lies in how we collect dietary data (I’ve written more about this here and here before). Food-frequency questionnaires (FFQs) are widely used because they are easy to administer, but they come with serious limitations. They offer participants a predefined list of foods – a key difference from open-ended methods, such as food diaries, where participants can describe what they actually ate.

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Originally published on Substack.