Colorectal cancer among adults 50 and younger has increased in the last three decades. Although the disease is still rare among younger adults, researchers question whether the spike is related to the rising popularity of ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
Scientists are paying more attention to UPFs, and their findings are becoming mainstream. One study in Cell Metabolism, for example, made headlines after researchers found that participants lost weight after two weeks of eating minimally processed foods, only to gain it back when they switched to UPFs for two weeks.
The attention surrounding UPFs has helped to educate the public on why they are unhealthy. But more than half of Americans don’t even know what qualifies as a UPF. Problematically, scientists disagree on the answer.
Ultra Processed Foods
Among nutrition researchers, there isn’t just one way to define a UPF. A 2021 study in Trends in Food Science & Technology looked at 470 scientific articles and found 146 definitions of what it meant to be “minimally processed.”
