We don’t consume extra salt, fat and sugar from culinary preparation of foods but we do consume extra of these things fromultra-processed foods. Monteiro a Brazilian nutrition researcher uses this term for foods which involves processes like baking, frying, extruding, moulding, re-shaping, hydrogenation and hydrolysis. Foods which generally includes additives such as preservatives, sweeteners, sensory enhancers, colorants, flavours and processing aids
but little or no whole food with the above said processes comes under the categories of ultra-processed foods. They may be fortified with micronutrients. While processing such foods, the aim is to create durable, convenient and palatable ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat food products suitable to be consumed as snacks or to replace freshly prepared food-based dishes and meals. The list of such foods includes most of the packed soups, instant noodles, frozen dishes and sandwiches, cold nuts and sausages, ready to eat sauces and cake mixes.
Consumption of such foods is likely to produce adverse effects on overall health and leads to lifestyle conditions like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and certain cancers. These are even harmful for our kids as these foods have more of taste and kids tends to over consume them with all those extra additives. This becomes even alarming when our kids have sedentary lifestyle in this smart phone age.
Sources: Economic Times, Wikipedia, www.drweil.com, The Tribune
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