Issue Products sold as natural, clean or plant-based can themselves be ultra-processed

Summary

The Nutrition for Healthspan Initiative acknowledges that the backlash against ultra-processed foods exposes how complex modern food systems are. Many products sold as nutritious or functional can still count as ultra-processed because of the industrial methods used to make them. Labels such as natural, clean or plant-based therefore say little about how much a food has been processed. The Initiative reports that consumers are learning to look past such terms and judge how foods are actually produced. To meet this demand, brands are adopting QR codes, digital traceability and blockchain tracking so buyers can follow products back to farms and regions. The burden of evaluating processing, however, still falls largely on consumers.