In the supermarket, ultra-processed foods account for 70% of the packaged food supply and the Nutri-Score does not always make it possible to identify them. This problem is all the more worrying because the regular consumption of AUT, even organic ones, significantly increases the risk of chronic diseases. So, in the jungle of supermarket shelves, how to choose the right products to preserve your health?
Since 2017, health authorities have been recommending clear and visible nutritional information to help consumers choose the best possible quality foods. In France, this information took the form of the Nutri-Score - a five-color logo associated with letters ranging from A in dark green for the healthiest products to E in dark orange for poor quality products. And, according to a study by Santé Publique France in September 2020, 57% of French people rely on this information. For all that, should we be pleased about this?
Nutri-Score, an imperfect tool
Are we right when, when making our choice in the supermarket, we draw our favorite apps, all based - like the very popular Yuka - on the famous Nutri-Score? Well, no, if we believe Le Bon Choix au supermarché, a bestseller published by Thierry Souccar, which has just published its second updated edition, supervised by Angélique Hulbert, dietician-nutritionist, and columnist for the Magazine de la santé on France 5.
According to this very didactic guide, sifting through no less than 1000 products and aiming to teach us how to identify healthy foods independently, the Nutri-Score, by modeling the nutritional quality of food, actually offers us a reductionist vision of the overall food quality of the products considered.
Its main defect comes in particular from the fact that it takes no account of the degree of processing of the evaluated foods! However, while it is quite possible to cover our needs by consuming ultra-processed products enriched with fiber, minerals, and vitamins, these AUTs - passing hands down under the radar of our applications - are nonetheless "associated with many metabolic deregulations and chronic diseases." Overweight, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer are frequently mentioned. More than the nutritional quality of a product, "what matters above all is the quality of the food matrix in which the nutrients are embedded and therefore, ultimately, the degree of transformation that the manufacturer has subjected to the food", reveals this precious guide made in collaboration with the site LaNutrition.fr and the start-up Siga, classifying, thanks to a particularly innovative algorithm, food according to its degree of processing.
Ultra-processed foods, beware danger!
It is therefore in the transformation that the danger lies and the latter is not small! Because, on the shelves of our supermarkets, ultra-processed foods account for 95% of prepared meals and flavored yogurts, 94% of cold cuts and cured meats, 87% of vegetarian dishes, and 80% of energy bars and breakfast cereals. At the end of the day, if you choose a random product to put in your cart, you have a 7 out of 10 chance of falling on an AUT!
Born after the Second World War as a result of the industrialization of the food sector for the needs of mass consumption, THE AUT definitively imposed itself in the 1980s, when the arrival of women on the labor market made it necessary to provide families with ready-to-eat meals. Modified by industrial processes, these foods enriched with salt or sugar, protein or fat, also undergo an alteration of their color, consistency, flavor, and smell in order to mask their defects, increase their palatability and shelf life and reduce their cost of production. Unstructured, the AUTs are then reconstituted augmented with "cosmetic and economic agents" (ACE) such as flavors, modified starch, gluten, pea fiber, carboxymethylcellulose (E466), monoglyceride of fatty acids, milk proteins, barley malt extract, powdered eggs, yeast extract, xylitol, soy proteins ...
Ultra-processed foods, how to spot them?
But then, and in the face of the proliferation of AUT in the shelves of large retailers - and this, even in organic - how to choose real foods, healthy and little processed? "By reading the labels and especially by learning to decrypt them!" says Le Bon Choix at the supermarket.
Once the nose is in the list of ingredients of the coveted product, the first step is undoubtedly to identify the additives! There are 338 authorized ones in Europe, although some of them (in particular phosphates, nitrates and nitrites, carrageenans, caramel, BHA and BHT, tartrazines, carboxymethylcellulose, certain intense sweeteners, and emulsifiers) present potential health risks. Fortunately, they are "easily identifiable in the list of ingredients in two ways (...): either through a coding using the letter E followed by a number, or by their function", the latter being generally indicated like this: "thickening"; "stabilizing"; "dye" or "lifting powder".
The second reflex to adopt is to favor foods with a small number of ingredients, "ideally less than six"!
Third step: give preference to products containing little or no ACE (see detailed list above). Finally, other clues not to be overlooked: "Rich in fiber", "low in sugar" or "source of calcium" are all claims that must put the chip in your ear and make you take the escampette powder. warns the nutritionist in her guide.
Finally, obscure names such as "sodium citrate" or "maltodextrin" should alert you!
Organic and ultra-processed products
If organic is obviously recommended for fruits and vegetables, whole grains, cosmetics ... "It should not be your first criterion for choosing an industrial product," warns Le Bon Choix at the supermarket. The reason? AUTs are present in the same proportion in traditional industrial products as in dietetic, vegetarian, and organic foods! For the expert, "this label does not guarantee in any way the quality of an industrial product, and "the fact that the product comes from organic farming will not compensate for the artificial nature of the food". You will therefore have to adopt the same vigilance as for traditional industrial products when choosing your organic prepared dishes.
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