Ultra-processed food: what the phrase actually means

Processing simply means something has been done to food, and almost everything has. Dal is processed. Curd is processed. Flour is processed. Cooking is processing. Treating all of it as suspect is neither accurate nor liveable.

Ultra-processed means something narrower: food made industrially from refined ingredients and substances you would not find in a kitchen, held together with additives, flavourings, emulsifiers and colours.

Look at the list and ask whether this could be made in a home kitchen from things you recognise. Curd, paneer, roasted chana, plain biscuits made of flour, butter and sugar: broadly yes.

Packaged snacks with fifteen ingredients including several you cannot identify, instant noodles, sweetened drinks, most bakery items, ready sauces and mock meats: broadly no. You do not need to be precise. The rough sorting is enough.

Two reasons. These foods are usually low in protein and fibre and high in refined carbohydrate, salt and fat, so they crowd out the things you most need at this age and add the ones you need least.

And they are engineered to be easy to eat a lot of. That is not a moral failing on your part; it is the design working.

Nobody eats perfectly and the attempt makes people miserable. What matters is what most of your food looks like most of the time: cooked at home, from things you recognise, with vegetables and protein in it.

A packet of namkeen at a wedding is not the problem. A packet most afternoons is a different question. This is general food guidance, not medical advice.