Ultra-moralised foods: The constant side dish of moral evaluation
While in a supermarket, you may have found yourself occasionally comparing your groceries with those of others shopping around you. Perhaps you thought that your basket contained a lot of “unhealthy” ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and you felt uncomfortable with the choices you made. Or maybe you filled your basket with lots of “healthy” foods and felt a strange sense of superiority. This moralisation of foods (i.e., the labelling of foods as either good or bad), is amplified through the rise of wellness influencers and health gurus on social media, who often claim that UPFs lead to cognitive decline and memory loss, or even conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. While it is true that in our aging society, these conditions are increasingly more present, is the fault completely on the consumption of UPFs?: If consuming UPFs increases the risk of age-related cognitive decline, what do we do if we are constantly exposed to them due to living in a food desert or experiencing poverty that puts non-processed alternatives out of reach? Furthermore, how does the moralisation of food, especially UPFs, compound the already existing anxiety and stress surrounding the potential risk of developing dementia?
But wait, before we tackle these important questions, let us take a step back. How do we define UPFs?
What is an UPF?
Based on the current research on UPFs, there are four different levels of processing: unprocessed or minimally processed, processed culinary, processed, and ultra-processed. This system uses the NOVA classification, created in 2009 by Brazilian researchers in São Paulo as a new way to categorise food (NOVA is not a fancy acronym—it's simply the Portuguese word for "new"). UPFs are defined as having one or more ingredients that wouldn’t be found in a kitchen, like chemical-based preservatives, emulsifiers like hydrogenated oils, sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup, and artificial colours and flavours. UPFs undergo processing techniques such as pre-frying, molding, extrusion, fractioning, and other chemical alterations that leave the final products bearing almost no resemblance to the original ingredients. Now that we have established what UPFs are, we can investigate what science says about UPFs and their impact on health. To do this, I have interviewed Dr. Daniel Ibsen, PhD, an Associate Professor at Aarhus University and an expert in epidemiology and nutrition science:
What do you think of the current definition of UPFs? Are they all inherently harmful? What do you think about the fact that roughly 70% of the U.S. food supply would currently be classified as ultra-processed?
Daniel: The current definition of UPFs is just too broad and indiscriminate of the nutritional value of a food. If you label 70% of our food supply under one umbrella, you completely lose the nuance. Because of this, a 'UPF diet' can look very different from one person to the next. Processing itself might not be the real culprit. Instead, UPFs have a very soft texture, which naturally increases how fast we eat, and is a characteristic shared by many UPFs but certainly not unique to them.
Do you have any examples from your own work that illustrate this?
Daniel: We actually have a soon-to-be-published article from my group where we created a cluster combining vegetables with four food groups associated with a higher risk of diabetes. While that combined group altogether showed an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, analysing the vegetables separately revealed a lower risk. It is an exmple for what happens with "ultra-processed foods" more broadly: UPF is really just an umbrella label covering very different foods, so lumping them all together can hide the fact that some foods like sugary drinks raise diabetes risk while others lower it. Pulling vegetables back out of the cluster and looking at them on their own is what reveals that hidden effect: on their own, vegetables are linked to lower diabetes risk, the opposite of what the combined group suggested. This exemplifies how broad food classifications such as UPFs may dangerously mask individual nutritional benefits. In the discussion with ultra-processed foods, we should embrace uncertainty, not dismiss it.
During the interview Daniel also referenced two recent clinical trials that investigated UPF diets yielding opposite results. In 2019,Kevin Hall and colleagues found that participants following a UPF diet for two weeks consumed an extra 500 calories per day, resulting in weight gain. Convincing, right? In 2025, though, Samuel Dicken and colleagues found that participants who followed a UPF diet deliberately designed to align with UK dietary guidelines for eight weeks reduced their body weight by 1%.
Given how much variation there is between UPF diets and the lack of proven causality of all foods that fall within this broad category, the UPF definition has certain blind spots. Ultimately, Daniel believes that public health conversations need to move away from rigid, all-or-nothing categories if we want to truly understand food and health.
Moralising foods and the never-amused bouche
The public discourse around UPFs presents us with a constant side dish of moral evaluation. Based on this label, we define food as either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. We pace through shelves, stacked by UPFs, on the hunt for something healthy. We may feel stressed, so stressed, that we may even show signs of orthorexia nervosa, a psychological disorder where the affected individual is obsessed with healthy eating. (This condition is the subject of extensive research, though it is not yet officially classified as a formal psychiatric diagnosis). One trigger for this behaviour might stem from social media influencers constantly reminding us of the impact unhealthy foods have on, for example, dementia risk. While at face value, these reminders may seem valuable and necessary, there is a catch: these claims surrounding unhealthy foods may induce unhealthy stress and anxiety by putting social pressure on a population surrounded by UPFs. This pressure can be worse for individuals living in impoverished regions as these areas are often food deserts (i.e., neighbourhoods characterised by limited access to healthy food choices), further highlighting the socio-economic divide that shapes eating behaviour. This dietary restriction is particularly alarming given the overlapping health crises in these communities. Notably, research shows that residents of deprived regions already face an elevated dementia risk and other chronic conditions. Crucially, the lack of healthy food options leading to an overconsumption of UPFs may additionally evoke more stress, guilt, and anxiety in these deprived regions, especially through the constant reminders online. It has already been established that chronic stress and anxiety increase the risk for cognitive decline, developing fatigue, or even depression. This exemplifies how the moralisation of foods may have a negative health impact, especially when the public debate uses an ill-defined term (as Daniel explained) to rationalize what to eat and what to avoid in order to prevent dementia, rather than addressing structural problems. Arguably, it is the availability and accessibility of healthy food choices that should be tackled in many areas of the world, rather than focusing on personal responsibility by simply blaming individuals for their eating behaviours. Now, we can agree that, given its broad category, some UPFs are unhealthy. However, Daniel highlighted in our conversation that some UPFs, such as ultra-processed whole grain breads, seem to have health benefits.
Almost daily, we are bombarded with conflicting advice on what, how, and when to eat. While the UPF debate has sparked a crucial conversation about the quality of our modern diet, its rigid definitions and scientific uncertainties often do more harm than good, inducing stress rather than helping us make informed decisions. Before necessary structural changes take place in our food systems, recognizing that some UPFs actually offer health benefits can help consumers make choices while reducing anxiety at the grocery store. So, where should we start? At the People’s Festival in Denmark, during a debate about UPFs and eating habits, it was mentioned that instead of defining food as “healthy or unhealthy” as the definition should change to “less of this and more of that”, thereby making the daily necessity of eating food less of a moral decision. So, to everyone reading, I recommend moderation for your food choices, and a willingness to recognize the (virality-chasing) fearmongering behind so much of what we see online. Eating is meant to fuel and delight us, not weigh on us with guilt.
Tiago is currently pursuing a PhD at Maastricht University in nutrition and neuroscience, trying to understand how nutrition affects brain metabolism. He holds a B.Sc. in Psychology and an M.Sc. in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, with a specialisation in neuropsychology. Beyond his curiosity about nutrition and neuroscience, he has a passion for neuroethical questions and science communication — which is why he recently joined our Neuroethics Today team.
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