The Healthier Eating Challenge: How to Find Ultraprocessed Food Alternatives

This is Day 4 of the 5-Day Healthier Eating Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.

So far, these challenges have kept you at home. You’ve scanned ingredients lists, conducted a taste test and zhuzhed up some snacks — all without straying too far from your kitchen.

But today, we’re heading to a real-life grocery store to identify ultraprocessed foods and their less processed alternatives.

If this sounds daunting, don’t worry. I called a few experts to help us out. Marion Nestle, an emerita professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, agreed to come to my local supermarket so we could look at food labels together.

I also chatted with two other experts to learn how they make choices when they’re shopping.

Well Challenge Day 4: Grocery shop like a nutrition scientist.

First, think of an ultraprocessed food you regularly buy: Maybe it’s frozen pizza or a packaged snack.

Then, go to a grocery store and read the label for that food. Note how many ingredients you don’t recognize. Take a few minutes and compare it with similar items: If you’re looking at strawberry yogurt, scan its ingredients list alongside those of other strawberry yogurts. Is there a less processed choice you can make that still falls within your price range?

Notice the ingredients that make a UPF a UPF.

As we cruised the aisles, Dr. Nestle flagged certain ingredients that signal that a food or drink may be ultraprocessed. These include thickeners like modified starches, gums (xanthan gum, guar gum), emulsifiers (like soy lecithin and carrageenan), sugar substitutes (like Stevia and Splenda), synthetic food dyes (like Red 40 and Yellow 5), artificial flavors and other ingredients that aren’t normally found in home kitchens or even grocery stores.