Ultra-processed foods may shorten your life

My wife, Malathi, enjoys cooking fresh vegetables, fish and meat.

- Melvin Durai

Rather than buying a ready-to-eat meal from a store and just heating it up in minutes, she prefers to stand in the kitchen for an hour or more, cooking a meal that is usually both tasty and healthy. Isay “usually” because some oily or fatty foods are not particularly healthy, and some non-oily, non-fatty foods are not particularly tasty.

For the most part, Malathi works hard to keep her family healthy through her cooking. That’s what many women (and some men) do in countless homes, of course. But store-bought processed foods are becoming a larger part of diets around the world, especially among people with busy lives and higher incomes. Just buy a frozen pizza or frozen rice-and-curry meal, pop it in the microwave and you have a tasty meal that won't kill you —not right away, anyway.

Iteventually might, though.

A new global study shows us just how much harm we might be causing by eating ultra-processed foods (UPFs).