Are you eating more ultra-processed food than you realise? How to avoid the ‘healthy’ imposters

Wellbeing

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have become a hot topic in health. UK Google searches for ‘UPF list’, ‘non-UPF diet’ and ‘how to avoid ultra processed foods’ are all up 5,000%, and yet new research by Saga Health Insurance shows most Brits don’t know what qualifies as a UPF or how processed the food they consume is.

A Saga’s study of UK adult found that 53% of participants eat ultra-processed foods at least several times a week, with almost 18% eating them daily. Worryingly, 1 in 20 even mistook fresh fruit and vegetables for UPFs, showing just how blurred the lines have become.

Confusion is especially high around products often marketed as healthy. While most people (79%) recognised ready meals as ultra-processed, fewer than a third (31%) realised low-fat yoghurts fall into this category, and less than half identified supermarket salads (44%) or protein bars (55%) as UPFs, despite nutritionists classifying them as such.

What are UPFs?

To help shed some light on the confusion surrounding UPFs, Saga Health Insurance has partnered with Steve Bennett, a qualified health coach and Parliamentary Advisor on the House of Lords’ Food, Diet and Obesity Committee.

According to Steve, ultra-processed foods are industrially manufactured products made with additives you’d never use in a home kitchen, things like emulsifiers, stabilisers and artificial flavourings. They’re designed for shelf life and profit, not nutrition. Think breakfast cereals, ready meals, fizzy drinks and packaged snacks.

One of the biggest issues is that fibre is systematically stripped out during processing. Fibre is nature’s brake pedal; it slows sugar absorption and protects the gut. Without it, sugar floods into the bloodstream at speed.

Health impacts of a UPF-heavy diet

Some of the most popular cereals, like frosted cornflakes and crunchy nut, contain around 15g of sugar per 40g serving, that’s nearly four teaspoons in a single bowl. The body is only designed to handle about one teaspoon of sugar at a time, so this sugar rush keeps insulin levels high, and while insulin is elevated, your body can’t burn fat for energy.

Over time, this cycle can contribute to weight gain, insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, and a higher risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

Who is most at risk?

Older adults face the greatest risk because insulin sensitivity and gut diversity naturally decline with age. That means their bodies can’t manage blood sugar spikes as effectively. Add in pre-existing conditions like diabetes or heart disease, and a UPF-heavy diet acts like fuel on the fire.

How to spot UPFs on food labels

Food labels can be deceptive, buzzwords like ‘natural,’ ‘low-fat’ or ‘source of fibre’ may be just marketing tricks. If the ingredients list is long or full of chemical-sounding names, that’s usually a red flag, and ‘natural flavourings’ are often just lab-created chemical blends designed to taste like fruit, showing just how far from natural these labels can be.

An easy UPF spotting method is to look at the ingredients on the back of the packet. If there is any type of sugar in the first three ingredients it is nearly always a UPF. Therefore, it should not be considered a breakfast, lunch or dinner item, more like a dessert option.

Watch out for hidden sugars ending in ‘-ose’ (like glucose and fructose) or ‘syrup,’ plus emulsifiers such as polysorbates and anything beginning with E followed by numbers.

The most common UPFs in UK diets

The obvious culprits include fizzy drinks, sweets and crisps. But the real danger is in healthy food impostors where fibre has been systematically removed.

Even ‘wholegrain’ breakfast cereals can be sugar bombs containing more sugar than biscuits after processing strips away protective fibre.

Ready meals are often chemical cocktails, protein bars are often just sweets with added protein powder, and low-fat yoghurts are usually loaded with sugar once the fat is removed. Even modern supermarket bread is highly processed, stripped of the fibre that once made it nutritious.

Budget-friendly swaps

Healthier eating doesn’t have to cost more. Swap low-fat yoghurt for plain Greek yoghurt with berries, breakfast cereals for eggs on traditional sourdough bread with spinach, and ready meals for a simple batch-cooked alternative using frozen veg and tinned beans.

Protein bars can be replaced with a handful of nuts and fruit, and fizzy drinks with sparkling water, lemon and apple cider vinegar. Even small changes like real butter instead of margarine can make a big difference.

As UPFs continue to fill supermarket shelves, experts warn that awareness and small daily swaps can make a real difference, particularly for older adults who may be more vulnerable to long-term health impacts.