Can you name every ingredient in a Twinkie? It’s not easy: The list has more than 35. You might recognize the eggs, sugar and flour. But after that, it gets hard.
It would take a mighty effort to guess it has hydrogenated tallow. Or sodium stearoyl lactylate. Or the food dye red 40. These chemicals, and many more, are now common ingredients in most U.S. diets. That’s because they’re found in many ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs. In addition to Twinkies, UPFs include chips, baked goods, granola bars and more.
“UPFs are industrially manufactured” using “very processed ingredients,” explains Filippa Juul. She works at a medical school, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in New York City. There, she studies how foods affect our health.
Scientists say: Chemical
Factories chemically alter the ingredients in UPFs to where they no longer resemble the foods from which they came. Then manufacturers combine these to make foods that aren’t like anything you could whip up in a home kitchen.
Compare the Twinkie to a cake you might make at home. Both have eggs, sugar and flour. The homemade cake might also include ...
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