LISTEN | What’s the harm in eating ultra-processed foods and what can I do about it?:

The Dose21:34What’s the harm in eating ultra-processed foods and what can I do about it?

As ultra-processed food consumption rises along with Canadian obesity rates, experts say the issue is more complicated than simply summoning the willpower to resist these often readily available, highly palatable foods. 

Instead, an individual’s food environment is what plays a key role in determining how healthily a person can eat, science writer Julia Belluz and nutritionist Kevin Hall argue in their new book Food Intelligence. 

A person’s food environment encompasses all the ways food surrounds them — including at home, in restaurants and even grocery stores — and has a strong influence on what that person will likely consume. 

The authors say that changes to our food environment might help people eat healthier foods and take better care of their bodies. 

“The dramatic changes that we’ve seen in both the calories available in the overall food supply, and the quality of those calories and where they’re coming from, and the kinds of products that are available to people … those are the primary attributes that we believe are generating the rise in obesity rates,” Hall told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of The Dose. 

Understanding the food environment

When it comes to the grocery store environment, experts say that a considerable amount of time and money is invested in influencing how customers shop, what they buy and, ultimately, what they eat. 

Grocery stores are designed to be as appealing to as many people as possible, says food economist Mike von Massow, nudging customers to purchase as many of their groceries as possible from the same store. 

“The more they can get you to put into your cart, the better off they are,” said von Massow, a professor in the department of food agricultural and resource economics at the University of Guelph.

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Produce is usually the first thing people see when they walk into a grocery store because seeing fresh fruits and vegetables right away conveys to customers a sense of quality. 

Common staples — like bread, eggs, meat, milk and cheese — are available on the outside perimeter of the store 

“And then have you walk through the aisles to buy other things that may be on your list or to get you to buy things by impulse,” said von Massow. 

Sometimes these impulse purchases can be healthier foods, like fruits that are marked on sale, but they can also include ultra-processed foods.

How to win customers and influence shoppers

Research suggests there’s only so much that can be done to encourage healthier purchases. 

Pointing to nutrition labels as an example, von Massow said lab research he was involved in showed that providing access to healthier foods only really seems to encourage people already interested in eating those healthier foods in the first place. 

“It’s hard to influence customers to buy healthier if they’re not interested in buying healthier,” he said. 

Nonetheless, some research suggests that the majority of Canadians — around 70 per cent, according to one study from Blue Cross — say they do try to eat healthy.

Easy-to-read nutrition labels are one of the most direct ways to appeal to those people, says David Hammond, a professor at the school of public health at the University of Waterloo.

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“People don’t want to be given numbers and then have to have all sorts of other information and facts to know what those numbers mean,” he said. 

“What they want, and they say this repeatedly, is something that is simple and prescriptive.”

A 2023 study suggests that implementing a front-of-package label could “significantly reduce sodium, total sugar, and saturated fat intakes among Canadian adults and subsequently prevent or postpone a substantial number of diet-related [non-communicable disease] deaths in Canada.” 

Additionally a 2020 retail study suggests that using the phrase “high in” can help Canadians “make more informed food choices in relation to sugars, sodium, and saturated fat.”

Want to reduce ultra-processed foods? Improve food literacy

Belluz says adopting more useful food labels — like the French Nutri-Score grading system — can provide shoppers with an easier way to understand what they’re eating. 

The Nutri-Score system awards food with a colour and letter grade — from a green A indicating high nutritional quality to a red E indicating low nutritional quality. 

There’s some evidence that Nutri-Score, which was introduced in 2017, is changing the way French consumers think about their purchases.

A 2021 assessment of Nutri-Score’s real-world influence on French consumers found that up to 57 per cent of people in 2020 had changed at least one purchasing habit because of the system compared to 43 per cent of French consumers in 2019. 

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In addition to helping consumers make more informed decisions, front-of-package labels can also encourage food manufacturers to reformulate their products to make them healthier, says Liesel Carlsson, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at Acadia University,

Clear nutrition warning labels have already shown up on some packages in Canada, with a wider phase-in required by January 2026. 

“Industry has known for a long time that these are coming, and one of the advantages of giving industry a lot of lead time is that they can then reformulate their products,” said Carlsson. 

“They’ve got time for their food scientists to say, ‘Gosh, is there a way to produce this delicious ham, but to tweak the recipe so that we come down under the threshold and don’t end up with the label on it?’”

For their part, some Canadians grocers say they support shoppers making more informed choices about their food. 

“Through our My Health My Choices program, we help customers navigate their options and make decisions that align with their values and lifestyle,” said a Metro spokesperson via email.

“Whether they’re looking for fresh produce, organic selections, pantry staples, or ready-to-eat meals, our offering reflects the everyday choices people make.”

Loblaw’s declined to comment, and directed CBC to the Retail Council of Canada for industry insights. 

Sobey’s did not comment before publication.