So what is Ultra Processed Food (UPF)?
Ultra processed food is a term that emerged in 2010 following the pioneering work done by nutritionist Professor Carlos Monteiro in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The definition of UPF can be complicated (and is still evolving) but a simple one coined by an authority in the field, Chris Van Tulleken, is:
“It can boiled down to this: if its wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t usually find in standard home kitchen it’s UPF”
Is Charlie Bigham’s food Ultra Processed?
Absolutely not. At Charlie Bigham’s we do not like Ultra Processed Food. We think that food is best made from fresh ingredients and from day one, over 25 years ago, Charlie’s mantra has been that we will only use ingredients that he has in his kitchen cupboard (and fridge) at home. We take huge efforts to source the best quality ingredients from suppliers we know and trust – we work with them for the long-term spending time in their businesses and inviting them to spend time in our kitchens.
We don’t make ready meals and never will: our food is prepared in our kitchens (never a factory) so that you can cook it - in an oven, not a microwave - in your kitchen at home.
But do you use any Ultra Processed ingredients in your food?
With the definitions of UPF being open to some interpretation, we’ve taken a deep dive into every ingredient we buy (more than 150) and challenged ourselves: could any of them be viewed as ultra-processed? We do not buy any individual ingredient that is or could be viewed as UPF. However, we have found some ingredients within items we buy from others that we think are open to challenge and therefore we need to understand better and improve on.
Why are Ultra Processed Foods important and getting increasing attention?
An increasing number of scientists believe that UPF are having a detrimental impact on our health. The typical UK diet is made up of nearly 60% UPF, rising to nearly 80% in teenagers and young adults. Recent scientific studies has started to link consumption of high quantities of UPF to a wide range of diseases from coronary health to dementia.
At Charlie Bigham’s we think the debate around UPF is both important and overdue. If you are interested in understanding the subject better, we recommend Chris van Tulleken’s excellent book Ultra Processed People.
Can you give me a bit more information on the definition of UPF?
For those who want a fuller definition it is useful to understand the NOVA classification developed by Carlos Monteiro and his team that puts food into 4 groups:
- Group 1. Unprocessed or minimally processed and often found in nature (e.g. vegetables, meat, flour, pasta)
- Group 2). Processed culinary ingredients: e.g. oils, butter, sugar, salt
- Group 3) Processed food: ready-made mixtures of food from groups 1) and 2) and generally free of preservatives
- Group 4) it’s a long definition but starts with “formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use made by a series of industrial processes, many requiring sophisticated equipment and technology”
Professor Monteiro’s most recently update full definition for Group 4 or Ultra Processed Foods is:
Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials. Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals. Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, ‘fruit juice concentrates’, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and ‘mechanically separated meat’) or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients
It’s also interesting to note that many foods that claim to be healthy maybe the very opposite. As Chris van Tulleken says:
“It’s another rule of thumb that almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF.”
On Charlie Bigham’s packaging there are some things in the ingredients list I find confusing and worry me. Can you tell me more?
We’ve done a thorough analysis of every ingredient we buy and also tracked carefully queries we have received from our consumers. The following list gives details for any ingredient we currently use that have either raised questions from consumers or where we are challenging ourselves.
Stocks
At Charlie Bigham’s our kitchens are not set up to make our own stocks so over the years we’ve worked with external suppliers to make stocks for us. We currently buy in chicken, beef, lamb, fish and vegetable stocks. The stocks that we buy in include the same ingredients that you might find in a stock cube or stock powder that you have in your kitchen cupboard at home: dried vegetables, sugar, salt and yeast extract (which is included to enhance flavour). Over the last few years we’ve worked closely with our suppliers to remove some ingredients that are typically found in stocks that we were not comfortable with (notably maltodextrin). We continue to work with our supplier to improve our stocks.
Flour
Just as you would at home, we use flour to thicken our sauces and therefore flour appears in many of our recipe ingredient lists.
Currently all milled white and brown non-wholemeal wheat flour manufactured and sold in the UK has calcium, iron, thiamine and niacin added. This practice began in post-WW2 Britain when deficiencies in the diet - due to rationing and shortages - gave support to the idea of fortifying wheat flour as a useful way to strengthen the diet of the nation. According to the Association of UK Dieticians, the "addition of calcium was required from 1941 [and] the addition of iron and niacin and thiamine was required from 1956". Following this, The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 and The Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998 were enacted to "protect against nutrient deficiencies within the UK population.
Therefore, you will notice that whenever we use flour in one of our recipes on our ingredients list we describe it as flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin)
Breadcrumbs
There is some debate in the world of UPF on whether all “supermarket” bread should be classified as a UPF – although at the moment it is not. This debate stems from the Chorley Wood method for making bread which was pioneered in the 1960’s and today is the method used for making over 90% of the bread consumed in the UK. The Chorley Wood methos uses the addition of Vitamin C, fat and yeast alongside high speed mixing to accelerate the proving process and make bread last longer.
All the breadcrumbs we use in our recipes comes from bread that is made using the Chorley Wood method. We are interested in exploring using sourdough breadcrumbs as an alternative but to date have not found a supplier who can make these for us.
In some of our recipes we use breadcrumbs that include natural colourings in them – paprika and turmeric. We are currently reviewing whether we can remove these natural colours (which give the breadcrumbs a nice golden hue) and still leave our recipes looking as nice as they do today. Our objective is that by the end of 2025 we will have found a way to only use breadcrumbs that exclude any colouring.
Bacon
The traditional way of making bacon is to use curing salts (typically sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and potassium nitrite along with the anti-oxidant sodium ascorbate) – and all our bacon is made using these. Similarly the other cured pork ingredients we use (ham & chorizo) also use curing salts.
There is an active debate on whether we should all be eating less bacon (and other cured meat products) or not eating it all, with a number of studies linking cured meat to poor health outcomes. For the time being we have decided to continue to use bacon, chorizo and ham in our kitchens – they are commonly found in many domestic kitchens (including Charlie’s!) and are intrinsic to the recipes in which they are used.
Bacon and other cured meats are classified as Group 3 ingredients under the Nova classification system for UPF.
Pastry
We use pastry in both our pies and in our En Croute recipes. We make our own shortcrust pastry from scratch in the Charlie Bigham’s kitchen but when it comes to puff pastry we work with our long term supplier who makes it for us (all those layers of pastry mean you need a very long room to make it in!).
Both our puff pastry and the suet that goes into making our shortcrust pastry also contain Palm Oil – seen by many as a controversial ingredient because of well-established links between palm oil production and deforestation and habitat destruction (especially in Madagascar to the threat of the native orangutang population). Any Palm oil used by us or our suppliers is RSPO certified – this means it comes from segregated production that operates to the highest standards (with one of the co-founders of the RSPO certification scheme being the World Wildlife Fund).
Pork & Beef Gelatine
We use both pork and beef gelatine in a few of our recipes – generally where we think the recipe is improved by a slightly thicker sauce. We have also found that the inclusion of gelatine can help “set” a sauce when it’s cold – which has helped us partially address the feedback we’ve had from quite a few consumers that our sauces can spill out of their packaging in transit. Whilst both the pork and beef gelatine we use are entirely natural, we believe they are not habitually found in a home kitchen environment and therefore it’s our plan to stop using them by the end of 2025.
Pectin
Pectin is a natural setting agent that is often used when making jam or marmalade at home – so it’s possible that, like Charlie, you may have a small box of it in your store cupboard at home. However, we think it would be better left for jam making so we plan to remove it from the only recipe that we make that currently uses it (our Thai Panang Chicken Curry) by the end of 2025.
Extracts
We use natural paprika extract in several of our recipes as a way of adding both depth of flavour and colour. It is also used in some of our breadcrumbs (covered above) and in the natural Thai pastes that we buy in direct from Thailand. Over the long term we have an aspiration to move away from paprika extract as we would rather not use any colourings, even natural ones. We hope we might have achieved this by the end of 2025.
Our Spanish supplier of chorizo uses a natural rosemary extract in their current recipe: this is under review as we think our chorizo could taste just as good without it. We hope to have amended the recipe by the end of 2025.
Acetic Acid & Citric Acid
As you might do at home we buy in a number of chutneys, pastes and pickles (for example mango chutney, sun dried tomato paste and lime pickle) that we find can help us add real depth of flavour to our dishes. We work very hard with our suppliers to ensure no suspect ingredients creep in to the recipes for these items but have found that all of our suppliers typically use acidity regulators – sometimes described in an ingredients list as citric acid but typically doing the same job either vinegar or lemon juice would do if you were making a chutney at home from scratch.
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