Your UPF glossary: what does your food label really mean?

Ultra-processed food – known as UPF – makes up nearly 60% of the UK's diet.¹ The added ingredients and processes can make our favourite foods and their packaging difficult to understand.

There isn’t a regulated definition for UPF, but it often includes ingredients you wouldn’t usually have at home (like preservatives, sweeteners and emulsifiers).²

Not all UPF is ‘bad’. Sometimes it refers to fortified food, which improves nutritional value. But most of the ‘junk food’ we’d associate with high fat, salt and sugar contents (HFSS) is classed as UPF.²

Still, it can be useful to know what’s on the back of those labels! So we’ve made a glossary to help, along with other terms you might hear about UPF...

Cold-pressed: A method of processing used to make oils. No heat is used, meaning the oils retain a higher level of compounds like carotenoids (a type of antioxidant) and polyphenols (which help feed our good gut bacteria).^4,5,6

Emulsifier: An ingredient used to help two other ingredients mix. Take oil and water – they separate when put together, so they need an emulsifier to make them smooth.⁷ Look for lecithin, guar gum and carrageenan.⁸

Food desert: An area with limited affordable, fresh food. It doesn’t have to be a literal desert – they might even be cities. Food scarcity may be down to environmental or social conditions.⁹

HFSS: Stands for “high in fat, salt and sugar”.¹⁰ A scoring system called the nutritional profile (NP) model works out if a food is considered HFSS or not. Foods over a certain NP score can’t be marketed in certain ways, for example on children’s TV.¹⁰

Humectant: Prevents foods from drying out.¹¹ Think of blueberry muffins: the blueberries need to stay wet and the muffin mix needs to be moist but not soggy.

Hydrogenated: Hydrogenation is used to make plant oils more solid, for example in margarine. Oil is heated around hydrogen gas to chemically change its melting temperature.¹² 

Low processed: Food that has undergone some minimal processing – this may be to help preserve or season it. Low-processed foods are typically NOVA category one or two. To learn more about NOVA categories, read our ultimate guide to UPF.

Modified starch: Man-made starches that can replace fats and dairy. They might be used because they’re cheaper than the original ingredients, for texture or to help food keep longer.¹³

NOVA classification: The categories used to determine a food’s level of processing, based on the extent and purpose. It ranges from one to four, one being ‘unprocessed’ and four being ‘ultra-processed’. Researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, proposed this system in 2009.

Phosphoric acid: Found in artificially sour foods like sweets and cola. It also helps prolong shelf life.^14,15

Phosphoric acid can be found in some whole foods, but as an additive it’s often made by burning phosphorus with air in a furnace.¹⁵ There’s concern that drinking a lot of certain fizzy drinks could harm your bones because of its phosphoric acid content.¹⁶

Raw: Food and drink that hasn’t been heated or cooked. This also eliminates processes like pasteurising, which uses heat.

RBD (refined, bleached and deodorised): A process used to make oils look and taste more neutral. It’s thought that 90% of the plant oils we buy are RBD.¹⁷

Stabiliser: An ingredient used to prevent the consistency of food from changing.⁸

Unprocessed: Something which has undergone no processing. It may be very minimally changed (like washed or cut up) but is still in its most basic form. 

Xanthan gum: This is made by fermenting glucose or sucrose with a kind of bacteria called Xanthomonas campestris. It commonly acts as a stabiliser in sauces, salad dressings and ice cream.^18,19

Now that you’ve unjumbled the jargon, learn more about UPF and health from our resident expert Dan Clarke.