Ultra-processed foods are getting a bad press right now – and often for good reason.
Ultra-processing replaces the nutrients in natural foods with ‘bad’ fats and sugars, and often an encyclopaedia of additives.
Scientists believe the industrial processes manufacturers use to reconstitute ingredients can contaminate ultra-processed foods with harmful by-products, such as potentially cancer-causing acrylamide.
Ultra-processed foods contribute to more than 56 per cent of the calories consumed in the UK and 58 per cent in the United States, according to the British Medical Journal.
In countries where consumption of ultra-processed foods is lower, such as Italy and South Korea (making up 10 per cent and 25 per cent of diets respectively), people live longer and are less likely to be obese or develop heart disease.
Should you try to limit how much ultra-processed food you eat? If so, what’s the best way to do so? And how can you fuel effectively on the bike by balancing ultra-processed nutrition products with ‘real foods’?
To find out, we’ve spoken to former Team Sky head of nutrition Nigel Mitchell, current EF Education-Easy Post chef Owen Blandy and Dr Dana Lis, the US performance nutrition lead for Science in Sport.
What are ultra-processed foods?
There’s no consensus on what precisely defines an ultra-processed food, so we won’t be too specific here.
Nigel Mitchell, who was also the head of nutrition at British Cycling, says: “The simplest definition of ultra-processed foods is that they contain something you wouldn’t have in your kitchen.
“You’ll look at the ingredients and see E-numbers and other ingredients you can’t identify.
“Ultra-processed foods don’t have a great deal of nutritional value and will just provide calories.”
For example, sweets, biscuits and frozen supermarket meats, such as burgers, are widely considered to be ultra-processed.
Ultra-processing tends to strip out nutrients from food, such as fibre, and replace them with calorie-dense fats and sugars, as well as chemicals that may damage our health.
According to Mitchell, ultra-processed foods have very long shelf lives for products that are not canned or preserved, such as supermarket bread.
“Bread should never have a two-week shelf life – good bread should only last a few days,” he says
EF Education-EasyPost’s Owen Blandy says: “Ultra-processed foods come out of our lifestyle of moving fast and always being on the go.”
Scientists tend to use the NOVA classification to categorise foods according to the extent they are processed.
Proposed by University of Sao Paulo researchers in 2009, the NOVA classification places food into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods; processed culinary ingredients; processed foods and ultra-processed foods.
Processed vs ultra-processed foods
The proximity of processed foods to ultra-processed foods in the NOVA classification masks substantial differences between these groups.
Processed foods are often nutritious, but ultra-processed foods rarely are.
For example, Blandy says the wheat in homemade bread has been processed while the wheat in a frozen, supermarket pizza has been ultra-processed.
Processed foods
Jarred vegetables, canned fish, fruits in syrup, cheeses and fresh bread are examples of processed foods.
The processing may be the addition of salt and vinegar to vegetables or sugar to fruit to preserve them in glass or tins.
Meanwhile, we use non-alcoholic fermentation to make cheese and yoghurt out of milk and bread out of dough.
Processed foods are often longer-lasting versions of whole foods, with few extra ingredients.
Whole or natural foods are edible parts of plants (vegetables, nuts and fruits) and animals (meat, eggs and milk).
Therefore, the nutritional value of processed food can be similar to their unprocessed form version.
Ultra-processed foods
Ultra-processed foods include soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, reconstituted meat and pre-prepared frozen meals.
The presence of ingredients such as hydrogenated vegetable oils and high-fructose corn syrup set ultra-processed foods apart from processed foods.
A series of processes, such as hydrogenation and moulding, combines the many ingredients into the final form.
Manufacturers use emulsifiers, dyes and flavourings to improve the sensory properties of the food or mask any unpleasant qualities of the end product.
Should we eat fewer ultra-processed foods?
A 2019 study published in the Cell Metabolism journal found a diet high in ultra-processed foods (up to 80 per cent of energy intake) caused people to eat more, and gain weight and body fat.
A second set of participants were also allowed to eat as much as they wanted, but from a diet containing only 20 per cent ultra-processed foods. After two weeks, this group’s body fat and weight decreased slightly.
Mitchell says: “This is because ultra-processed foods are high in calories, and the flavours and texture encourage you to eat a lot of them.”
As a result, it’s likely many of us could reduce the amount of ultra-processed foods we eat, especially to lose weight through cycling or stay at an ideal cycling weight.
When cooking for his WorldTour team, EF Education-EasyPost, or himself, Blandy tries to avoid ultra-processed foods because they contain unwanted extra ingredients.
“I cook as much fresh food as possible and try to use foods that are merely processed, like canned beans and tomatoes, and pasta and yoghurts.
“I won’t buy things like stir fry sauces – there are 20 ingredients in them that you don’t need.”
Some of these extra ingredients contained in ultra-processed food are thought to be bad for us.
In 2024, the British Medical Journal found that eating a lot of ultra-processed foods was linked with a “higher risk of adverse health outcomes”, such as heart disease and diabetes, in 71 per cent of studies it examined.
Additives were one of the possible explanations for the impact of ultra-processed foods on general health. They are believed to harm the gut biome and cause inflammation, increasing the risk of developing non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease.
Ultra-processed foods can also leave you short of nutrients, according to Dr Lis.
She says: “My overall concerns with ultra-processed foods are their lack of nutrient density and their impact on gut health.”
How often she recommends an athlete consumes ultra-processed foods depends on their training demands, physiology and psychology.
She usually advises eating no more than two meals a week containing ultra-processed foods.
As a percentage of your energy intake, she says: “Ultra-processed foods should be as low as possible, or less than five per cent.
“We are all busy and even as a dietician, I can’t cook for myself every night.”
Ultra-processed foods are designed to be convenient. As a result, eating fewer ultra-processed foods is likely to save you money, but it may take a little more time.
Mitchell adds: “They're designed to make profit for people and as a consequence very often they are more expensive than the base ingredients.”
Can processed foods be healthy?
It’s not all bad news; food processing can be good for us. It can turn raw foods into a form from which we can absorb nutrients and preserve those in vegetables.
Blandy says healthy high-protein yoghurts, such as skyr, are processed because they contain fermented milk.
“But they’re not ultra-processed because the milk hasn’t been turned into something else, like flavoured fruit or chocolate yoghurt,” he adds.
Blandy also classes the process of turning wheat into fresh bread as a healthy one.
There is, however, some debate about whether chocolate is a processed or ultra-processed food.
In any case, Blandy says he serves dark chocolate to EF Education-EasyPost riders because it has anti-inflammatory benefits.
Popular forms of vegan protein, such as tofu and tempeh, are also healthy processed foods, according to Mitchell.
They contain few additives and, in the case of tempeh, the processing of soya through fermentation makes the protein more digestible.
But when Quorn (a protein extracted from mushrooms) has been turned into vegan-ready meals or fake chicken nuggets, Mitchell says: “It has been quite heavily processed.
“This is the commercialisation of food.
“Manufacturers have tried to make money out of people becoming vegan – it’s harder to make money from selling whole foods.”
How can you eat fewer ultra-processed foods?
Ultra-processed foods fill supermarkets and restaurants these days, and dominate food advertising.
But, by planning ahead, cooking more of your own food and substituting certain snacks, you can reduce your consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Plan ahead
Blandy says ultra-processed foods are often designed to be convenient.
However, he adds: “If you maximise your time through planning and using your freezer, fridge and store cupboard, I think you can try to avoid them.
“With fresh ingredients, you can create the same flavours without having the packaging and all the emulsifiers and other things.”
Blandy and Mitchell say that by batching cooking you can save time and have less need for ultra-processed and processed foods.
Blandy adds: “If you're cooking at home, make about four portions and freeze or put them in the fridge.
“Don't ever cook just one serving.”
Mitchell recommends preparing a post-ride meal, such as a chicken casserole, in a slow-cooker, so you have a nutritious meal ready to eat when you get back.
Swap in whole or lightly processed foods
If you’re caught out by hunger when you’re not at home, it can be easy to buy an ultra-processed snack, such as crisps and a chocolate bar.
Again, being prepared and carrying whole foods to snack on is a healthier approach.
To boost protein intake, Blandy recommends yoghurt and boiled eggs, while he says fresh fruit delivers carbohydrates and vitamins.
Mitchell, who is now a nutrition expert for American Pistachio Growers, sings the praises of the green nuts.
He says: “Pistachios are one of the only foods that I know containing protein, antioxidants and healthy fats.
“They are a really good option for people who want to eat less processed food.”
Mitchell says you should also swap sliced white bread for whole-grain bread and hydrogenated vegetable oils for extra virgin olive oil.
In brown bread, Mitchell says: “Vitamin B helps you metabolise carbohydrates to get energy and the fibre is beneficial for our digestive system.”
He adds: “There's research showing health benefits from really pure extra virgin olive oil, which contains lots of polyphenols.”
Can ultra-processed foods be healthy?
As is often the case with nutrition, endurance athletes should approach ultra-processed foods differently from the general population.
All commercially available sports nutrition counts as ultra-processed. And during hard rides, professional and amateur cyclists alike can require the fast-release carbohydrates that energy gels and bars provide.
But there is a big difference between sports nutrition and junk food.
Dr Lis says: “Sports foods are technically processed, but the ingredients are fairly basic.
“They are ultra-processed with scientific rationale.”
The registered dietician, who counts 2023 Paris-Roubaix Femmes winner Alison Jackson among her clients, says sports food doesn’t usually contain potentially harmful ingredients.
“Gels have maltodextrin and fructose, a stabiliser or two, and a couple of antioxidants to keep them fresh,” she says.
“I don't see any of that having a negative effect on the human body.”
That said, you should try to avoid gels containing artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and sucralose.
Dr Lis adds: “There is more research looking at negative effects of the habitual consumption of some of those sweeteners on the gut microbiome.”
Because professional cyclists fuel almost exclusively on bars and gels in racing, Dr Lis says: “I will usually get them to use the minimal effective dose of specialist sports food in training.”
When to use real foods as bike fuel
The intensity and duration of your ride will determine whether you should use sports food as a source of carbohydrates.
“You have to find the balance between performance and ultra-processed foods,” explains Dr Lis.
“On longer or easier rides, go with real food like a sandwich or banana.”
Blandy agrees and says: “You don’t really need gels on the Sunday ride.
“You have time to eat real food on the move or stop at a cafe.”
As alternatives to gels and commercially sold energy bars, Mitchell recommends making your own bars and rice cakes.
He also devised a 'gravel mix' (consisting of pistachios, sultanas, sweets and sunflower seeds) for Alistair Brownlee, when the Olympic triathlete gold medallist began gravel racing.
Any of these homemade snacks will save you money over shop-bought alternatives.
Blandy says the convenience of electrolyte tablets and energy drinks justifies their use.
“You can just take in 60 grams of carbs just by drinking a bottle,” he adds.
Everything in moderation?
Although it’s preferable to reduce your consumption of ultra-processed foods, that’s not to say you need to cut them out entirely from your diet.
Mitchell says: “I’m not a big fan of saying people should never do this or never do that.
“My rule of thumb is to avoid meals or avoid food you don’t make yourself.”
Dr Lis agrees and says there’s no point in fixating on a single ingredient or food.
She says: “One food is not going to wreck your body, gut biome or your diet, or cause cancer.
“Your diet is made up of everything you eat. It's not going to be drastically affected by one food unless you have an intolerance or allergy."
Even if you do fuel a couple of rides a week on ultra-processed gels, she adds: “It's not going to have a significant effect on your entire health and well-being.”
You shouldn’t let a desire to reduce your intake of ultra-processed foods leave you short of energy.
Dr Lis says: “Sometimes, some riders get too obsessed with eating what they would call ‘clean’ and compromise their ability to get in the fuel they need.”
