Editor’s note –
May 2025

“All food is processed, but some foods are more processed than others”

Some bizarre quotes appeared in the Daily Mail. “’All food is processed food to some degree and there are many different ways this can be done. And not all processing or additives are harmful,’ adds Prof William Li, who according to the Mail, “works with food manufacturers and researches ways to improve nutritional value of food”.

“All food is processed food…”? About what you’d expect from someone tied to the junk food industry.

What they’ve done here is played around with language. As they do. UFOs (unidentified flying objects) have become UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), which opens the way for them to be discussed as strange weather. We all know what junk food is. But they changed it to “ultra processed foods”, and now the discussion is that “all foods are processed, but some are more processed than others”. This is the food equivalent of George Orwell’s “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (Animal Farm, 1945).

Yes, meat is “processed”; vegetables are picked and washed = “processed”; baked potato – “processed” (that’s direct from Harvard – surprise, surprise); milk and eggs – we don’t get them straight from our animal friends do we? “Processed”. Cheese? Highly processed.

Here’s Li on his blog: “It is generally assumed that processed foods are those that have been stripped of all nutritional merit and are riddled with harmful additives. But according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the term ‘processed’ refers to any food that has undergone a ‘change in character.’.

“In today’s world”, he says, “it would be nearly impossible to eradicate processed foods from your diet altogether. And, in reality, there is little need to. What is important is understanding the difference between ‘processed’ and ‘ultra-processed’”.

No. The only important thing is to know the difference between junk food and real food. And we were all clear about that before you people decided to confuse the issue. By the USDA definition, all cooked food is “processed”.

What this fiddling with the language leads to is this misinformed drivel, to quote from the Mail again: “Sian Porter, a dietitian and spokesman for the British Dietetic Association (which has previously partnered with food manufacturers), is among those who argue ‘much of the evidence linking UPFs with serious health conditions fails to identify clear cause and effect’”.

This is so obviously bonkers that I won’t rip into it.

To give him credit, Li disagrees with the BDA. “Multiple studies have illustrated that consuming high levels of ultra-processed foods can increase the risk of chronic conditions such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, celiac disease, and more”, he says. “One study that began in 2009 found that for every 10% increase in ultra-processed foods consumed, participants’ risk of cardiovascular disease increased by 12% and their risk of coronary heart disease increased by 13%.

“And it is not only snack foods and frozen meals that can be ultra-processed. Deli meats and other far-from-nature forms of animal protein like hot dogs are extraordinarily processed and can have severe harmful effects. In fact, the WHO has acknowledged these forms of meat as a major contributor to colorectal cancer and classifies them as carcinogenic to humans”. (Refs online.)…