Episode 69: Ultra Processed Foods - What should our kids be avoiding?

Episode 69: Ultra Processed Foods - What should our kids be avoiding?

Today we are diving into ultra-processed foods. What are they exactly? What foods do we need to be avoiding for our kids….and how can we make better choices without the guilt?

As a Paediatric Dietitian and a mum, I know that it’s hard enough dealing with a fussy eater without worrying over every label. So this episode is to give you the info without the guilt! No judgement, just practical steps to help you spot these foods, reduce them, and choose better—especially for our kids’ gut health and long-term wellbeing.

Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Highlights:

Introduction (00:00.138)
The Truth About Ultra-Processed Foods (02:23.156)
Why Ultra-Processed Foods Keep You Coming Back for More (04:32.78)
The Hidden Dangers Lurking in Everyday Foods (06:59.576)
Protecting Kids from Hidden Additives in Processed Foods (09:17.896)
Why ‘Healthy’ Sweeteners Might Be Hurting Your Kids (11:38.528)
The Truth Behind Protein Bars and Snack Bars for Kids (14:00.584)
Cutting Back on Ultra-Processed Foods, One Snack at a Time (16:26.008)
Why the Health Star Rating Can’t Be Trusted (18:38.648)
Beating Ultra-Processed Foods with Homemade Goodness (20:57.538)
Better Choices in the Snack Aisle: Navigating Processed Foods for Kids (23:21.934)
Your Guide to Cleaner Kids’ Snacks Starts Here (25:43.01)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

Today we are diving into ultra-processed foods. What are they exactly? What foods do we need to be avoiding for our kids….and how can we make better choices without the guilt?

We’ll chat about how ultra-processed foods impact your child’s developing microbiome, their taste buds, and even their future food preferences. Here’s what we cover:

1. What Counts as Ultra-Processed? A breakdown of what these foods really are—and why it’s not just about fast food chains.

2. Additives to Watch For From emulsifiers to artificial sweeteners—how they affect gut health, behaviour, and inflammation.

3. Easy Swaps That Actually Work Simple snack alternatives that reduce intake without causing drama at home.

4. Why Labels Matter More Than Stars How reading the ingredients list can tell you more than the Health Star Rating ever will.

5. A Realistic Approach for Real Families Tips for time-poor parents who want to improve their fussy eater’s nutrition—without turning into a full-time chef.

🔗 Grab Karina’s Time Saving Healthy Supermarket Kids Snacks Guide now for the INTRO offer https://nourishwithkarina.com/guide

🔗 Get 100+ nourishing recipes for kids in Karina’s Healthy Recipe E-Book: https://nourishwithkarina.com/healthy-recipes-for-kids

🔗 Need tailored support for a super fussy eater or neurodivergent child? Book a nutrition consultation with me - email hello@nourishwithkarina.com

More about Karina and Nourishing Kids!

Join Karina’s 5 Days to Healthier Kids Challenge https://learn.nourishwithkarina.com/5-days-to-healthier-kids-challenge

Karina's popular Nourishing Kids lifts the "food stress" load, giving mums a clear plan to get kids trying new healthy foods and guidance on how to feed their family more easily! Learn more here https://nourishwithkarina.com/nourishingkids Karina is a regular on Channel 7, Sunrise. Check out her segments here: https://nourishwithkarina.com/press

For online consultations & personalised support. Click here https://nourishwithkarina.com/nutrition-consultation

Karina's popular Kids Food Reviews are here https://nourishwithkarina.com/food-reviews

If you have a Fussy Eater, register for Karina's online training and learn the 3 Essential Steps required to end fussy eating. https://nourishwithkarina.easywebinar.live/endfussyeating

Introduction (00:00.086)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 69. What are ultra processed foods and which ones should we avoid for our children? Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.

Welcome back. It's great to have you. I hope you're really well. Today, I want to talk about a topic, which we often hear the words used ultra-processed foods or UPFs. You actually start to hear more of in the future, but it's like, well, what are they? And what does it mean for our kids? And what does it mean for us as, you know, people that are trying to eat healthy? So ultra-processed foods.

But before I dive into that, I just want to say this information is for your information and for your knowledge. Nothing I ever share on this podcast is designed to make you feel guilty because I want to put it out there. I know that you're doing the best job you can do. I'm doing the best job that I can do. And yes, we can always aspire to do things better and feed our kids healthier and buy less rubbish and get more plant foods into them, but it doesn't always happen. So it's...

Not to make you feel guilty in any way, it's just to give you the information and give you strategies for how you can make those small little tweaks that make a big difference when done consistently over the days and the weeks and the months. So anything that I talk about on these podcast episodes is designed to give you some momentum, some motivation, some small wins that you can do consistently that will add up over time.

So today I'm going to be talking about these ultra processed foods and I'm going to be talking about the ones that we should probably stay away from or the ones that we should be limiting. But by no means is it to make you feel guilty if your kids do eat these ultra processed foods because let's be honest, all kids probably eat them, including my own and we eat them as well as adults. I think it's just about keeping it real and limiting our exposure. And that's where I'm coming from. It's all about knowledge. Knowledge is power.

The Truth About Ultra-Processed Foods (02:23.156)
Knowing which ones are the ones we need to limit and which ones we can have more of. So what even are ultra-processed foods? Well, I mean, I think, you know, we've got a general idea. It's just all the rubbish food at some McDonald's, there's a KFC, it's all of that processed food. And I think that's what people typically think of when we hear the words ultra-processed foods. But in actual definition form.

Ultra-processed foods are food items that are formulated with many ingredients of industrial origin. So that means they've come out of a kitchen, not necessarily out of the ground or off a tree. And these foods are often produced using techniques and processes that are not typically found in home kitchens. And often these formulations, these food formulations go beyond basic food preparation or food processing.

So the ingredients used in these foods have likely been chemically altered or synthesized. Okay, so there's a NOVA classification system, which I found when I was doing a bit more research, but a more of deeper dive in this area. And this NOVA classification, which is widely used in public health research, it defines ultra-processed foods as formulations made mostly

or entirely from substances derived from foods and additives with little or no intact whole food, often made through a series of industrial processes such as extrusion, molding, hydrogenation or hydrolysis. And these foods often contain additives like artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, and they're often designed for convenience and long shelf life.

It's not just your McDonald's and your KFCs and all of those types of processed foods. These foods we're talking about are things like soft drinks, packaged snacks, lollies, some frozen meals, but there's plenty of others and I'll talk about some other examples in a minute. So these ultra processed foods are highly desirable. They're highly palatable and they're often addictive.

Why Ultra-Processed Foods Keep You Coming Back for More (04:32.78)
And I've talked about this before, how junk food actually activates the brain's reward center and stimulates dopamine as you get these dopamine hits. And so it actually acts almost in a very similar pathway to the way that drugs work and it becomes an addictive pathway. And we become addicted to this junk food because it keeps giving us these dopamine hits. And companies are absolute geniuses at creating the perfect blend of

fat, salt, sugar, the perfect taste in our mouth, the perfect texture in our mouth, so that they are very highly palatable and addictive. They're often very nutrient poor foods as well. They tend to be really high in calories. They're very refined and processed. So the oils are often inflammatory. You're high in sugar, they're high in salt. so look, I'm not telling you anything you don't know there. That's pretty common sense, but it's important just to remember that when we talk about ultra processed foods.

is not just your McDonald's and your hungry Jackson, your KFC, your fast food outlets. There's plenty of other foods that will fit into the classification of ultra processed foods that will also be nutrient poor. So what type of ingredients are they saying that are in these ultra processed foods that may pose potential issues? So we have synthetic additives such as artificial flavors, artificial colors, sweeteners.

anti-foming agents, have chemical preservatives such as sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate. We have texture modifiers, so things like gums, thickeners, and look, a lot of these foods are in, you know, everyday, you know, Woolies muffins and whatnot. And so there's some of these, which I think are probably safe for our children to consume, but there's others that may not be as safe. And I think the bottom line here is that

We just need to try to limit the intake of these ultra processed foods because that way we're going to limit the intake of all these additives. So we have emulsifiers, there's another group of additives that are often in these ultra processed foods like lecithin, polysorbates, and the sorbates are linked to potential gut barrier disruptions, so negative effects on their gut health. Definitely the artificial sweeteners are linked to detrimental effects on their gut health, sucralose, aspartame.

The Hidden Dangers Lurking in Everyday Foods (06:59.576)
quite controversial and I don't like using any products with those in them. And sucralose is very commonly used in a lot of food products right now in the supermarket shelf and for our children. Then we have fractionated ingredients. So things like maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup. So all of these ingredients appear in these ultra-processed foods. Oils is another one. Refined vegetable oil, lots of different.

types of oils can be used, some worse than others. But when you get poor quality vegetable oil, that's refined and highly processed and heated at very high temperatures or under pressure, it changes the oil. becomes inflammatory and it's very unhealthy for us. So the reason why everyone's going on about ultra processed foods is because of these health implications. So gut health disturbances.

increases in inflammation. So stuff that we can't see is happening. And this is not something that we'll necessarily see in our children, but it's something that tends to slowly build up over time and inflammation just increases and increases over time through having a high consumption of these ultra processed foods. And you see those documentaries where a guy will go on E. McDonald's for two months and then they do all the bloods and test everything in his...

Inflammation's gone up and everything's gone bad in terms of his blood markers and he's become very, very unhealthy. And that's because these highly inflammatory ultra processed foods are only going to do bad things in the body. And so I'm not saying don't have them. We're all going to have them, but let's just try to limit them because they don't agree with our body and they don't do good things in our body. And they may contribute to weight gain, obesity, heart problems.

And digestive problems is something we also need to think about because if they are affecting our gut microbes and our gut barrier function, that is going to affect immune health. is going to affect our digestion and how we're feeling. And perhaps we feel more bloated with some of these foods. Why this is really important for kids too, is their microbiome is still developing and evolving. And you know, if we're putting these.

Protecting Kids from Hidden Additives in Processed Foods (09:17.896)
additives into our children that is disrupting their gut health, that's going to impact their immune health. And we don't want our kids getting sick more often. Their taste buds are still also forming and these highly processed foods can really dull their natural preferences for real foods because the bar's set so high in terms of salt or sugar or fat. so just your regular healthy foods seem really bland in relation to these

are the foods which are highly addictive and highly palatable. So how do we spot these ultra processed foods? We walk into Woolies, we're time poor. How do we spot them? What do we do? Okay. So if I give you three quick tips on spotting an ultra processed food in the supermarket. Number one, look at the ingredients list. Don't look at the square. That's the nutrition panel. Look at the ingredients list and just see what's on there. If there's ingredients.

on there that you really have no idea what they are or there's a lot of numbers or a lot of additives, then just be careful because if you can see three or more additives, then that's probably an ultra processed food and you want to avoid it. Okay. So here's my three second rule for spotting an ultra processed food in the supermarket. So you're walking along the supermarket aisle and you pick up a food and you're like, well, is this an ultra processed food? I don't know. might be a muesli bar.

Okay. So first of all, look at the ingredients. could be a protein bar because a lot of those are ultra processed foods. So look at the ingredients list. Firstly, look at the ingredients list. Don't look at the panel. Don't look at the table. Look at the ingredients list and look at how real the food is. So is it real food that you would find in the kitchen? Is it wheat, corn, fruit or?

Is it a whole lot of numbers and additives because if it's a whole lot of numbers or additives, then be warned. If there's more than three of these additives, extracts, modifiers, then you could pretty safely say that it's quite highly processed. If not ultra processed, you've probably heard about me going on about sweeteners before. And even earlier in this episode, be really mindful of sweeteners because they are not healthy in any way.

Why ‘Healthy’ Sweeteners Might Be Hurting Your Kids (11:38.528)
Number one, they're still training our kids taste buds to like sweet foods. We know that they carry these taste preferences with them into adolescence and adulthood. So we are training them to be sugar addicts later on. And number two, it can disrupt their gut. It really can. Like these sweeteners are not good news for the gut microbes. They're really not good news at all. So I would try to stay away from sweeteners as much as possible.

I mean, look, some of the sweeteners have even been linked to increased risk of, you know, stroke because they clot your platelets. So look, these sweeteners have been created in years gone by with the purpose of helping people with diabetes or helping people lose weight, but indirectly they've actually created a whole lot of other problems and it actually doesn't help people lose weight. It's been proven. I mean, we even did a sunrise segment on it. It's not effective to help adults who are overweight to lose weight by using sweeteners.

And we know that they have other detrimental effects to gut health and they can also potentially clot platelets. Look, one of the sweeteners and sucralose has even been linked to changing your DNA. Like there's a whole lot of stuff out there with sweeteners and I really encourage you to stay away from the no added sugar foods as much as possible. You would have heard me talk in podcasts about artificial colors and the links to behavioral issues in children that are sensitive, especially those with.

Autism or ADHD. So that's another additive in ultra processed food that I would be aware of. And back to the oils, just be really mindful of anything that says hydrogenated oils, vegetable shortening, hydrogenated fat, because these are, as I said before, these highly processed oils that are really inflammatory and not good for you. So I just want to clarify an ultra processed food isn't a food where you've just got one or two additives.

It's where you have food that doesn't really resemble the real food ingredients that you might use at home to make a muffin. You might have flour or you might have raw sugar or you might have bananas or you might have cinnamon. So it doesn't have real food ingredients. Instead, it requires these lab created ingredients like isolates and extracts. And when they have those types of ingredients,

The Truth Behind Protein Bars and Snack Bars for Kids (14:00.584)
And the additives, preservatives or sweeteners, then it's like Clitabee Ultra Processed. And you will find a lot of protein bars, weight loss bars that are all really highly processed like this. You'll also find snack bars and muesli bars that are highly processed as well. They may appear healthy, but often they're heavily bound with syrups, with thickeners, with all sorts of additives that aren't good for our kids. So it's really important to be mindful of.

those bars that do keep it simple. And I just want to pause for a moment to let you know that this is exactly why I created my Healthy Kids Snack Supermarket Guide. It's a guide designed for busy parents who want to know exactly what to pick up and put in the trolley. It's got over 85 Healthy Kids options, no additives, no artificial colors, preservatives, flavors, low sugar, low salt. These are great options just to pop in the trolley.

or pop in the online cart. We've got breakfast cereals, bars, snacks, crackers, you name it, yogurts. We've got ice creams. It's a fantastic guide and it's less than a takeaway coffee. So I encourage you to go download that guide, nourishwithKarina.com forward slash guide. And you can click on the link, grab that guide and it'll be super helpful next time you are completing your online order or in the supermarket. You can have it in your phone so that you can just scan through and have a look.

So things to be mindful of are flavored kids yogurts and pouches because some of those can have a lot of thickeners, stabilizers, artificial flavors, added sugars or sweeteners. So be mindful of those. Snack bars and muesli bars as well. Just look at the ingredients list. Do you recognize them? Are they whole foods? Packaged puffs, straws. Another group at risk are the toddler and kids veggie straws.

puff this puff that you name it, there's an option there now because often they contain very highly processed refined ingredients such as potato starch or corn flour. And then they have synthetic flavor powders. The veggie components usually less than 5%, often less than two or 1%. And often they have additives in them just to make them taste good and to become, you know, more addictive. So be really careful with that group. And that's why I've got a lot of.

Cutting Back on Ultra-Processed Foods, One Snack at a Time (16:26.008)
good swap options in that supermarket guide because it will really help you make good decisions to reduce the intake. As I said, we're not going for zero additives or zero, you know, ultra processed foods here, but we're looking to reduce the daily intake because even just cutting out one ultra processed food per day means you've cut out seven per week means you've cut out about 30 a month.

So it will definitely make a difference over the weeks and the months and years. And it's also changing the way that your children are eating bit by bit. know, we're changing their taste buds. We're helping them to learn to like better foods because every time they're not putting an ultra processed food in their mouth, they're likely putting something healthier in their mouth. Another group just to be mindful of a sweetened biscuits, muffins or mini cakes. So look, you can get some of the better and again.

My kids eat these too, and this might be one of the areas where they do get some of these additives and you just try and reduce them elsewhere. But often these foods will have, whether it's invert sugar or palm oil or artificial flavors. So just be mindful of when they say banana, there's often probably less than 2 % actual banana. And that's where reading the ingredients, this can be helpful because you can read the ingredients from the largest ingredient, which is the first ingredient.

down to the smallest ingredient. And if you see banana up in the first three ingredients, then it's like, well, yeah, there is more banana in this, which is great. Whereas if bananas right at the end, you're like, much banana in here and there's banana flavour. It's like, well, yeah, no, this is becoming much more highly processed. Also be careful of the fruit strips, roll ups, fruit snack type of foods. Marketed as real fruit, a hundred percent fruit.

And they can currently get away with no added sugar if they use concentrated fruit juice or fruit juice concentrate. But it's absolute rubbish that is a concentrated sugar. Sometimes I'll just use glucose syrup and they'll just say glucose syrup, even though, you know, it's not as good for them. They still get purchased. Kids love these stuff. You know, it's tasty and you know, it's hard when, you know, you're trying to find something to put in the lunchbox and...

Why the Health Star Rating Can’t Be Trusted (18:38.648)
They love these and they're with you in the supermarket and the pesto power. so another box of rollups goes in the supermarket trolley and ends up in the lunchbox. And some kids won't eat anything else they like, well, at least they're going to eat something. So you put it in there, but we've just got to be mindful that again, that is an ultra processed food. need to be watching how much of these our kids are eating. Now there are some better options actually in my supermarket guide. I do have some better options where.

It's not actually a fruit juice concentrate or a fruit puree concentrate. They've actually used the real fruit and just smooshed it up and dried it. And that's a much better option. The dentists probably wouldn't agree, but at least it's additive free and going to be better for their gut health. Another group just to be mindful of are the whole cheese and dip range, like your snacks and whatnot.

Some of them will have preservatives and some of them aren't really made with that much dairy. It's quite ultra-processed. So just check the ingredients list when you are popping those in the cart because some of those will be poorer options than others. And often it's better just to stick with some block cheese, chopped up and some crackers, and then you can control what the crackers are. And you know that the cheese is just cheese and it's less of a ultra-processed food. Now I wouldn't trust the Health Star rating as far as I could throw it.

There's so many foods that are rated really well, that have four or five stars that are rubbish. And there's other foods that are rated poorly that aren't actually too bad at all. So this whole Health Star rating needs a review. You definitely can't trust it. And food manufacturers know how to work the loopholes to get an extra star despite it being ultra processed. So don't trust the Health Star rating.

read the ingredients list, look at how many ingredients are in there that are real food ingredients versus fake food ingredients. And does it look like that food was made in a lab using lab based ingredients? Because if it does, then yeah, it is probably more ultra processed. And we really just want to try and limit these. Look, if you can cook at home, amazing. And that's why I've got my Healthy Kids recipe book, which is a whole.

Beating Ultra-Processed Foods with Homemade Goodness (20:57.538)
which has over a hundred kids recipes. I created these recipes for my own family, for my own kids. And, know, it's the culmination of the last 12 years because I wanted healthy recipes to put in the lunchbox so that I wasn't always relying on packaged things from the supermarket. So if you're interested in getting that recipe book and improving the quality of snacks in your kids lunchbox or after school.

Then head to narrashwithKarina.com forward slash recipe book, and you can find the information there. So there's a little 101 for you on ultra processed foods. So it's not just your, your fast food outlet chains that are considered ultra processed foods. It's the foods in the supermarket. Oreos have changed over the years. Ritz, you know, they've all gone from being more basic foods made with whole foods to

Foods that are so highly processed made with ingredients that we don't even know what they are. And that's the real concern because the more we tamper with mother nature and the real food ingredients, the worse they become for our body. And when you put them together with multiple highly processed ingredients, it's not good for us. It's just going to be inflammatory to our body and poorer for our gut health. look, my kids still eat these foods. I'm sure your kids are eating some too.

The bottom line is let's try and just reduce it by one ultra processed food a day if you can, because that's going to make a big difference just to start with. And that's all we can do. We can just try to make these small differences that will absolutely add up over the days and the weeks and the months. And the more you can buy just real food ingredients from the supermarket and make snacks up more from scratch, like a piece of bread with peanut butter, that's going to be heaps better than another packaged snack.

And look, the more you can just stick to whole food ingredients as much as possible, the better. And you'll likely then by default, reduce the intake of ultra processed foods and additives and preservatives. So for example, after school, if you're just serving up basic grainy crackers and hummus or cheese on top, it's going to be much simpler than what you will find in those, you know, muffins in the supermarket or those

Better Choices in the Snack Aisle: Navigating Processed Foods for Kids (23:21.934)
packet flavored shapes, example, serving up a platter with popcorn and fruit and veg and some treats too, don't get me wrong, you could still have treats, is going to though, at the end of the day, limit those ultra processed foods and therefore those ultra processed ingredients, which without us even realizing can be doing damage to our body. It's not damage that you see initially, it's the changes that happen to our gut.

and our levels of inflammation over the days and the weeks and the months and the years. And at the moment, our food standards allow all of these additives to be in our food, but there's definitely some that I disagree with and I feel that they should not be in our food supply at all. I feel they are problematic. So the more we can pay attention to these ingredients and try to limit our intake.

And who knows what the future holds in terms of what they will start banning in terms of food additives and sweeteners. But I think all we can do as parents for ourselves and for our children is to try to limit the intake of these foods as much as possible, knowing full well that we're still going to consume some, but just trying to limit them is where we should be starting. And if you have a child who is neurodivergent or a super fussy eater, and they rely on these processed packaged foods for the bulk of their

daily intake, there's still lots we can do. So for example, they love a white rice cracker. You compare the two white rice crackers, the sakata and the package. The sakata is going to be a better option. So even within that processed white package snack category, there's definitely better and worse options. So don't feel guilty if your child is heavily dependent on processed package snacks. We can still absolutely reduce their intake of these additives or preservatives or

colors or flavors, depends on the food, but there's always a better swap that we can make. As long as they tolerate it, some kids are super, super selective with their preferences. So look, if you're at that point, then please reach out to me because it's really important that you have a nutrition consultation with a pediatric dietician to make sure that they are not nutrient deficient. But for the majority of kids, just a simple swap, for example, from Doritos to Grain Waves.

Your Guide to Cleaner Kids’ Snacks Starts Here (25:43.01)
They're still getting green waves, but you're significantly improving the quality of the snack they're getting. So there's a lot of swaps that we can do, just being aware of what's going into their food. So check out my snacks guide, as I said, nourishwithKarina.com forward slash guide. And you can grab that great low cost resource and know exactly what's put in the trolley. And you can grab that great PDF, which will really help reduce the intake of rubbish in your child's day.

OK, I'll wrap it up there. Thanks so much for listening. And I'd love to know what one ultra processed food you've been able to kick to the curb for your child or for you. And just remember one simple change that you can do today or tomorrow. It will make a difference. I know we're all busy, but one simple change is all it needs to start that momentum. I wish you a beautiful week and I'll chat to you soon. Bye for now.