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“New research,” the Washington Post reported in June, “found eating plant-derived foods that are ultra-processed — such as meat substitutes, fruit juices, and pastries — increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.”
“Vegan fake meats linked to heart disease, early death,” the New York Post declared.
There was just one problem: The narrative was totally fake.
The claim emerged from a study on plant-based “ultra-processed” foods by a team of nutrition researchers at the University of São Paulo and Imperial College London. Using data from a sample of 118,397 people in the UK who had reported what they ate over at least two days, the paper found that increased consumption of ultra-processed plant foods was associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and premature death, while eating non-ultra-processed plants like fruits and vegetables was linked to better health outcomes.
But plant-based meats were virtually absent from the study: Just 0.2 percent of calories across the sample came from meat alternatives. The bulk of the plant-based ultra-processed calories instead came from what the authors describe as “industrialised packaged breads, pastries, buns, and cakes,” and “biscuits,” better known in the US as cookies — foods that have little to do with plant-based meats or other specialty vegan products. The new generation of vegan burgers, including Impossible and Beyond burgers, did not yet exist when the data was collected between 2009 and 2012.
“With such a small contribution, we can’t draw any meaningful conclusions about plant-based meat alternatives specifically,” University of São Paulo researcher Fernanda Rauber, lead author of the study, told me in an email.
That makes sense. Not many people, after all, regularly eat vegan meat alternatives. So why did the media focus on plant-based meats?
The answer is bigger than just one misreported study. It connects to deeper tensions within the science of “ultra-processed foods” (UPFs), a relatively recent category in nutrition research used to describe packaged foods with dubious-sounding ingredients not typically used in household kitchens. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead US health policy, promises to crack down on ultra-processed foods and has called plant-based meats instruments of corporate control over our food system and humanity. And it’s not just RFK Jr. and his MAHA supporters. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), too, has recently called for regulating UPFs.
Last week, however, the scientific panel that advises the creation of the federal dietary guidelines concluded that there was limited evidence on UPFs’ health effects and that “few studies were designed and conducted well.”
The supposed danger of ultra-processed foods has resonated among the general public in the last several years, tapping into anxieties about industrial modernity and a sense that we’re being poisoned by big food companies. “It really responds to this feeling that a lot of consumers have, which is that the food industry is not protecting their health,” Aviva Musicus, science director for the health policy advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, told me.
Consumers are right about that: The American food environment is unhealthy and disease-promoting, and the food industry bears much of the blame. But ultra-processed foods — a framework “so broad that it borders on useless,” as Oxford nutrition researcher Nicola Guess argued in the New York Times this week — does little to clarify the reasons why. Taken at face value, it could even steer consumers away from healthier, more planet-friendly plant-based foods.
A news release from Imperial College London led with a photo of plant-based burgers, sausages, and meatballs, as one nutrition researcher not associated with the study pointed out at the time, and the first example the release mentions of ultra-processed plant foods is plant-based meat. “Many plant-based foods, including meat-free alternatives such as some sausages, burgers and nuggets, can be classified as ultra-processed foods (UPFs), despite often being marketed as healthy options,” the release reads. That’s neither a fair representation of the research nor of plant-based meat’s relatively small role in most diets.
The use of these examples, Rauber told me, “are technically correct because they do fall into the ultra-processed plant-based group. That said, these foods contributed very little to the overall calories in our study,” she acknowledged. “I probably wouldn’t have chosen that specific photo to illustrate the findings, since our study examined broader dietary patterns — comparing ultra-processed plant-based foods with their non-ultra-processed counterparts — not specific food categories. But press teams often need concrete examples for clarity, and we understand the media’s role in shaping how findings are presented.”
Things get weirder when you dig into how the study defined “ultra-processed” meat alternatives. Included on that list are tofu and tempeh, soybean-based foods that have been used in East and Southeast Asian cuisines for centuries. They bear little to no resemblance to products like Impossible and Beyond burgers.
This fact, more than anything else about the study, set off my BS detector. Ultra-processed foods researchers categorize foods according to the Nova classification, which consists of four tiers, going from least to most processed:
If you’re confused, don’t feel bad — some of the world’s top nutrition experts are, too. “You look at these papers, and it’s still very hard to pin down what the definition [of ultra-processed] really is,” Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard, told me. It’s a concept prone to illogical free association, lumping together Cheetos with ultra-healthy fermented beans.
Asked why tofu and tempeh were classified this way, Rauber said the dietary questionnaire filled out by people in the dataset grouped together tofu, tempeh, and soya mince, also known as textured vegetable protein (a UPF, but one that’s a perfectly reasonable source of protein and fiber made after the fat has been removed from soybeans in the production of soybean oil).
“While plain tofu itself might not be considered ultra-processed, we observed that many options available on the market at the time of data collection contained natural flavourings, thickeners like guar gum, and other ingredients that align with the Nova definition of UPF,” she wrote. That’s true of some flavored tofus — though the addition of an ingredient like guar gum wouldn’t much impact their nutritional properties. Added sugar, however, definitely would — but sugar is not an ultra-processed ingredient, according to the Nova classification, unless it comes in the form of something like high-fructose corn syrup, which is.
You’re being lied to about “ultra-processed” foods
Over the summer, a story circulated across news outlets claiming that eating plant-based burgers led to heart disease.“New research,” the Washington Post reported in June, “found eating plant-derived foods that are ultra-processed — such as meat substitutes, fruit juices, and pastries — increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.”
“Vegan fake meats linked to heart disease, early death,” the New York Post declared.
There was just one problem: The narrative was totally fake.
The claim emerged from a study on plant-based “ultra-processed” foods by a team of nutrition researchers at the University of São Paulo and Imperial College London. Using data from a sample of 118,397 people in the UK who had reported what they ate over at least two days, the paper found that increased consumption of ultra-processed plant foods was associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and premature death, while eating non-ultra-processed plants like fruits and vegetables was linked to better health outcomes.
But plant-based meats were virtually absent from the study: Just 0.2 percent of calories across the sample came from meat alternatives. The bulk of the plant-based ultra-processed calories instead came from what the authors describe as “industrialised packaged breads, pastries, buns, and cakes,” and “biscuits,” better known in the US as cookies — foods that have little to do with plant-based meats or other specialty vegan products. The new generation of vegan burgers, including Impossible and Beyond burgers, did not yet exist when the data was collected between 2009 and 2012.
“With such a small contribution, we can’t draw any meaningful conclusions about plant-based meat alternatives specifically,” University of São Paulo researcher Fernanda Rauber, lead author of the study, told me in an email.
That makes sense. Not many people, after all, regularly eat vegan meat alternatives. So why did the media focus on plant-based meats?
The answer is bigger than just one misreported study. It connects to deeper tensions within the science of “ultra-processed foods” (UPFs), a relatively recent category in nutrition research used to describe packaged foods with dubious-sounding ingredients not typically used in household kitchens. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead US health policy, promises to crack down on ultra-processed foods and has called plant-based meats instruments of corporate control over our food system and humanity. And it’s not just RFK Jr. and his MAHA supporters. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), too, has recently called for regulating UPFs.
Last week, however, the scientific panel that advises the creation of the federal dietary guidelines concluded that there was limited evidence on UPFs’ health effects and that “few studies were designed and conducted well.”
The supposed danger of ultra-processed foods has resonated among the general public in the last several years, tapping into anxieties about industrial modernity and a sense that we’re being poisoned by big food companies. “It really responds to this feeling that a lot of consumers have, which is that the food industry is not protecting their health,” Aviva Musicus, science director for the health policy advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, told me.
Consumers are right about that: The American food environment is unhealthy and disease-promoting, and the food industry bears much of the blame. But ultra-processed foods — a framework “so broad that it borders on useless,” as Oxford nutrition researcher Nicola Guess argued in the New York Times this week — does little to clarify the reasons why. Taken at face value, it could even steer consumers away from healthier, more planet-friendly plant-based foods.
What happened with that study — and why the “ultra-processed” concept is so confusing
Journalists have a responsibility to verify the facts of any research they cover. But the framing of that University of São Paulo–Imperial College study, and the promotional materials associated with it, might have made it easy for reporters to misunderstand what the research really found.A news release from Imperial College London led with a photo of plant-based burgers, sausages, and meatballs, as one nutrition researcher not associated with the study pointed out at the time, and the first example the release mentions of ultra-processed plant foods is plant-based meat. “Many plant-based foods, including meat-free alternatives such as some sausages, burgers and nuggets, can be classified as ultra-processed foods (UPFs), despite often being marketed as healthy options,” the release reads. That’s neither a fair representation of the research nor of plant-based meat’s relatively small role in most diets.
The use of these examples, Rauber told me, “are technically correct because they do fall into the ultra-processed plant-based group. That said, these foods contributed very little to the overall calories in our study,” she acknowledged. “I probably wouldn’t have chosen that specific photo to illustrate the findings, since our study examined broader dietary patterns — comparing ultra-processed plant-based foods with their non-ultra-processed counterparts — not specific food categories. But press teams often need concrete examples for clarity, and we understand the media’s role in shaping how findings are presented.”
Things get weirder when you dig into how the study defined “ultra-processed” meat alternatives. Included on that list are tofu and tempeh, soybean-based foods that have been used in East and Southeast Asian cuisines for centuries. They bear little to no resemblance to products like Impossible and Beyond burgers.
This fact, more than anything else about the study, set off my BS detector. Ultra-processed foods researchers categorize foods according to the Nova classification, which consists of four tiers, going from least to most processed:
- Group one, which includes unprocessed or minimally processed foods, like whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes, nuts, milk, and cuts of meat.
- Group two, or “processed culinary ingredients,” including cooking oils, butter, lard, sugar, and salt.
- Group three, or processed foods, often made by combining group one and group two ingredients into things like homemade breads, desserts, sautés, and other dishes.
- Group four, or ultra-processed foods, defined as “formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, that result from a series of industrial processes,” including dyes, flavors, emulsifiers, certain sugars like fructose, and other ingredients rarely or never found in home kitchens.
If you’re confused, don’t feel bad — some of the world’s top nutrition experts are, too. “You look at these papers, and it’s still very hard to pin down what the definition [of ultra-processed] really is,” Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard, told me. It’s a concept prone to illogical free association, lumping together Cheetos with ultra-healthy fermented beans.
Asked why tofu and tempeh were classified this way, Rauber said the dietary questionnaire filled out by people in the dataset grouped together tofu, tempeh, and soya mince, also known as textured vegetable protein (a UPF, but one that’s a perfectly reasonable source of protein and fiber made after the fat has been removed from soybeans in the production of soybean oil).
“While plain tofu itself might not be considered ultra-processed, we observed that many options available on the market at the time of data collection contained natural flavourings, thickeners like guar gum, and other ingredients that align with the Nova definition of UPF,” she wrote. That’s true of some flavored tofus — though the addition of an ingredient like guar gum wouldn’t much impact their nutritional properties. Added sugar, however, definitely would — but sugar is not an ultra-processed ingredient, according to the Nova classification, unless it comes in the form of something like high-fructose corn syrup, which is.
