Our food system makes avoiding processed and ultra-processed foods a challenge. These foods are everywhere, blanketed with beautiful boxes laced with savvy marketing jargon. So many edible things touted as healthy, from “low-fat” snacks to “made-with-natural-ingredients” bars, sound like they are good for us when, in reality, they’re a mix of sugars, modified starches, additives, and other industrialized ingredients. Manufacturers design these foods to be alluring and crave-worthy, tricking us into eating more and more.

The most significant defense against this is to arm ourselves with knowledge. Our ‘PrimaFoodie Processed Food Checklist’ offers five simple questions to ask to help decipher if a food is ultra-processed and potentially quite harmful.

Consider these questions a helpful playbook in your conscious eating journey.

#1: Is It Packaged?

This is a low bar but a solid place to start. Any food that comes in a box, tin, wrapped in plastic, or any other covering is likely processed. So let this be your first place to pause—and from there, you can dig into the ingredients. As Nichole says, “The best option is no packaging at all.”

#2: Does It Have More than a Handful of Ingredients?

Turn the package over and let your eyes fall directly on the ingredient label. Are there more than four or five ingredients? If so, this is a red flag. One step further, does the ingredients list read like a chemical experiment with hard-to-pronounce additives? Aim to opt for foods with very few ingredients and ensure you know what each one is.

For instance, when picking up a granola package, avoid the version with ‘oats, sugar, palmitate, riboflavin, BHT, pyridoxine hydrochloride’ and opt for the version that contains ‘oats, maple syrup, raisins, cinnamon, and sea salt.’

#3: Is It a Shortcut Food?

We’re all busy. But that doesn’t merit the need for foods that claim to be “quick,” “instant,” or “easy.” These are alluring words in our jam-packed worlds, but they might as well say “packed with bad stuff.” Any foods that tout swiftness, like instant lasagna noodles or quick oatmeal, denote additional processing.

Instead of quick and easy packaged foods, make simple, nourishing meals in your kitchen. Some of our favorite PrimaFoodie recipes take less time to make than watching an episode of The Crown, and they’re packed with vitamins, minerals, and healthy proteins.

#4: Are There Added Sugars or Fake Sweeteners?

There’s sugar called ‘sugar,’ which negatively impacts our metabolic system. Then there’s sugar disguised as fructose, corn syrup, malt syrup, beet sugar, and other sweeteners. These highly processed forms of sugar often go unnoticed and heavily consumed—and they are terrible for our health. The same goes for artificial sweeteners like saccharin and aspartame. Avoid these and aim for products sweetened with better alternatives, such as pure maple syrup, coconut nectar, dates, and honey. And be discerning if a food even needs sweetening. We’re always shocked how many jarred pasta sauces and breads contain sugar.

Also, be wary of any words that end in “ose,” such as fructose, glucose, dextrose, or maltose. These are more forms of manipulated, highly processed sugar.

#5: Does It Make Promises?

Walk down the grocery store aisles, and you’ll be bombarded with packages exclaiming all the great things this food or that food will do.

There are probiotic sodas that claim to bolster gut health—but they’re filled with sugar and coloring.
There are “all-natural” chicken fingers—but they really come from factory-farmed chickens pumped with antibiotics.
There are “natural” kids' granola bars—but they’re addled with modified wheat, preservatives, and sweeteners.

We could go on and on. Whenever a food makes a promise or claim, step away.

These five questions are a powerful start. Once you get in the groove of pausing and inspecting food, you’ll be more inclined to think about how it will impact you and your family’s health.

For further reading, check out our PrimaFoodie Guides to Buying Eggs and Meat and Meat and Poultry Poultry.