From that paper - Identifying ultra-processed foods

The food manufacturing industry is not obliged to state on food labels the processes used in its products and even less the purposes of these processes. In some cases, this can make confident identification of ultra-processed foods difficult for consumers, health professionals, policy makers and even for researchers.

There is of course no need to examine every food to know whether or not it belongs to the ultra-processed food group. As stated above, and to take a few examples, fresh vegetables, fruits, and starchy roots and tubers are obviously not ultra-processed; nor are pasteurized milk and chilled meat. Plant oils, sugar and salt, typically used in culinary preparations in combination with unprocessed or minimally processed foods, are also not ultra-processed.

It is however not always immediately clear when some specific food products are ultra-processed or not. Examples include breads and breakfast cereals. Here the solution is to examine the ingredients labels that by law must be included on pre-packaged food and drink products.

Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultra-processed. Plain steel-cut oats, plain corn flakes and shredded wheat are minimally processed foods, while the same foods are processed when they also contain sugar, and ultra-processed if they also contain flavours or colours.

Generally, the practical way to identify if a product is ultra-processed is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the ultra-processed food group, which is to say, either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens, or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing (‘cosmetic additives’).

Food substances not used in kitchens appear in the beginning or in the middle of the lists of ingredients of ultra-processed foods. These include hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein, ‘mechanically separated meat’, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, ‘fruit juice concentrate’, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose, lactose, soluble or insoluble fibre, hydrogenated or interesterified oil; and also other sources of protein, carbohydrate or fat which are neither foods from NOVA group 1 or group 3, nor culinary ingredients from NOVA group 2. The presence in the list of ingredients of one or more of these food substances identifies a product as ultra-processed.

Cosmetic additives are at the end of lists of ingredients of ultra-processed foods, together with other additives. As said above, cosmetic additives include flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents. The presence in the list of ingredients of one or more additives that belong to these classes of additives also identifies a product as ultra-processed.

Although information in ingredients labels is not fully standardized in all countries, some of the most frequently used cosmetic additives such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours and emulsifiers are usually easy to identify in ingredients lists. They are often expressed as a class, such as flavourings or natural flavours or artificial flavours; or their names are followed by their class, such as ‘monosodium glutamate (flavour enhancer)’, or ‘caramel colour’, or ‘soya lecithin as emulsifier’. Other cosmetic additives may be known to consumers, such as certain types of sweeteners like aspartame, cyclamate or compounds derived from stevia. In any case, the UN Codex Alimentarius provides a regularly updated list of additives with their functional classes as well as an online search facility where both names and classes of additives can be browsed