The Month the World Finally Acknowledged Ultra-Processed Foods
In the space of a single month, the global conversation about ultra-processed foods (UPF) shifted. November saw the release of The Lancet’s major UPF review, and December brought the first government lawsuit against the companies that produce them. For years there has been growing suspicion about the role of ultra-processed foods in the chronic disease crisis.
Researchers have raised concerns, clinicians have observed patterns, and individuals have quietly noticed the impact these foods have on their energy, mood, and cravings. Yet the dominant public narrative has stayed the same. If people were sick, tired, or gaining weight, the assumption was that they lacked discipline or were making poor choices.
In the last month, that illusion has finally cracked.
San Francisco filed the first government lawsuit against ultra-processed food manufacturers, stating that the companies knowingly created and marketed products that undermine public health while governments carry the costs of treating the resulting diseases. At the same time, The Lancet released the largest review ever conducted on ultra-processed foods, summarising evidence from 104 long-term studies. Ninety-two of them showed clear associations between UPF consumption and increased risk of chronic disease, including heart disease, cancer, metabolic dysfunction, depression, cognitive decline, and premature death.
Neither development happened in isolation. Together, they mark a turning point in how we understand modern food and its role in the health of entire populations. This is not a fringe debate amongst nutritionists and functional medicine practitioners anymore. It is entering courtrooms, policymaking, and mainstream science.
And it matters deeply for midlife women who have spent decades trying to follow shifting and often contradictory nutrition advice.
Why This Moment Matters
For a long time the burden of chronic disease has been placed squarely on the individual. People were told to count calories, choose better options, read labels, exercise more, increase their motivation, and practise moderation. Meanwhile, the food environment changed dramatically. Ultra-processed foods moved from being occasional products to becoming the foundation of the modern diet. In the United States they now make up more than 70 percent of the food supply. Australian figures follow a similar pattern.
These products are not simply processed foods. They are industrial formulations designed for maximum palatability, long shelf life, low cost, and fast consumption. They are created to override satiety, stimulate reward pathways, and encourage repeat purchases. They are built to displace traditional meals and whole foods, not sit alongside them.
The new Lancet review made this clear. Researchers concluded that humans are not biologically adapted to consume these products. That sentence alone is enough to shift how we think about personal responsibility. It reframes modern eating not as a failure of willpower but as a mismatch between human biology and a food system optimised for corporate profit rather than public health.
What the Lawsuit Signals
San Francisco’s lawsuit goes beyond claiming that UPFs are unhealthy. It asserts that companies were aware their products could harm health and continued to market them aggressively, particularly to families and children. The defendants include some of the largest and most influential corporations in the global food system: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Kraft Heinz, Mars, Kellogg, Mondelez, ConAgra, and others.
The lawsuit argues that these companies used deceptive marketing practices, obscured the true nature of their products, and contributed directly to rising rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions.
Governments have made similar arguments before. They said it to tobacco companies. They said it to opioid manufacturers. They said it to the makers of lead paint. This lawsuit follows that tradition. It is the first public acknowledgement that ultra-processed foods are not just unfortunate dietary choices but engineered products that carry predictable health consequences.
It also recognises that individuals cannot be expected to outperform a system designed to make unhealthy choices the default option.
Why Midlife Women Feel This Intensely
Although UPFs affect everyone, the impact on midlife women is particularly significant. The physiology of perimenopause and post-menopause makes the body more sensitive to blood sugar instability, inflammation, sleep disruption, loss of muscle mass, and shifts in appetite regulation. These changes create a perfect environment for ultra-processed foods to exert their most destabilising effects.
Declining oestrogen reduces the efficiency of muscle protein synthesis. It also increases insulin resistance and alters how the brain responds to reward and stress. A body in this state is far more reactive to refined carbohydrates, additives, and the fast dopamine hits engineered into UPFs.
The symptoms many women attribute to aging often reflect the influence UPFs have on a physiology that is already under hormonal strain. Fatigue, cravings, weight changes, irritability, mood dips, poor sleep, brain fog, and inflammation are not inevitable consequences of midlife. They are often the predictable result of eating foods the body was not designed to metabolise.
This is not a moral failure. It is biology responding to the environment it is placed in.
How We Lost Our Dietary Compass
To understand why this cultural moment matters, we need to look at how we arrived here.
For decades, nutritional guidance has been contradictory. Margarine was recommended before it was rejected. Eggs were dangerous before they were redeemed. Red wine was medicine before it became a carcinogen. Low-fat diets were promoted before they were replaced by low-carb regimes. These constant swing-backs eroded trust in institutions, leaving people unsure whom to believe.
When trust collapses, people rely on convenience, marketing, and habit. And convenience, marketing, and habit are the territory of ultra-processed foods.
Supermarkets were not designed to guide us toward health. They were designed to increase consumption and product turnover. UPFs were created to align perfectly with that environment. Long shelf life, bright packaging, irresistible flavours, and low prices made them almost impossible to avoid.
It is no surprise that they filled the gap left by failing dietary guidance.
What This Means for Health Today
The conversation around UPFs is not about purity or perfection. It is about clarity. Removing or reducing UPFs does not require rigid rules or moral judgment. It is about supporting the body’s underlying physiology and allowing it to function as it was designed to.
When clients reduce their intake of UPFs, even slightly, they often experience improvements in:
energy
cravings
hunger regulation
digestion
mood stability
sleep quality
metabolic markers
inflammation
mental clarity
This is not a diet. It is a recalibration.
The Diet Edit in my upcoming book focuses on this idea. Before worrying about macros, protein timing, dietary frameworks, or advanced nutrition strategies, the first and most powerful step is simply to reduce the noise that UPFs create.
Your body cannot regain its equilibrium when it is flooded with products engineered to bypass its natural signals.
A New Era of Understanding
December 2025 feels like the beginning of a new era in the conversation about food. The lawsuit in San Francisco and the publication of The Lancet’s major UPF review have made something visible that has been true for a long time. The structure of the modern food system, not the shortcomings of individuals, is driving the chronic disease burden.
The challenge now is not to wait for government reform, although that will eventually come. The challenge is to reclaim agency by choosing real food more often. Not perfectly, not rigidly, and not from a place of guilt. Simply from a recognition that the body thrives when given what it recognises as food.
Removing ultra-processed foods is not about restriction. It is about returning to biological alignment. It is about restoring energy, clarity, and capacity. It is about building a foundation for the life you want to design in the second half of life.
This month gave us the cultural permission to name what has been true for decades. It is now up to each of us to decide what we do with that clarity.
