The food industry in Australia is allowed to use labelling and marketing tactics to distract from the harmful ingredients in ultra-processed foods due to its outsize political power, health experts say.
As state, territory and federal health and food ministers meet on Thursday, experts are concerned the current voluntary food labelling regimes are failing to meet international standards for warning consumers against industrial techniques used in food processing.
Dr Phillip Baker, a research fellow from the University of Sydney’s school of public health, said the current health star rating system still gave stars to unhealthy ultra-processed food products because it was based on whether the product contained good or bad nutrients.
He said food manufacturers, who were “very much in the policymaking room” designing the health star rating, could easily game the nutrients, offering the example of companies replacing sugar with an artificial sweetener.
“What we’re calling for is a much more comprehensive set of regulations, a broader policy framework, that actually economically disincentivises the production of ultra-processed foods in the first place,” Baker said.
Gyorgy Scrinis, an associate professor and food politics and policy expert at the University of Melbourne, said Australia needed “to start regulating these corporations directly”.
“This means directly regulating their entire portfolios of products and their marketing practices as a whole, as well as limiting the political power they exercise over governments and policymakers.”
Ultra-processed foods are those that contain no or few whole food ingredients and have undergone multiple processing steps where sweeteners, colourings, flavourings and emulsifiers are added. These substances are often extracted from oils, fats, sugars, starches, and proteins, and they extend shelf life and make food more palatable.
Scrinis said: “Food companies have exploited the current focus on nutrients as a way of marketing their poor quality, ultra-processed products. For example, they market their products as high in protein or low in fat, or even ‘contains whole grains’, yet these products are manufactured from ingredients that have been completely broken down or chemically transformed.”
Dr Priscila Machado, a research fellow at Deakin University, said industrial food processing techniques created new chemical compounds and structures that could harm health. These processes destroyed the natural food structure, she said, which was crucial for nutritional quality.
For example, vitamin C from an orange is more beneficial than from a supplement because the other substances in the whole orange enhance the vitamin’s nutritional value.
Ultra-processing techniques, for example high temperatures, create contaminants that can “mess up our hormones,” and contribute to type 2 diabetes and weight gain, she said.
Bread
- Most pre-sliced bread available in supermarkets contains modified starches and additives like emulsifiers and vegetable gums – even the healthy-sounding multiseed or sourdough loaves.
Processed meat
- Bacon, sausages, and deli-sliced cold meats like ham and salami can be full of emulsifiers, thickeners, modified starches, added fibre, and even added colours and flavouring.
Vegan meat
- Vegan “fake meats” like burgers, sausage, and bacon might be packaged in green and decorated with plants, but they’re highly processed and often contain emulsifiers, unlike whole food sources of vegetarian protein like mushrooms or beans.
Plant milks
- Many plant milks and vegan cheese products are ultra-processed, containing emulsifiers, vegetable gums, stabilisers and flavours. But some skip the additives, like a soy milk of just water, soybeans, oil and salt.
Breakfast cereal
- Many cereals and breakfast drinks contain maltodextrins, added colours, and processed proteins and fibres.
Muesli bars and protein balls
- Protein bars and ‘health balls’ might be a pantry staple for health-conscious snackers but they’re full of processed fibres and proteins, sweeteners and modified sugars.
Ready to eat meals
- Ready meals can be pumped full of additives to stop them going stale on the shelf. The longer the ingredient list, the more likely the dish is ultra-processed.
Yoghurts
- Flavoured yoghurts often contain more additives than plain yoghurts. Check the ingredients list for thickeners, sweeteners or flavours.
Cooking sauces
- Jar sauces for pasta or stir-fry often have thickeners, flavour enhancers or colours that wouldn’t be found in a sauce made from scratch at home.
Margarine
- Margarine can only be made by ultra-processing vegetable oils, and is often boosted with emulsifiers and colours. Butter is not ultra-processed.
Baby foods
- Some baby foods are ultra-processed, with cereals, biscuits and rusks marketed at infants particularly exposed. Nearly a third of baby foods sold in the UK are ultra-processed.
While ultra-processed foods include the chips and biscuits consumers typically identify as unhealthy, they increasingly include products marketed as “healthy” like breakfast cereals, protein bars, plant milks and breads.
A review published in February found ultra-processed foods were directly linked to 32 health harms, including heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, poor mental health and early death.
Australia’s health star system rates foods from half a star to five stars – the more stars, the healthier the choice – and was intended as a quick way for consumers to identify nutritious foods. But the system was co-designed with the food industry and is not mandatory.
At the last meeting of food ministers in May, it was revealed just 32% of intended products in Australia carried the front-of-pack health star rating, far short of targets.
“Australia has a very weak, industry-friendly health star rating system, it has no sugar taxes, nor mandatory restrictions on marketing to children,” Scrinis said. “This lack of regulation reflects the political power of the ultra-processed food industry in Australia over government policies.”
A report published by the George Institute for Global Health in July found by adding synthetic fibres, proteins and artificial sweeteners, food companies can inflate the rating of unhealthy foods.
A highly processed snack bar might score well due to added fibre and protein, but it could still contain unhealthy levels of preservatives, emulsifiers, and other artificial ingredients not considered in the algorithm.
A cereal with added soy protein isolate may receive a higher rating because of its increased protein content, despite potentially being high in sugars and low in other nutrients.
Because of this, some diet colas score as high as three-and-a-half stars, protein cereals up to four stars, and protein bars up to the full five stars.
The report’s co-author Dr Alexandra Jones said even if the ministers on Thursday made the health star rating mandatory, the algorithm used must be reviewed “to remain aligned with developing nutrition science”.
Baker said the industry used its substantial profits to resist such changes, paying for lobbyists, lawyers and scientists to form partnerships with governments, UN agencies, and civil society groups.
In doing so the food industry exerted “huge” influence over government policymaking, Baker said. “That’s why we have this huge gap between the problem, the harms it’s causing to human health, and the regulation.”
Machado and Jones said a lack of consideration of processing techniques is concerning and would allow industry to continue reformulating with artificial products without improving nutrition.
The independent MP Sophie Scamps, who has long called for changes to food marketing and advertising laws and for the introduction of a sugary drinks tax, said the health star rating system needed to be changed to become an objective measure of nutritional value and allow comparison across all product classes.
The assistant minister for health, Ged Kearney, who chairs the food ministers’ meeting, told Guardian Australia: “I’ve been clear about my disappointment that industry has not met uptake targets for health star ratings and the need to consider mandating the system if final uptake targets are not met.
“I’ll be discussing this, and other options for holistic reforms to food labelling … Watch this space.”
