Prepare Meals to Reduce Calorie Intake at home: Study Finds

A new analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that more than half of calories consumed at home by adults in the U.S. come from ultraprocessed foods.

The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition.

“The perception can be that ‘junk food’ and ultraprocessed foods are equivalent,” says Julia Wolfson, PhD, MPP, associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health and the study’s lead author. “Yet ultraprocessed foods encompass many more products than just junk food or fast food, including most of the foods in the grocery store. The proliferation and ubiquity of ultraprocessed foods on grocery store shelves is changing what we are eating when we make meals at home.”

For their analysis, the researchers used data from the 2003–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

On two separate days, participants were asked about the foods they had eaten in the past 24 hours and where they had consumed the food—at home or away from home. Using the Nova Food Group Classification—a well-established framework for grouping foods by level of processing—foods were assigned to one of four categories: 1) unprocessed or minimally processed, 2) processed culinary ingredient, 3) processed, 4) ultraprocessed.

Overall, ultraprocessed foods comprised more than half of all calories consumed at home, rising from 51% in 2003 to 54% in 2018. The researchers found only minor differences in trends of ultraprocessed food intake at home by sex, age, race/ethnicity, income, and education over the study period. Overall, the proportion of total calories from minimally processed foods fell nearly five percentage points from 33.2% in 2003 to 28.5% in 2018, and minimally processed food intake declined both at home and away from home for most groups. These results, the authors say, speak to the many challenges of procuring and preparing minimally processed, scratch ingredients such as fresh vegetables, meat, and fish. Ultraprocessed foods tend to be easier and faster to prepare, and often are less expensive and more shelf stable than scratch ingredients.

Reference: Wolfson, J. A., Tucker, A. C., Leung, C. W., Rebholz, C. M., Garcia-Larsen, V., & Martinez-Steele, E. Trends in Adults’ Intake of Un-processed/Minimally Processed, and Ultra-processed foods at Home and Away from Home in the United States from 2003–2018. The Journal of Nutrition.