Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a U.S. President Donald Trump's event to sign an executive order regarding vaccine flexibility, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 10, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promising the federal government's first official definition of ultra-processed foods.
There's just one problem, reported Nicholas Florko for The Atlantic: nobody, including scientists who study the category, actually agrees on what counts.
Kennedy announced Monday at a "food policy celebration" at HHS headquarters that the department is finalizing the long-awaited definition, though the exact wording is still being reviewed by the White House and wasn't shared publicly.
The challenge is bigger than bureaucratic red tape. A widely used Brazilian classification system lumps any food containing industrial ingredients like sweeteners or emulsifiers into the ultra-processed category. A separate system from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill instead defines "highly processed foods" as products no longer recognizable as their original plant or animal source. A third system, built by a French analytics company, factors in salt, sugar, fat content and additive risk. The differences are stark enough that flavored yogurt qualifies as ultra-processed under one system and just "moderately processed" under another.
Kennedy has repeatedly criticized a longstanding loophole letting food companies quietly introduce new additives without notifying the FDA, estimated by researchers at more than 10,000 additives already in America's food supply. His new proposal would require companies to at least disclose new additives to the agency, though it stops short of demanding proof they're safe.
Kennedy summed up his reasoning simply, telling reporters, "If you can't define a problem, you can't solve it."
Researchers agree diets heavy in ultra-processed foods correlate with higher rates of conditions like cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, but the underlying science on why remains murky. Even the FDA's last major definitional overhaul, updating what counts as "healthy" food back in 2024, took eight years to complete.
Kennedy has been controversial as Health and Human Services Secretary from the start, due to his long history of anti-vaccine activism. President Donald Trump endorsed much of Kennedy's anti-vaccine agenda this month, signing an executive order that seeks to "space out" the childhood vaccine schedule and remove several shots from the universally recommended list.