If you inspect a packet of M&M's, among the best-selling candies in the US, you'll see recognizable ingredients like sweetener, skimmed milk powder, and chocolate fat. However, numerous elements are less known: acacia gum, dextrin, carnauba wax, soy lecithin, and curcumin.
There are thirty-four ingredients in the candy, with no fewer than thirty nations participating in supplying them. Each has its distinct production network that transforms base substances into ingredients – cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye.
These components then journey across the world to a central processing facility where they are combined and transformed into tiny multicolored candy-coated chocolates.
It's becoming better understood that agricultural networks are a major driver of the climate crisis. Scientists can study land clearing for farming or greenhouse gases from animals. Yet the ecological footprint of ultra-processed foods – such as these candies – is more ambiguous and is just beginning to be understood. One reason they have been challenging to assess is the inherent complexity of UPFs: these industrially made items include a huge number of ingredients and processes to put them together, making it nearly impossible to monitor.
However, this doesn't imply it's unimportant. Since ultra-processed foods dominate US grocery store shelves and eating habits – they now comprise seventy percent of food sold in grocery stores, and over 50% of dietary energy intake – specialists say that assessing their environmental toll is essential to build a greener agricultural system.
The Information We Already Understand
Although researchers are just beginning to investigate the environmental impact of UPFs, what's already known about them is concerning.
"The greater the processing products become, the more deleterious they are to human health and the environment," said Anthony Fardet. The main reason, he explains, is that the ingredients are so energy intensive. When combined, the impact expands significantly.
Take the popular candy. The first step in creating the candies is cultivating for cocoa, sweetener, milk products and palm.
It has been well-documented that agriculture for ingredients like cocoa drives ever increasing rates of forest clearance across the globe. For over a century, agricultural expansion has driven almost 90% of global deforestation, which has been responsible for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Major companies have been criticized in the past for farming practices in their supply chain, and have since created sustainability plans, but these do not resolve that large-scale agricultural practices are, fundamentally, unsustainable.
Then there's, sweetener, dried dairy and palm oil – likewise major carbon dioxide sources.
On top of that are the factory-produced components like artificial colors – possibly the hallmark of ultra-processing – which these candies contain thirteen varieties of. Blue M&Ms are dyed with E132 and E133; these dyes are mostly made in industrial color production centers Asia, through synthetic processes of petroleum derivatives with diazonium salt, accelerated by the elements copper or chromium.
Creating soy lecithin, an additive made from plant oil that's used to alter the texture of candy, requires procedures like oil refining in a heated vessel, extracting fat molecules, decolorization using hydrogen peroxide and drying under vacuum pressure. And, dextrose, starts off as maize that gets soaked in chemicals before being ground, separated and dehydrated. Afterward, it's decomposed into smaller molecules using enzymes and chemicals, and then recrystallized.
Although highly manufactured candies are some of the worst offenders, different types of UPFs are burdensome on the environment as well. Consider a well-known chip, which has thirty-nine ingredients. Corn is the main ingredient, and for every acre grown, 1,000kg of CO2 is emitted to the air. Like other corporations, producers have created their own environmental pledges, but several such promises are underpinned by practices that are considered greenwashing.
Consequently, researchers have started to calculate the environmental toll of UPFs.
One analysis estimated that well-known sweets generate at least 13.2kg of carbon equivalents per kilogram produced. With annual production of over 664 million kg in the US, this would mean that the candies emit at least three point eight million tonnes of CO2 – making up zero point one percent of yearly carbon output in the country. However, this is only an estimate based on publicly available data; the true cost is probably significantly greater, experts say.
There's a "unknown element" when it comes to emissions tracking in the processed food industry, says Patrick Callery who studies how corporations engage with the climate crisis. "There is so much ambiguity as production networks get complex."
The Gaps We Don't Know
Calculating precisely of the environmental toll of ultra-processed foods is nearly impossible, since, by definition, UPFs consist of numerous components and a high volume of opaque processes. Components aren't just combined like one would do to make a home-cooked meal at home. Instead, these elements are altered synthetically, certain portions stripped away, and flavors, dyes or consistencies added in – and it's unclear what the impact of these methods are because so many suppliers and parts are involved.
A further factor is that every ultra-processed food are the creations of food companies that have little incentive to disclose their environmental footprint and may not fully understand it to start with.
As an example, large corporations don't farm key ingredients themselves, but instead rely on numerous growers that may not have precise emissions tracking in place. This means that carbon output from large manufacturers may be underreported. Analysts said that corporations "lack actual data, so they use estimated values, which are guesses."
Researchers say that corporations submit data on simple things like transportation, which are simpler to measure, and often omit or convolute the farming-related carbon of their product. After all, reporting high emissions contradicts the objectives of large food corporations, so the complex calculations needed to establish the carbon footprint of large-scale agriculture and complex manufacturing methods used to make UPF ingredients remain un-researched.
"The main point of ultra-processed foods is profit," stated Fardet, pointing out that they're designed to be appealing, easy and enjoyable to eat.
"Most of the people in the food industry's value chain are not concerned with global warming from an ethical perspective, but they do care about money," said a specialist. He clarifies that to shift those incentives, the cost of products and components would need to incorporate their impact on our global environment. But that would require official policies and economic consequences based on the true environmental cost of UPFs.
The Reasons It Is Important
At just under $2, the price of popular candies at the grocery store hardly reflects their real impact on the planet. But to tackle these issues with manufactured products, more than just a minor adjustments to the ingredient list are needed.
"Reducing the sodium, or sugar of just a single item is just greenwashing," said the expert. "We need to change the whole picture." To do that, he suggested consuming more regionally produced, whole foods, which often take much less resources and transportation to produce, and therefore have a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
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