“Americans are clearly asking for more transparency and collaboration across the food system. We must meet this moment with credible information, and a renewed commitment to building trust through clear and consistent communication.”
— Wendy Reinhardt Kapsak, MS, RDN, President & CEO, International Food Information Council, 2025
Part One: What We Mean When We Say “Ultra-Processed”
Not all processed food is bad. Cheese is processed. Pickled vegetables are processed. Canned tomatoes are processed. We have been processing food for centuries, and most of it falls into what researchers call the NOVA classification system’s first three tiers — whole foods, culinary ingredients, and minimally processed goods.
Ultra-processed food, NOVA’s fourth tier, is something else entirely. These are products manufactured largely from industrial ingredients — fractions of foods such as refined starches, isolated proteins, hydrogenated fats, and sugars — combined with additives including colorants, emulsifiers, stabilizers, artificial flavors, and preservatives. Think instant ramen, packaged snack cakes, flavored yogurt tubes, sodas, chicken nuggets, reconstituted deli meat, and most breakfast cereals. The rule of thumb researchers use: if it contains an ingredient you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen, it is probably ultra-processed.
By the numbers: Ultra-processed foods now account for nearly 60% of daily calories for U.S. adults and close to 70% for children. Approximately 70% of packaged products in the U.S. food supply qualify as ultra-processed. Global UPF sales reached $1.9 trillion in 2023.
The USDA and FDA acknowledged in July 2025 that approximately 70 percent of packaged products in the U.S. food supply are foods that qualify as ultra-processed. Under the leadership of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, the agencies jointly issued a formal request for information to establish — for the very first time in American history — a uniform federal definition of ultra-processed food. That this definition does not yet exist tells you everything about how long this problem has been allowed to grow unchecked.
“The growing consumption of ultra-processed foods is reshaping diets worldwide, displacing fresh and minimally processed foods and meals. This change in what people eat is fueled by powerful global corporations who generate huge profits by prioritizing ultra-processed products.”
— Professor Carlos Monteiro, University of São Paulo, Creator of the NOVA food classification system, The Lancet, 2025
Part Two: Cricket Flour, Acheta Powder, and the Hidden Ingredient Conversation
If ultra-processed food is the big, slow story, cricket flour is the story that makes people sit up and actually check the back of the box.
Cricket flour — finely ground dried crickets — has been making quiet inroads into specialty food products for several years. The ingredient goes by its scientific name: Acheta domesticus, more commonly shortened to “Acheta powder” or “Acheta protein” on packaging. It can also appear as “cricket protein hydrolysates,” “insect flour,” or “insect protein.” If you aren’t specifically scanning for these terms, you may never see them.
Currently, cricket flour remains largely a niche ingredient found primarily in specialty protein bars, baking blends, snack chips, and sports nutrition powders. Brands like Exo Protein, Chirps Chips, Chapul, and Bitty Foods have been open about using it. The concern consumers raise is not with those transparent brands, but with the broader trajectory: as insect protein markets grow and labeling requirements remain murky in much of the United States, the risk of encountering these ingredients without realizing it is real.
Label Decoder — Cricket Flour’s Many Disguises:
- Acheta powder — The most common label name, derived from the scientific name of the house cricket.
- Acheta protein / Acheta flour — Variant names for the same ground cricket ingredient.
- Cricket protein hydrolysates — A more processed form used in protein powders, sports drinks, and meat analogues.
- Insect flour / insect protein — Generic terms that may cover multiple insect species.
- Partially defatted cricket powder — The specific form approved for use across the EU since January 2023.
The FDA considers crickets used as food Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). But state-level laws are shifting fast. Iowa enacted the “Andy Groseta Act” in 2024, prohibiting insect-protein products from using meat-identifying terms without a clear “insect-based” qualifier. As of early 2026, fourteen states are actively considering new restrictions on novel food ingredients.
The Allergen Question Nobody Is Talking About Loudly Enough
Perhaps the most pressing concern around cricket flour is not ideological — it is medical. People with shellfish allergies, specifically to crustaceans and molluscs, are at risk of an allergic reaction to cricket protein. The EU requires allergen warning labels on all cricket-containing products for this exact reason. In the United States, no equivalent mandatory warning currently exists. If you have a shellfish allergy and you are consuming protein bars or specialty snacks without scrutinizing every ingredient, this is a real, physical safety concern.
Part Three: The Rise of Artificial and Precision-Fermented Eggs
Artificial eggs take two distinct forms, and it matters which one we are talking about.
The first category is plant-based egg substitutes — products like JUST Egg, made primarily from mung bean protein. These are clearly labeled and sold as egg alternatives. Their ingredient lists are long and industrial, but they are not deceptive: you know what you are buying.
The second category is newer and more disruptive: precision-fermented eggs. The Every Company — a California biotech startup with over $233 million in backing from investors including AB InBev and Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bakery manufacturer — has developed a hen-free liquid egg protein produced by precision fermentation. The process creates proteins molecularly identical to those found in chicken eggs. No hen required. The company markets it as “The Every Egg” and has been placing it in restaurants and foodservice since 2024.
Grupo Bimbo’s involvement is particularly notable: as the world’s biggest bakery company, if they integrate this ingredient into their supply chain, it could quietly enter your morning toast, your packaged sandwich bread, or your grocery-store muffins with no change to external packaging beyond an updated ingredient panel.
Key distinction for consumers: Plant-based egg substitutes use plant proteins to mimic egg’s culinary properties and are clearly marketed as alternatives. Precision-fermented egg proteins use microbial fermentation to produce proteins molecularly identical to chicken egg proteins — no animal involved, but the product is the result of industrial biotech, not agriculture. When used as components in other food products, labeling may list them only as “egg white protein” with no disclosure of production method.
Part Four: The Health Risks — What Decades of Research Now Tell Us
A landmark 2024 review of 45 meta-analyses, covering nearly 10 million study participants, found “convincing” evidence that a diet high in ultra-processed foods increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 50 percent and the risk of anxiety by 48 percent. The same review found “highly suggestive” evidence of increased risk of:
- Death from heart disease: +66%
- Obesity: +55%
- Sleep disorders: +41%
- Type 2 diabetes: +40%
- Early death from any cause: +21%
- Depression: +20%
- Colorectal cancer in men: +29%
A major three-paper series published in The Lancet in late 2025, co-authored by more than 40 prominent health experts, concluded that ultra-processed foods are now a leading contributor to chronic disease globally and that the evidence is “clear and compelling.” NIH-funded researchers found that the highest UPF consumers showed a 17 percent greater cardiovascular disease risk, a 23 percent greater coronary heart disease risk, and a 9 percent greater stroke risk compared to the lowest consumers.
Research published in 2025 also linked high ultra-processed food consumption to accelerated early signs of Parkinson’s disease. A Virginia Tech study found that young adults on a diet deriving 81 percent of calories from ultra-processed foods ate more calories even when they were not hungry — a finding that directly connects UPF design to the obesity epidemic.
The “What’s Missing” Problem
Beyond what ultra-processed foods add, there is also the question of what they remove. Stanford Medicine research dietitian Dalia Perelman has noted that ultra-processed foods tend to be substantially lower in fiber, micronutrients, and phytochemicals — the naturally occurring compounds associated with cancer prevention, immune function, and metabolic health. An ultra-processed diet is not just an exposure problem; it is a deficiency problem at the same time.
Additives Under the Microscope
In April 2025, the FDA and HHS announced a phased ban on all petroleum-based synthetic food dyes — including Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3 — with food manufacturers pledging to phase them all out by the end of 2026. Red Dye No. 3, long known to cause cancer in animal studies, had its FDA authorization revoked in January 2025. Brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, and propylparaben are also under increased scrutiny, with California having already banned them.
Part Five: The Industry’s Defense and Rationale — Arguments Worth Hearing
On feeding a growing world: By 2050, the global population will approach 10 billion people. Insect proteins like cricket flour require a fraction of the land, water, and feed of traditional livestock and produce minimal greenhouse gases. For regions facing food insecurity, alternative proteins are not a luxury debate — they are a survival question.
On food safety and disease prevention: The 2022–2024 avian flu outbreak led to the culling of tens of millions of hens, devastating egg supplies. Precision-fermented and plant-based egg products are not vulnerable to these outbreaks. From a pure food security standpoint, that redundancy has real value.
On cost and access: Ultra-processed foods are inexpensive to produce and purchase. In many American communities, a fresh, minimally processed diet is genuinely harder to access and more expensive to maintain. The Lancet’s 2025 series explicitly flagged this as an equity issue: the low cost of ultra-processed foods may drive health disparities among populations who already face higher rates of chronic disease. Condemning ultra-processed food without addressing food access is an incomplete argument.
The problem is not that food technology exists. The problem is who controls it, who profits from it, who bears the health costs when it goes wrong, and whether consumers are given the information they need to make informed choices.
Part Six: What You Can Do — A Practical Guide to Protecting Yourself
Read the ingredient list, not just the nutrition label. The front of the package is marketing. The ingredient list is where the truth lives. Look specifically for “Acheta powder,” “Acheta protein,” or “insect flour” if those are ingredients you wish to avoid.
Use the EWG Food Scores database. The Environmental Working Group has rated more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients, and processing level. Their free Healthy Living app lets you scan barcodes while shopping.
Prioritize whole-food proteins. Eggs, legumes, whole fish, plain chicken, Greek yogurt without additives, and cheese are all nutritionally dense and minimally processed. Building meals around a recognizable protein reduces your overall UPF load dramatically.
If you have a shellfish allergy, scan protein products specifically. The allergen risk from cricket flour (Acheta powder) is real and medically documented. Until the U.S. requires the same shellfish-allergy warning labels on insect-derived ingredients that the EU does, you must be an active label reader.
Cook with whole ingredients when you can — even occasionally. Shifting even two or three meals a week toward whole ingredients makes a structural difference over time. Progress, not perfection.
Know your farmer’s market and local food producers. Local food systems are more transparent by nature. When you know the person who grew your food, the ingredient panel writes itself.
Stay vocal and civically engaged. The phaseout of petroleum-based food dyes, the growing state-by-state bans on specific additives, and the federal push for a uniform UPF definition all happened because people raised their voices.
The goal is not anxiety, it is awareness. You are not responsible for dismantling the entire industrial food system before dinner. You are responsible for the choices within your reach — and there are more of them than the food industry would like you to believe.
What’s on the Horizon: The Next Five Years in Food
Federal UPF Definition: The FDA and USDA are working toward the first-ever uniform federal definition of ultra-processed food. Once defined, it becomes possible to regulate, tax, restrict from school lunches, and label at the point of sale.
Insect Protein Scaling: The global insect protein market is projected to reach $4.6 billion by 2027. As production scales and costs fall, pressure to incorporate insect ingredients into mainstream food products will intensify. Labeling clarity is the critical battleground.
Precision-Fermented Foods: The Every Company and competitors are targeting the $6 billion global egg-ingredients market. As these products move from foodservice into packaged goods supply chains, consumers will increasingly encounter fermentation-derived proteins in everyday products without realizing it.
Dye-Free Food Reformulation: With all eight major petroleum-based food dyes committed to phaseout by end of 2026, major food manufacturers are reformulating thousands of products. Natural alternatives — butterfly pea flower, gardenia blue, beet extract — will become the new standard.
Ingredient Transparency Technology: The FDA has announced plans to support barcode-scanning apps that disclose what is in every product. Combined with databases like EWG Food Scores, technology may soon make real-time ingredient literacy possible for every grocery shopper.
The Access and Equity Struggle: The hardest question ahead: if ultra-processed foods are restricted or made more expensive, what replaces them for low-income families? Any food reform that does not address food deserts, agricultural subsidies, and cost parity is solving for the worried wealthy, not for the people most harmed by the current system.
Final Thought: A Return to Something Real
Our food has changed. The changes have not always been announced or explained. Some of them carry genuine risks that science is now documenting with increasing precision. And the distrust people feel is not paranoia — it is a reasonable response to decades of an industrial food system that has prioritized profit, shelf life, and marketability over nourishment.
None of this means the answer is to turn away from all food technology, or to dismiss every innovation as a conspiracy. It means asking better questions. Who is making this ingredient? Why? What does the research actually say? What is not on this label? And: is this actually food, or is it an engineered approximation of food?
That last question matters. Because there is something in the way a real tomato tastes, the way a properly raised egg behaves in a pan, the way bread made from four ingredients is different in the body than bread made from forty — that connects eating to living in a way that no precision fermentation process, however clever, has yet replicated.
At FavoriteEateries.com, we believe that food is one of the most profound ways we connect to each other, to place, to culture, and to the land. We will keep celebrating the restaurants, markets, and food makers doing it right — and we will keep asking the hard questions about who is doing it wrong and why.
“You don’t have to eat perfectly to eat better. You just have to start paying attention — to the labels, to the ingredients, to the farmers, and to what your own body is telling you.”
