Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joshua Elves-Powell, Associate Lecturer in Biodiversity Conservation and Ecology, UCL

North Korea is notorious for its illicit trade in weapons and narcotics. But a new investigation that I conducted with colleagues in the UK and Norway reveals a new concern: the illegal trade in wildlife, including species supposedly protected by North Korea’s own laws.

Based on interviews with North Korean refugees (also referred to as “defectors” or “escapees”) – from former hunters to wildlife trade middlemen – our four-year study shows that almost every mammal species in North Korea larger than a hedgehog is opportunistically captured for consumptive use or trade. Even highly protected species are being traded, sometimes across the border to China.

Perhaps most striking: this isn’t only happening in the black market. The North Korean state itself appears to profit from unsustainable and illegal wildlife exploitation.

After the North Korean economy collapsed in the 1990s, the country suffered a severe famine that resulted in between 600,000 and 1 million deaths. No longer able to rely on the state for food, medicine and other basic needs, many citizens took to buying and selling goods – sometimes stolen from state-run factories, or smuggled across the border with China – within a growing informal economy.

This included wild animals and plants, a valuable food resource. Others valued wildlife for its use in traditional Korean medicine, or for producing goods such as winter clothing. Importantly, wildlife could also be sold to generate valuable revenue. For this reason, as well as a domestic market in wild meat and animal body parts, an international trade developed in which smugglers would try to sell North Korean wildlife products across the border into China.

This trade is not officially recognised by either government and North Korea is one of the few countries that is not a party to Cites – the treaty that regulates international trade in endangered species – so there is little official data. Many of the techniques that researchers usually employ, such as market surveys or analyses of seizure or trade data, are simply impossible in the case of North Korea.

We turned instead to the testimony of North Korean refugees. They included former hunters, middlemen, buyers, and even soldiers who had been posted to hunting reserves set aside for North Korea’s ruling family. To protect their safety, all interviews were anonymous. To help verify our data we compared them to reports from China and South Korea, while reported changes in some forest resources could be verified using satellite-based remote sensing.

Their accounts provide an astonishing level of insight into human interactions with – and use of – wild animals and plants in North Korea.

North Korean state involvement in wildlife trade

Perhaps most concerning, however, were reports which suggested the North Korean state itself is directly involved in wildlife trade. Although it was clear from interviews that participants were often not aware of the legal status of wildlife trade in different species, based on our analysis, some of that trade would appear to be illegal.

Participants described state-run wildlife farms producing otters, pheasants, deer and bears, and their body parts, for trade. (Indeed, North Korea is believed to have first started farming bears for their bile, before the practice spread to China and South Korea.) The state also collected animal skins via a quota-based system, with residents submitting skins to a government agency, while state-sanctioned hunters and local communities sometimes gifted wildlife products to the state or its leaders as a form of tribute.

One species our interviewees identified was the long-tailed goral. Long hunted for its skin, this species is now highly protected under Cites. Our data suggested that gorals were destined for sale to buyers in China. As a party to the convention, this trade would violate China’s commitments under Cites.

Impacts beyond North Korea’s borders

The Korean peninsula is a globally important site for numerous mammal species. Its northern regions are connected by land to areas in China where these species are now recovering. However, unsustainable hunting and deforestation threaten their potential recovery in North Korea.

This has wider consequences. For instance, it has been hoped that the Amur leopard, one of the world’s rarest big cats, may one day naturally recolonise South Korea. But this is currently highly unlikely – these animals will face severe threats simply crossing North Korea.

Meanwhile, China’s conservation goals – such as restoring the Amur tiger in its northeastern provinces – may be undermined if threatened species which cross its border with North Korea are killed for trade. Furthermore, illegal cross-border trade in wildlife from North Korea would constitute a breach of China’s Cites commitments – a serious issue, with potentially severe ramifications for legal trade in animals and plants. To address this risk, Beijing must do more to tackle domestic demand for illegal wildlife.

North Korean wildlife trade is currently a blind spot for global conservation. While our findings help shed light on the issue of illegal and unsustainable trade, tackling this threat to North Korea’s natural resources will ultimately depend on the decisions taken by Pyongyang. Compliance with domestic protected species legislation should be an immediate priority.

Joshua Elves-Powell received funding from the London NERC DTP and his work is supported by Research England.

– ref. North Korea’s hidden wildlife trade: new research reveals state involvement – https://theconversation.com/north-koreas-hidden-wildlife-trade-new-research-reveals-state-involvement-264237

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Dix, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Film, Loughborough University

In his essay Decline of the English Murder, the writer George Orwell evokes the pleasure to be had in reading about killing. After a good meal (including pudding), you are in the mood to read: “the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm.” And what is it, in “these blissful circumstances”, that you want to read about? “Naturally,” says Orwell, “a murder”.

Substitute Orwell’s fires for contemporary radiators, and he might be describing the millions of readers in our own moment who have turned contentedly to stories of killing in the Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osman. Comprising 2020’s title novel and three follow-ups (a fourth, The Impossible Fortune, is due in late September), these murder mysteries set in an idyllic retirement village in Kent have proved phenomenally successful.

Why have so many people, including some not previously invested in crime fiction, been drawn to these novels? It is not as if the series has been scrubbed free of potentially off-putting material. The Thursday Murder Club itself, for example, features not only two new killings for the quartet of older investigators to unravel, but memories of brutal gangland executions and a tragic suicide.

Such content, however, rarely ruffles The Thursday Murder Club’s smooth storytelling. The relaxed narrative voice, replicating Osman’s register as a genial quiz show host on TV, makes difficult things manageable. So, too, do the novel’s copious references to cakes: whenever a murder threatens to become too much, there is always a lemon drizzle or Viennese whirl to soothe.

Now The Thursday Murder Club has been adapted for the screen, enjoying a short cinema release before its streaming on Netflix. This adaptation has Hollywood heft behind it: produced by Amblin Entertainment (Steven Spielberg’s company), directed by Chris Columbus (veteran of Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and two instalments of the Harry Potter franchise), and with music by Thomas Newman (whose other composing credits include the Bond films Skyfall and Spectre).

If anything, Osman’s already sugared original has been further sweetened in its transit to the screen. The novel’s gangland subplot, for example, is shaved down to a few hints; and a doomed love affair that in the book precipitates suicide has been erased entirely. While some condensing is inevitable in transposing a 400-page novel to a two-hour film, the excisions made by Columbus and the co-screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote are in the interests not only of economy, but of sanitisation for still further mass-market appeal.

One of the delights offered by Osman’s original is its knowing references to other crime fiction. In a suggestive scene, the investigators talk about their own favourites in the genre. Patricia Highsmith says one; Ian Rankin says another; Mark Billingham says a third. Here they evoke kinds of crime fiction entirely distinct from the novel in which they are situated as characters.

Columbus’s film doesn’t carry across such mischievous allusiveness. Given its medium, however, it can enlist visual pleasures unachievable by the print-bound Osman.

In the 1980s, film theorist Tom Gunning coined the term “cinema of attractions”. This he offered as a way of characterising films that suspend or downplay the storytelling itself and seek instead to engage audiences by other means, such as spectacle that is unusual, beautiful or amusing.

Gunning had especially in mind work produced in cinema’s inaugural decade from 1895 onwards, when a film’s running time was limited, allowing no scope for narrative development. But his idea is fruitful in thinking about filmmaking of later periods, too. If it offers us a framework for considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe – all those standalone CGI effects like the look of the villain Thanos or the rendering of otherworldly environments – it is also apt in reviewing the new Thursday Murder Club.

The film engages in some narrative business, of course, offering a set of murders for investigation and solution. Who killed two of the figures behind upsetting plans to bulldoze the retirement village in favour of an event centre? Whose body is the unexpected extra one found in a tomb in the graveyard adjoining the complex?

Arguably, however, the storytelling here is relatively uninvolving and peripheral to the film’s chief effects. Many viewers are likely to be absorbed instead by the abundant display of British and Irish acting royalty: in particular, Helen Mirren as resourceful former secret agent Elizabeth (“I have a wide portfolio of skills”), Pierce Brosnan as retired union leader Ron who is itching for new campaigns, and Ben Kingsley as suave former psychologist Ibrahim.

And then, as in Osman’s novel, there are the cakes.

Reviewing recipe books, the writer Angela Carter referred to the “awesome voluptuousness” taken on by food whenever it is photographed in that genre. Carter’s description fits perfectly the cakes we see in Columbus’s film. Indeed, the Victoria sponge and the coffee and walnut cake made by the fourth investigator Joyce (Celia Imrie) have a prodigious depth, a lavish creaminess, that threaten to act even these British stars off the screen.

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Andrew Dix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Thursday Murder Club: everything is eclipsed by the cakes in this sanitised Netflix adaptation – https://theconversation.com/the-thursday-murder-club-everything-is-eclipsed-by-the-cakes-in-this-sanitised-netflix-adaptation-264228

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vittorio Tantucci, Senior lecturer in Linguistics and Chinese Linguistics, Lancaster University

When you chat with ChatGPT, it often feels like you’re talking to someone polite, engaged and responsive. It nods in all the right places, mirrors your wording and seems eager to keep the exchange flowing.

But is this really what human conversation sounds like? Our new study shows that while ChatGPT plausibly imitates dialogue, it does so in a way that is stereotypical rather than unique.

Every conversation has quirks. When two family members talk on the phone, they don’t just exchange information — they reuse each other’s words, rework them creatively, interrupt, disagree, joke, banter or wander off-topic.

They do so because human talk is naturally fragmented, but also to enact their own identities in interaction. These moments of “conversational uniqueness” are what make real dialogue unpredictable and deeply human.

We wanted to contrast human conversation with AI ones. So we compared 240 phone conversations between Chinese family members with dialogues simulated by ChatGPT under the same contextual conditions, using a statistical model to measure patterns across hundreds of turns.

To capture human uniqueness in our study, we mainly focused on three levels of human interaction. One was “dialogic resonance”. That’s to do with re-using each other’s expressions. For example, when speaker A says “You never call me”, speaker B may respond “You are the one who never calls”.

Another factor we included was “recombinant creativity”. This involves inventing new twists on what’s just been said by an interlocutor. For example, speaker A may ask “All good?”, to which speaker B responds “All smashing”. Here the structure is kept constant but the adjective is creatively substituted in a way that is unique to the exchange.

A final feature we included was “relevance acknowledgement”: showing interest and recognition of the other’s point, such as “It’s interesting what you said, in fact …” or “That’s a good point …”.

What we found

ChatGPT did remarkably well – even too well – at showing engagement. It often echoed and acknowledged the other speaker even more than humans do. But it fell short in two decisive ways.

First, the lexical diversity was much lower for ChatGPT than for human speakers. Where people varied their words and expressions, AI recycled the same ones.

Most importantly, we spotted a lot of stereotypical speech in the AI-generated conversations. When it simulated giving advice or making requests, ChatGPT defaulted to predictable parental-style recommendations such as “Take care of your health” and “Don’t worry too much”.

This was unlike real human parents who mixed in clarifications, refusals, jokes, sarcasm and even impolite expressions at times. In our data, a far more human way of showing concern for a daughter’s health at college was often through making implications rather than direct instructions — for example, a mother asking, “Why in the world are you juggling two jobs?” with the implied meaning that she will burn out if she keeps being this busy.

In short, ChatGPT statistically flattened human dialogues in the context of our enquiry, replacing them with a polished, plausible but ultimately rather dry template.

Why this matters

At first glance, ChatGPT’s consistency feels like a strength. It makes the system reliable and predictable. Yet these very qualities also make it less human. Real people avoid sounding repetitive. They resist clichés. They build conversations that are recognisably theirs.

This is what defines unique identities in interaction — how we want to be perceived by others. There are words, expressions and intonations you would never use, not necessarily because they are impolite, but because they do not represent who you are or how you want to sound to others.

Being accused of being “boring” is definitely something most people try to avoid; it’s effectively what brings about American playboy Dickie Greenleaf’s death in the famous Patricia Highsmith novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, when he says it of his friend, Tom Ripley. The conversational choices we make are not simply appropriate ways to talk, but strategies for locating ourselves in society and constructing our singular identity with every conversation.

This gap matters in all sorts of ways. If AI cannot capture the uniqueness of human interaction, it risks reinforcing stereotypes of how people ought to speak, rather than reflecting how they actually do. More troubling still, it may promote a new procedural ideology of conversation — one where talk is reduced to sounding engaged yet remains uncreative; a functional but impoverished tool of cooperation.

Our findings suggest that AI is remarkably good at modelling the normative patterns of dialogue — the things people say often and conventionally. But it struggles with the idiosyncratic and unexpected, which are essential for creativity, humour and authentic human conversation.

The danger is not only that AI sounds nothing but plausible. It is that humans, over time, may begin to imitate its style in a way that AI’s stereotyped behaviour may start to reshape conversational norms.

In the long run, we may find ourselves “learning” from AI how to converse — gradually erasing creativity and uniqueness from our own speech. Conversation, at its core, is not just about efficiency. It is about co-creating meaning and social identities through innovation and extravagance, even more than we realise.

What might be at stake, then, assuming AI can’t overcome this problem, is not simply whether it can converse like humans — but whether humans will continue to converse like themselves.

Vittorio Tantucci receives funding from Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. ChatGPT only talks in clichés – here’s why that’s a threat to human creativity – https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-only-talks-in-cliches-heres-why-thats-a-threat-to-human-creativity-263592

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Guilherme Klein Martins, Lecturer in Economics, University of Leeds

Many people in the UK feel they are working harder than ever. A higher cost of living and more precarious work arrangements push many households to take on longer hours and multiple jobs. Data back this feeling: from 2010 to 2024, the UK had the largest increase in hours worked per person among OECD countries.

Yet headlines keep telling us that UK productivity is stagnating. So if everyone is working more, why isn’t the economy growing faster? Unfortunately, there’s a lot more in play than just how many hours we put in each week.

Labour productivity, measured as the total GDP produced per hour worked, is lower for the UK than for many of its peers, such as France, Germany and the USA. Yet from 2000 to 2010, UK labour productivity increased by 11%, more than France and Germany, where gains were 10.6% and 10.2% respectively.

Since then, though, the UK has faced a series of circumstances that have harmed the economy. From 2010 to 2024, fortunes shifted. While productivity in the euro area increased by about 10% and almost 15% in the US, the increase in the UK was only 6.2%.

So what happened to the UK during this time to damage its productivity, growth and earnings? Four forces stand out.

1. A prolonged dose of austerity

Beginning in 2010, the UK embarked on cuts to departmental spending and public investment at the same time as raising taxes. Austerity suppresses demand in the short run. More importantly, though, it reduces public investment and spending on things like infrastructure, skills, research and development, and public services that private firms need to expand and modernise.

The result is a slower diffusion of technology that would enhance productivity. My research has uncovered persistent “scarring” effects on output, employment and investment more than a decade after austerity.

2. Political uncertainty – Brexit and beyond

Uncertainty rose markedly from the early 2010s and spiked around the Brexit referendum and negotiations, as reflected in news-based uncertainty indices and business surveys. When uncertainty is high, firms delay or cancel investment. That is especially damaging for long-term projects (building factories, buying equipment, investing in training) and for intangible investment (spending on things like software and employee training, for example) that underpins productivity growth.

Economic uncertainty in Europe and the UK:

This leads to chronic under-investment. The UK has had the lowest level of investment among G7 countries for almost every year since 1990. And research has shown this to be the single most important element in the stagnation of UK productivity.

3. Weak industrial strategy

Across the OECD there has been a revival of modern industrial policy – multi-year programmes targeting green technologies, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and their supply chains.

The UK published an industrial strategy earlier this year, but the mix has been comparatively light on direct public investment and specific sectors. Comparing industrial policy strategies is tricky, but evidence suggests that the UK’s approach has been smaller in scale, less predictable and less focused than that of its peers.

4. An economy tilted towards finance

A final aspect that helps explain general productivity in the UK is its economic structure – in particular, its concentration in finance. Around 8.7% of the UK’s GDP is in the financial and insurance activities, much more than that of the EU (4.6%) and more than double that of countries like Germany and France.

On the other hand, the share of manufacturing in the UK economy is 8.9%, compared to 15.7% in the EU, 10.7% in France, and 19.9% in Germany. This matters because sectors differ systematically in productivity levels and growth rates. Over the past three decades, sectors like machinery and equipment, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and information and communications have shown much stronger productivity growth than finance.

Productivity growth in the UK:

De-industrialisation is not unique to the UK, and some of it reflects automation and reorganisation of global supply chains. But advanced economies that retained and upgraded segments of manufacturing – particularly those closest to the technology frontier – have tended to enjoy stronger productivity growth and more innovation in their service sectors.

Taken together, these forces interact and compound. Austerity removed public investment and corresponding benefits just when firms needed them, while uncertainty raised barriers and encouraged firms to wait rather than invest.

In that environment, the absence of coordinated industrial policy meant there were no clear signals or platforms for scaling new technologies. And the UK’s finance-heavy structure channelled talent and savings into financial assets rather than into projects that could expand capacity and accelerate innovation. Ultimately, this results in a chronic shortfall of productive investment.

A route out is straightforward, if politically demanding. Commit to a multi-year public investment programme that also attracts interest from the private sector. And adopt a stronger and more focused industrial strategy around the green, tech and science sectors (matched with planning and skills reform).

If these levers are pulled together – and sustained – UK productivity, and with it real wages, need not remain stuck.

Guilherme Klein Martins is affiliated with The Research Center on Macroeconomics of Inequalities (Made/USP)

– ref. Four reasons why the UK lags behind its rivals on productivity – https://theconversation.com/four-reasons-why-the-uk-lags-behind-its-rivals-on-productivity-264149

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gavin Stewart, British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London

Autism is often thought of as a childhood condition, but this is far from true. Autism is a lifelong condition – and most autistic people are adults. Yet less than 1% of autism research has focused on older autistic people.

This means we know very little about the needs of autistic people are they grow older – and whether they face unique health challenges as they age.

So to better understand what the current evidence tells us about autism in midlife and old age, a colleague and I recently conducted a narrative review of more than 70 published papers from across the globe.

Our findings revealed that autistic people are more likely to face poorer health outcomes in midlife and old age compared to their non-autistic peers.

Our review found that the core characteristics of autism (such as differences in communication, repetitive behaviours and dedicated interests) remain relatively stable into later adulthood – although there’s some variability in individual experiences. For example, some autistic people find that their senses become more sensitive as they age, while others don’t find this to be the case.

For those diagnosed with autism later in life, receiving this diagnosis often proved life-changing – giving them greater self-understanding and acceptance of themselves.

More health-related difficulties

Health problems are a major concern for autistic people as they get older.

We found that autistic people are more likely to experience most physical and mental health conditions than their non-autistic peers. This included greater risk of being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, anxiety and depression and other age-related conditions such as osteoporosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Our review also revealed that autistic adults may be more likely to experience more complex health problems. For instance, one study showed autistic people were more likely to be diagnosed with multiple mental health conditions.

For those in midlife, menopause is a challenging transition. Many autistic people reported experiencing more severe physical and psychological menopause symptoms compared to non-autistic people.

We also uncovered evidence that found life expectancy may be lower in autistic adults compared to non-autistic people. This is often linked to conditions such as epilepsy and high rates of suicide.

Many autistic people also encountered barriers in accessing physical and mental healthcare and support – often because services lacked autism awareness. This further contributed to poorer health outcomes.

A mixed picture for cognitive health

The evidence was rather mixed when it came to cognitive abilities in midlife and old age.

Some autistic adults maintain strong cognitive skills in later life. But others struggle with memory and executive function (thinking and planning), which are important cognitive skills in day-to-day living.

While many autistic people will cognitively age in a similar way to non-autistic people, there’s some evidence that autistic adults may face a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia. However, more large-scale research is needed to better understand this.

The importance of social support

Studies consistently found that autistic adults report lower quality of life compared to non-autistic peers. Mental health difficulties play a significant role in lower quality of life.

A key factor here appears to be social support. Our review found that autistic adults who had strong social networks reported higher quality of life – while loneliness and isolation were linked to poorer wellbeing. This could be because many autistic adults report having fewer social connections and experiencing greater isolation – particularly men.

We also found that factors such as receiving their autism diagnosis, learning to manage their capacity for social interactions and being in social situations and maintaining autonomy play important roles in positively shaping quality of life as autistic people get older.

Important considerations

When thinking about the findings of this review, it’s important to recognise limitations in the current research.

Only a small fraction of autism research has actually investigated ageing and autism. And what published literature has been done of this topic has focused on those diagnosed in adulthood. This overlooks a lot of autistic people. People who are diagnosed with autism in childhood and those with intellectual disabilities or higher support needs, are often excluded from research.

Under-diagnosis of autism is another major issue. Although autism affects around 1% of the global population, health records in the UK show very low diagnosis rates among middle-aged and older adults.

Estimates also suggest that around 89% of autistic people aged 40–59, and 97% of those aged 60 or over, may be undiagnosed. This is, in part, due to autism historically being viewed as a condition that only affected children. Additionally, gender biases in autism diagnoses were common – resulting in women and girls being historically overlooked.

In the future, we need more studies that track autistic people and their experiences throughout their life – including as they get older. We also need to make sure research is representative of autistic people more broadly – for example, by including people with higher support needs and those diagnosed earlier in life.

Finally, autistic adults themselves must be involved in steering the direction of research and the creation of resources and policies. With their input, we can support healthier, more fulfilling and socially connected lives, so they are able to age well with dignity and autonomy.

While ageing in autistic people has been historically overlooked, we’re making a lot of progress in addressing this major gap in research. While the current evidence included in our review has identified a lot of challenges that middle-aged and older autistic people might face, it has also highlighted opportunities for where autistic people can be better supported as they get older – such as improving access to healthcare and helping people remain socially engaged.

With a better understanding of autism in midlife and later life, we can begin to reduce the health risks that autistic adults face as they age and improve wellbeing.

Gavin Stewart receives funding from the British Academy.

– ref. What we do (and don’t know) about autism and ageing – new research – https://theconversation.com/what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-autism-and-ageing-new-research-264140

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aisling Pigott, Lecturer, Dietetics, Cardiff Metropolitan University

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you’ve probably been told that cooking your own meals is the way to go. This has been backed up by a recent study, which found that people who ate home-cooked, minimally processed foods lost twice the weight to those who ate mainly ultra-processed, ready-made foods.

The recent study, which was published in Nature Medicine, involved 50 adults who were randomly assigned to eat either a diet high in ultra-processed foods or one with mostly minimally-processed foods. Both diets were designed to meet the UK’s national dietary guidelines.

Both groups lost weight, which makes sense as they consumed fewer calories than they usually did. However, the group that consumed mostly minimally processed foods ultimately consumed fewer calories overall – thereby losing more weight. They also saw slightly greater improvements to other measures of their health, such as having lower fat mass, reduced triglyceride levels (linked to heart health) and fewer cravings for unhealthy foods at the end of the study.

The ultra-processed foods group still lost weight and saw some improvements in blood lipids (fat) and blood glucose (sugar), but these changes were generally smaller than those seen in the minimally processed foods group.

As a dietitian, this is both an interesting and important piece of research – even though the results are not entirely surprising. In fact, a surprising result is that the consumption of ultra-processed food still resulted in weight loss.

The minimally processed diet group consumed fewer calories overall, which would explain why this group lost more weight. But the fact that this group saw greater improvements in other areas of their health highlights how health encompasses far more than calories or a number on the scales.

Why processing matters

Despite the bad press, food processing plays an essential role in food safety and preservation.

But how much processing a food has undergone seems to be the factor associated with worse health outcomes. These foods tend to have less fibre, more added fats, sugars and salt. This is because they’re designed to be tasty and long-lasting.

The most common definition of an ultra-processed foods are foods which are industrially produced and which contain extracts of original foods alongside additives and industrial ingredients. Think crisps or frozen ready meals.

The food system in much of the world has become increasingly reliant on ultra-processed foods, with these foods contributing to about half of food intake in the UK, Europe and the US. But there’s clear evidence that high intake of ultra-processed foods is linked with poorer health outcomes, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

The more calorie-rich, less nutritious foods we consume, the more our health will suffer – as this recent study has confirmed. But how can you work out which foods are classified as “ultra-processed” and which are only “minimally processed”? In short, this depends on how much processing a food product has undergone to be ready for consumption.

Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated products made mostly from ingredients extracted from foods (such as oils, starches and proteins) and additives.

Examples include: sugary breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurts with sweeteners and thickeners, soft drinks, instant noodles, packaged biscuits and cakes, mass-produced bread with emulsifiers and reconstituted meat products – such as chicken nuggets.

Minimally processed foods are whole foods that are altered only to make them safer or easier to prepare. Importantly, this processing doesn’t change their nutritional value.

Examples include: fresh, frozen or bagged vegetables and fruit, plain yoghurt or milk, whole grains (such as oats or brown rice), eggs, fresh or frozen fish, and tinned beans or tomatoes without added sugar or salt.

Including minimally processed foods

It can sometimes feel overwhelming to work out whether a food is ultra-processed or minimally processed.

Some advice that is often suggested for working out whether a food is ultra-processed include checking to see if a product contains more than five to ten ingredients and considering if it contains ingredients you wouldn’t use at home.

In addition to the number of ingredients, it’s also the type of ingredients that matter. Ultra-processed foods often contain added sugars, refined starches, emulsifiers, stabilisers and flavourings that serve cosmetic purposes (such as improving colour, texture or taste), rather than preserving the food’s freshness or safety.

Minimally processed foods will not contain these types of ingredients, nor will they have as many ingredients on their label.

It’s also important to be aware of smoked meats. While this is a common preservation method, most commercially available smoked meats – such as bacon, ham or sausages – are considered ultra-processed because of the curing agents and other additives they contain. While plain smoked fish (such as smoked salmon) is still classed as a processed food, it uses fewer curing agents and additives than other smoked meat products.

A diet rich in minimally processed foods usually means more fibre, more nutrients and fewer calories – all of which can support weight and long-term health, as this recent study showed. So if you’re keen to include more minimally processed foods in your diet, here are a few tips to help you get more onto your plate:

• build meals around vegetables, whole grains and pulses
• use tinned or frozen products for convenience and to save time while cooking
• choose plain dairy products without sugar or fruit purees, then add your own fruits, nuts and seeds for flavour
• healthy meals don’t have to be complicated. Aim to include a protein source, a wholegrain carbohydrate and plenty of veggies or fruits at each meal
• batch cook meals when you have time and freeze them if possible.

As a dietitian, it’s important to point out that there’s a distinction between the potential harms of excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods and the essential role processing can play in ensuring food safety, preservation and accessibility.

It’s also important not to panic about enjoying the occasional biscuit or ready meal, and we should avoid demonising convenience foods – especially for those who face barriers such as limited mobility or lack of cooking facilities. Because remember, the group that ate a diet high in ultra-processed foods but met dietary guidelines still lost weight and saw health benefits in the study.

Eating well doesn’t mean that you need to completely eliminate ultra-processed foods. But shifting the balance towards eating more minimally processed foods, with more home-cooked meals where possible, is a step in the right direction.

Aisling Pigott receives funding from Research Capacity Building Collaborative (RCBC) / Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW)

– ref. Ultra-processed foods v minimally processed foods: how can you tell the difference? – https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-v-minimally-processed-foods-how-can-you-tell-the-difference-262669