Cheetos and Doritos have been “reinvented”, according to parent company PepsiCo. In the United States, versions of the ultra-processed snacks called Simply NKD will soon be available without artificial colours.

Though all two dozen other ingredients remain in the snacks, artificial colours have become a hot-button topic in the US, thanks to RFK jnr’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) crew.

Ultra-processed foods are easy to eat and hard to avoid.Credit: Janie Barrett

The move, one must suppose, along with the white “purity” packaging, allows consumers to enjoy their artificial-colour-free chips guilt-free.

Of course, it’s just razzle-dazzle tokenism. Today it’s artificial colours, yesterday it was sugar, and the day before that it was fat.

Between 2000 and 2019, new ultra-processed food (UPF) products, with various functional, fortification and reformulation claims, grew from 2000 to about 40,000.

Along with the ultra-processing come ultra-profits.

“It is more profitable to produce a Dorito corn chip than a can of corn or the corn itself,” says Dr Phillip Baker, from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.

The ultra-processed food corporations continue to rake it in (global UPF market sales grew to US$1.9 trillion or $2.94 trillion in 2022), while paying lip service to consumer concerns about their foods.

But it’s our fault, right? We keep buying these edible substances despite health nags telling us they are making us overweight and sick.

Half of our energy intake in Australia comes from UPFs, mostly in the form of ready meals, packaged bread,........

© Brisbane Times