Tomas J. Philipson is the Daniel Levin professor of public policy studies emeritus at the University of Chicago and a former acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Just before the midterm elections, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to revive his push to release the federal government’s first definition of “ultra-processed” food (UPF). That’s bad news for anyone who cares about the cost of healthy eating.
The secretary’s effort had stalled after the departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture sent the White House Office of Management and Budget their proposed definition in August. But according to recent reports, talks are picking up again.
Kennedy calls the definition a foundation for nutrition policy, but he has been candid about its real purpose: “There is no definition,” he told produce growers in June, “and as a result of it, you can’t regulate it.”
That regulatory focus is not surprising, especially since the two departments involved are the government’s most regulatory. A federal UPF definition is not a research dictionary entry. It triggers regulation and all that follows: a mandatory label, lawsuits arguing that people are not responsible for their own weight, poorly targeted restrictions in federal food programs and, ultimately, higher grocery bills.
Kennedy is right to address our unhealthy eating, but, as always, one should judge policies by their consequences, not their intentions.
The core problem: Processing bears no direct relationship to nutrition. In 2023, USDA’s own scientists built a menu drawing 91 percent of its calories from “ultra-processed” foods that still scored 86 out of 100 on the government’s Healthy Eating Index. It included whole-wheat bread, canned beans, instant oatmeal and ultra-filtered milk. A definition lumping those foods together with soda and candy tells consumers how a food was made, not whether it is unhealthy.
Start with the mandatory label the definition might produce. HHS has discussed a red-yellow-green light on the front of food packages. The Food and Drug Administration’s far more modest 2025 proposal, a small box listing saturated fat, sodium and added sugar, carried a cost estimate of $333 million a year over a decade for relabeling and reformulation, possibly up to $530 million. A traffic light keyed to processing would cost more. Manufacturers would have to classify every product by ingredients and methods that no existing label tracks. A red light would also force them to reformulate their products, passing costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
A new University of Chicago study found that a UPF labeling mandate would apply to 72 percent of packaged products and 51 percent of grocery spending. We estimated added annual costs of $14.2 billion on suppliers and consumers, 142 times the $100 million threshold that OMB uses to define economically significant actions. The fixed compliance costs will fall hardest on small producers, thinning competition against the giants. Unfortunately, the costs would mean higher prices on foods, whether they meet the UPF definition or not.
Then come the plaintiffs’ lawyers, inflating prices further. San Francisco has already sued large food makers, seeking penalties to offset local health care costs. That suit had to construct its own UPF definition. A federal definition hands every state attorney general and plaintiffs’ firm a ready-made one, with Washington’s imprimatur. The World Health Organization is also developing an ill-advised global UPF guideline.
The proposed definition went to the White House as a white paper, not a rule. That means it does not include a formal cost-benefit analysis and, not being a regulation, may not preempt state law. At least seven states have already passed statutes on additives, school food or warning labels. Texas’s warning-label law, now tied up in federal court, carries penalties of up to $50,000 a day per product.
Food manufacturers face a double whammy: a federal standard authoritative enough to use against them in court but not binding enough to shield them from 50 state definitions. The result is future price hikes on all foods to cover past legal damages.
The third casualty is federal food programs. Kennedy is right to be concerned about their nutrition. But unfortunately, many healthy foods those programs promote are ones a UPF test rules out. Federal agencies themselves have warned that a broad definition could sweep in whole-grain products and yogurt. Add the breakfast cereals, plant-based milks and infant formula the Women, Infants and Children program prescribes, and the canned vegetables and beans that stretch a food-stamp budget. A poorly financed school cannot cook everything from scratch. Tie eligibility to the UPF definition, and programs either drop nutritious, affordable foods or pay more for substitutes, serving fewer poor families with the same appropriation.
Processing is what keeps good nutrition affordable. Freezing, canning, fortifying and preserving are what allow budget-conscious families to buy vegetables in January that keep for months, derive folate and iron from boxed goods, and get bread that won’t go stale by Thursday. Makers reformulating to escape the definition will most likely use costlier ingredients and accept shorter shelf lives, meaning more spoilage and waste. Taxing foods through regulation inflates prices and cuts purchases, and the poor, who spend the largest share of income on food, bear the heaviest burden.
HHS is correct to address the nation’s obesity problem, but a UPF regulation is not the proper remedy. I have argued previously that obesity seems driven chiefly by forces other than a lack of consumer information. Indeed, nutrition information has grown alongside the epidemic. People fully understand how to lose weight but many choose not to.
Well-intended regulations to protect consumers often end up harming them. “Ultra-processed” describes a production method. Penalizing it by writing it into federal policy raises the cost of much healthy eating for low-income families, while lawmakers claim a dubious victory for public health.
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