Word.ws English Dictionary

ultra-processed food

ultra-processed food noun: any processed food characterized by relatively involved methods of industrial production, often with artificial additives such as colorings and preservatives. (Often vaguely defined but usually agreed to be food that is made in a factory and that home cooks would not know how to make and would not even be equipped to make.).

Noun

ultra-processed food (countable and uncountable, plural ultra-processed foods)

  1. Any processed food characterized by relatively involved methods of industrial production, often with artificial additives such as colorings and preservatives. (Often vaguely defined but usually agreed to be food that is made in a factory and that home cooks would not know how to make and would not even be equipped to make.)
    • But not all ultra-processed foods are equally concerning. Teasing out what UPFs fall under the moniker of “junk food,” is more nuanced. ... The term “ultra-processed foods” originated from the Nova food classification system, which defines food in four categories, ranging from least to most...2025 November 10, Morgan Coulson, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, archived from the original on 04 Dec 2025
    Synonyms:
    UPF

Synonyms of ultra-processed food

Antonyms

Forms of ultra-processed food

pluralultra-processed foods
alternative formultraprocessed food

Origin of ultra-processed food

From ultra-processed + food

Questions about ultra-processed food

What does ultra-processed food mean?
Ultra-processed food means any processed food characterized by relatively involved methods of industrial production, often with artificial additives such as colorings and preservatives. (Often vaguely defined but usually agreed to be food that is made in a factory and that home cooks would not know how to make and would not even be equipped to make.).
What part of speech is ultra-processed food?
Ultra-processed food is a noun.
What is the plural of ultra-processed food?
The plural of ultra-processed food is ultra-processed foods.

Words near ultra-processed food in the dictionary

  1. ultra-nervous
  2. ultra-organizational
  3. ultra-Orthodox
  4. ultra-pacifism
  5. ultra-processed
  6. ultra-processed food
  7. ultra-processed foods
  8. ultra-progressive
  9. ultra-prominent
  10. ultra-pure
  11. ultra-refined

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ultra-processed food (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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