More Than Half Our Calories Come From Ultra-Processed Food. Now What?

A new CDC report just confirmed what most of us already feel in our bodies: the average American now gets about 55% of their calories from ultra-processed foods. For kids and teens, it’s closer to 62%.

At the same time, the new 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines quietly dodged the phrase “ultra-processed foods” altogether and went with softer language like “highly processed,” which has already started a food-fight among experts.

So, most of what we eat comes from a factory line, and the people writing the rules can’t even agree on what to call it.

Here’s what matters more than the label fight:

Ultra-processed foods (the chips, frozen meals, candy, sugary drinks, packaged snacks, etc.) are:

• Easy to overeat

• Light on nutrients, heavy on calories

• Linked to higher risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes – and even early death. One big analysis found that every 10% increase in calories from ultra-processed foods was tied to about a 3% higher risk of dying early. 

  
  

That doesn’t mean you need to exile everything in a wrapper. I’m not interested in turning you into a food monk. But I am interested in ratios.

If 55% of your calories are coming from this stuff, you don’t need a cleanse. You need a re-balance.

Think less in terms of:

• “I’m never eating X again.”

And more:

• “What would it look like if a little less of my day came from a bag, a box, and a drive-thru window?”
  

A few examples I use with clients:

• Swap one ultra-processed snack for a piece of fruit and a protein source you like.

• Turn one frozen dinner into “assembled food” – rotisserie chicken, microwaved frozen veg, a bag of rice.

• Keep the fun food, just shrink the portion and pair it with something that actually had a previous life as a plant or an animal.

You don’t have to eat 0% ultra-processed to be healthy.

But if you’re sitting near that 55–60% mark, there’s a lot of room to move the needle without your life falling apart.

This week, don’t “fix your diet."

Just make one daily swap away from ultra-processed and toward real food you actually enjoy.

That’s how this changes – not with a headline, but with Tuesday’s lunch.