Chips, packaged biscuits, carbonated drinks, etc. They are products that are now part of the daily life of many families, but that science has long been invited to look with suspicion. Are the so-called ultra-processed foods (UPF), ended up in the center of an increasingly heated debate with a basic question: how much do they really affect our health and what is the responsibility of the multinationals that produce them?
In the United States, this debate arrived in court with a case that promised to be historical. To intend it was a boy from Philadelphia, Bryce Martinez, who accused the giants of the food sector of deliberately made their products capable of generating addiction. His battle, however, ended with a defeat that marks an important success for the lobby of ultra-processed food.
The cause
The boy had sued 11 giants-including Kraft Heinz, Mondelēz, Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Nestlé, General Mills, Kellanova, Wk Kellogg, Mars, Post Holdings and Conagra-accusing them of deliberately formulating their ultra-processed foods (upf) to create addiction to consumers, in particular in children and in the social classes and in the social classes vulnerable.
According to Martinez, precisely the continuous and massive consumption of these products would have contributed to making them develop type 2 diabetes and liver steatosis already at the age of 16.
The accusation was based on an evident parallelism: the multinationals of food would have applied strategies similar to those once adopted by the tobacco industry, with products designed to increase consumption, aggressive marketing and underestimation of health risks as main tools.
Not surprisingly, in the eighties, tobacco giants such as Philip Morris and Rj Reynolds had acquired and controlled groups such as Kraft, Nabisco and General Foods. That inheritance – says the cause – would have profoundly influenced the company culture of food multinationals.
Among the products mentioned in court showed some of the most iconic brands of the global market: the Oreo biscuits and the Cracker Ritz of Mondelēz, the Doritos of Pepsico, the Coca-Cola, the Kat of Nestlé, the Heinz Ketchup sauce of Kraft Heinz and many others, coming to overcome the hundred labels.
The verdict: a success for multinationals
The district judge of Mia Perez, of the Philadelphia Court, established that the case could not go on because it was too generic: while citing over one hundred brands of ultra-processed foods, it did not show any direct link between the consumption of specific products and the diseases developed by Bryce Martinez. In other words, the proof of the cause-effect relationship was missing.
A ruling that made a sigh of relief to the companies involved. Through the Consumer Brands Association, the multinationals have defined the “unfounded” legal action, reiterating that classifying the foods as harmful only because “processed” risks confusing consumers and that, to date, there is not even a shared and official definition of “ultra-procepsed food”.
The reaction of the opposite front is different. Martinez’s lawyers have announced that they want to continue the battle, claiming that science is on their side.
The tests that demonstrate the ability to induce dependence of these products are convincing, and we remain confident in the validity of our arguments – said Mike Morgan, Bryce Martine’s lawyer.
An uncomfortable previous
The cause of Martinez was considered a test bench for possible future legal actions on UPFs. His rejection therefore represents a political and judicial victory of the lobby of ultra-processed food, which feared an unfavorable sentence capable of opening the way to dozens of new appeals.
For now, the lobby of ultra-processed food have marked a point in their favor, rejecting an accusation that could seriously cross their image and their profits. But the growing attention of scientists, media and public opinion suggests that the discussion is far from closed.
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Sources: Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County / Reuters
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