New Non-UPF Verified seal targets ultra-processed foods with bold standards.

The Non-GMO Project is taking aim at hyper-engineered foods through a new certification that emphasizes transparency and clarity for consumers. Find out why and how—and what this might mean for natural brands.

Most of my adolescence took place across the 1970s and into the early 1980s, back when salty snacks didn't venture far from popcorn, pretzels and potato chips. Sweets? Candy bars, sure. But the real treats were from bakeries.

Cooking didn't thrill my mom. But she made dinner most nights. Chicken and steamed vegetables. Fish. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes. Lunches were typically brown-bagged sandwiches. Maybe a cupcake.

We didn't need a seal telling us which supermarket foods were free from ultra-processing. There wasn't much of it.

But now the Non-GMO Project is piloting a new Non-UPF Verified seal. By early next year, if all goes as planned, the seal will launch. Brands bearing the seal will have passed the organization's scrutiny and can display their UPF-free bona fides.

Organic, Fair Trade Certified, Certified Gluten-Free, etc. More than 60 certifications and seals today can adorn consumer packaged goods in the United States. Do we really need yet another one? In my opinion, yes. Far too much of what gets sold to us now is highly engineered and packed with a wilderness of ingredients that nobody finds on a supermarket shelf.

And some of these engineered foods are bad for us. Dangerously so. Just last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the intention to phase out synthetic dyes from the nation's food supply—those dyes count as ultra-processed substances.

"We are eating processed edible substances, not food," says Megan Westgate, founder of Non-GMO Project and a principal engine behind the Non-UPF Verified effort. "Food should nourish life. Most of it doesn't."

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For now, Westgate and her team at Non-GMO Project are working to build a framework that will guide the seal launch. First up: defining ultra-processed foods.

The framework is straightforward. Ultra-processed foods get cobbled together in factories that rely on a vast palette of refined ingredients and additives that, on their own, don't resemble foods. These component parts contain things you probably don't have in your cupboards, including additives such as gums, emulsifiers, preservatives, dyes and more.

To begin with, the Non-UPF Verified team is identifying ingredients that will disqualify brands from achieving the seal, such as those dyes. They're turning to ingredients already banned in Europe, California and other states and municipalities as an easy starting point, even using banned ingredients lists from Whole Foods Market and other retailers to inform decisions.

"When people learn that an ingredient banned in the EU is sitting unlabeled in their child's granola bar, they react," Westgate says. "That's what happened with GMOs. It's happening again now."

But establishing a standard that Westgate said must "strike a balance between meaningfulness and achievability" involves more than just banning ingredients.

I chatted with Westgate at length about this new initiative and also participated in a webinar kicking off the seal's announcement, during which she repeatedly referred to "hyper-palatability" as an especially sinister trend in food manufacturing.

In short, scientists engineer food to drive addictive eating behaviors, often revolving around basic things such as fat, salt, sugar and texture. In addition, different manufacturing processes can confuse satiety signals, leading to overeating. "Hyper-palatable foods override the body's natural signals. They're engineered that way. And they've become normal," Westgate says. "But what we're accepting as normal is actually a slow erosion of vitality."

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