Ultraprocessed to whom?

To feed the planet we need less ideological methods to grow, produce and distribute food.

A ghost is haunting Europe, or rather the world, ultra-processed food. It is the cause of all our ills. It ruins your health and mood. I remember Walter Chiari's very cute gag about sarchiapone, ultra-processed food closely resembles it: everyone talks about it, it can be very dangerous but no one knows what it is. Starting with the Economist which publishes three articles against ultra-processed foods without ever defining what it is. Well, agriculture, in its genesis organized with respect to wild nature, was already a first form of industrial modification of nature. From the birth of agricultural man onwards, many discoveries have allowed man to survive in the winters when vegetables were less available, curdling milk to make cheese (it's a process), sterilizing tomatoes in glass jars in July and August (it's an identical process to that followed by Mutti and Cirio, only with much larger pots and with levels of food safety that they didn't have at home). And in the same way fruit is preserved by making jams, cod is preserved by drying it and responging it and calling it cod (processed twice), tuna and boiled meat are sterilized to feed the infantrymen in the trenches, and, for the same reason, rice becomes pre-cooked to be heated for American soldiers during the Second World War. In more recent years, food technology experts and especially microbiologists give an important role to freezing (or the more noble blast chilling). After all, if the frozen fibers do not contain too much water, this process makes the product fresher, once thawed, than fresh ones stored poorly or for too long. But not only that: breaking down food also kills heat-resistant bacteria. So freezing is a food preservation technique that does not need any preservatives: cold is enough. Even for frozen pizza, cold is enough. So what? Of course, some meats sold refrigerated, such as Valtellina PGI bresaola from authentic Brazilian Zebu, or even from Nebraska, or such as Parma or San Daniele, need a little nitrites and nitrates to resist, especially if pre-sliced. How does salami also stay nice and red? Only the very strict Varzi regulations, which are so strict that no one imitates them (and this may also be why no one knows them), do not allow the use of chemical substances. But all this global fuss just for that little bit of salami (called pepperoni) that goes on the pizza? And was it necessary to demonize the entire food industry? We remind you that the Italian food industry has high quality production processes that guarantee the absolute safety of the foods sold. If anomalies occur in these processes there are criminal measures for violators. Adding additives to foods that are not declared on the label is an aggravated and irreconcilable fraud (it means that the person responsible goes to prison, period). This is not the case for the poorly preserved product in the small, characteristic local company, the one with few employees which, even if it commits some innocent mischief, is still a local mischief. What is the punishment for the small miller who writes Italian product on imported flour? But what do you want it to be? He's small, for work, he's one of us. That if it were a multinational, no control system, no auditor, no judge would be lenient. But then what story are we living? If we have to feed, well from a nutritional point of view, nine billion inhabitants of the planet we will have to equip ourselves with less ideological methods to grow, produce and distribute food. We must valorise the capable and solid industry (regardless, indeed by rewarding those who are internationalised). We should give dignity to organic production in which Italy has a competitive advantage, we should promote sustainable supply chain agriculture, we should encourage regenerative agriculture and enhance the non-use of genetically modified raw materials as one of our competitive advantages. We must align the story about food with reality and not bend it to logics that seem rather scandalous on a global scale than truly interested in feeding the planet. Meat deserves a separate discussion: a lot of attention to the techniques (especially the fraudulent ones I would say) of meat production, and very little attention to the growing global demand for proteins. All the countries that emerge from the poverty line dream of a Western diet, or at least with a protein content "typical" of the Western one. How can we give them something that makes them satisfied (especially "fit" as those who eat protein in the world are perceived) without destroying the planet by flooding it with intensive farming to produce steaks? We should, I guess, promote different proteins. Lightly processed vegetable proteins, capable of providing all the nutrients of meat without the environmental damage of cattle. For this to happen, consumption styles and cuisines capable of enhancing these uses should be promoted. Ethnic cuisines, traditional Italian dishes that enhance the use of protein vegetables. It is necessary that all of us, with the regulator in mind, begin to take charge of how to feed the planet in a sustainable way.