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If you examine a packet of M&M's, among the best-selling candies in the US, you'll see recognizable ingredients like sugar, skimmed milk powder, and chocolate fat. But, numerous elements are less known: acacia gum, starch gum, carnauba wax, soy lecithin, and curcumin.

You'll find thirty-four ingredients in the candy, and at least 30 countries participating in providing them. Every one has its own production network that converts raw materials into usable parts – cocoa into cocoa liquor, plants into sweetener, petroleum into blue food dye.

These ingredients then journey across the world to a main manufacturing plant where they are mixed and converted into small blue, red, yellow and green candy-coated chocolates.

It's becoming more widely recognized that agricultural networks are a major driver of the climate crisis. Scientists can study deforestation for agriculture or greenhouse gases from animals. But the environmental impact of ultra-processed foods – such as M&Ms – is more ambiguous and is only now to be understood. A key factor they have been so difficult to assess is the inherent complexity of ultra-processed foods: these industrially made foods include a vast array of ingredients and processes to assemble them, making it extremely difficult to track.

But it doesn't mean it's not important. Since ultra-processed foods dominate US grocery store shelves and eating habits – they now account for 70% of food sold in grocery stores, and more than half of calories consumed – specialists say that understanding their ecological cost is essential to build a more climate-friendly agricultural system.

What We Know

Although scientists are only starting to examine the ecological effects of UPFs, existing knowledge about them is concerning.

"The more processed products become, the more deleterious they are to human health and the planet," stated Anthony Fardet. The primary cause, he explains, is that the components are so resource demanding. When combined, the impact balloons.

Consider the popular candy. The initial phase in creating the sweets is farming for chocolate beans, sugar, dairy and palm oil.

It has been well-documented that farming for ingredients like cocoa drives consistently rising rates of forest clearance worldwide. For over a century, agricultural expansion has driven nearly ninety percent of global deforestation, which has been responsible for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Major companies have been called out in the past for farming practices in their production network, and have since created sustainability plans, but these fail to address that industrial farming are, fundamentally, ecologically damaging.

Additionally, sweetener, dried dairy and palm oil – also significant carbon dioxide sources.

Furthermore are the factory-produced components like artificial colors – possibly the hallmark of ultra-processing – which M&Ms contain 13 different types of. The blue candies are dyed with E132 and E133; these dyes are mostly made in industrial color production centers India and China, through synthetic processes of aromatic hydrocarbons with diazonium salt, accelerated by the elements copper or chromium.

Creating soy lecithin, an ingredient made from soybean oil that's used to alter the texture of candy, requires steps like degumming in a hot reactor, chemically isolating phospholipids, decolorization using chemical agents and dehydrating under vacuum pressure. Similarly, dextrose, begins as corn that gets steeped in acid before being milled, divided and dehydrated. From there, it's decomposed into smaller molecules using biological catalysts and acids, and then recrystallized.

Although ultra-processed chocolate products are some of the worst offenders, different types of UPFs are taxing on the environment as well. Take for instance another popular snack, which has 39 components. Maize is the main ingredient, and for every acre grown, one thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere. Similar to major brands, manufacturers have developed their own sustainability promises, but several such promises are underpinned by methods that are considered greenwashing.

Consequently, researchers have started to calculate the ecological cost of UPFs.

A study estimated that well-known sweets generate at least thirteen point two kilograms of greenhouse gases per kilogram produced. Considering yearly output of over 664 million kg in the US, this would mean that the products emit at least 3.8 million tons of CO2 – making up 0.1% of yearly carbon output in the country. But, this is only an estimate based on publicly available data; the actual impact is likely much higher, according to specialists.

There's a "unknown element" when it comes to emissions tracking in the manufactured food sector, says Patrick Callery who researches how corporations engage with the climate crisis. "There exists so much ambiguity as production networks get complicated."

The Gaps We Don't Know

Getting an exact measure of the ecological impact of UPFs is extremely challenging, given that, by definition, UPFs consist of numerous components and a high volume of opaque processes. Ingredients aren't just mixed together like one would do to make a stew at home. Rather, these ingredients are altered synthetically, some parts removed, and flavors, colors or consistencies added in – and it's unknown what the impact of these processes are because numerous providers and components are included.

Another reason is that every ultra-processed food are the products of manufacturing corporations that have little incentive to disclose their environmental footprint and might not comprehend it to begin with.

For instance, major brands do not cultivate key ingredients themselves, but instead rely on hundreds of farms that don't always have accurate carbon accounting measures in place. This means that carbon output from big food corporations may be underestimated. Analysts noted that corporations "don't have actual data, so they use estimated values, which are approximations."

Researchers say that corporations submit data on straightforward aspects like shipping, which are easier to calculate, and often omit or complicate the agricultural emissions of their product. Ultimately, reporting high emissions contradicts the interests of major manufacturers, so the complex calculations needed to establish the carbon footprint of large-scale agriculture and multi-step industrial chemical processes used to make UPF ingredients remain un-researched.

"The main point of ultra-processed foods is money," said the researcher, pointing out that they're created to be attractive, convenient and enjoyable to eat.

"Most of the people in the food industry's value chain don't care about global warming from an ethical perspective, but they are interested in money," explained a specialist. He explains that to shift those incentives, the cost of products and components would need to include their effect on our global environment. But that would require government regulations and economic consequences based on the true environmental cost of ultra-processed foods.

Why It Is Important

For less than two dollars, the price of M&Ms at the grocery store hardly reflects their real impact on the planet. But to tackle these issues with manufactured products, not only a minor adjustments to the ingredient list are required.

"Lowering the sodium, or sugar of just a single item is just greenwashing," said Fardet. "It is necessary to change the whole picture." To do that, he recommended eating more regionally produced, unprocessed items, which often take much less resources and transportation to create, and therefore have a significantly reduced environmental impact.

Specialty goods that can't be sourced locally, like chocolate, should {make up|constitute