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If you examine a packet of M&Ms, one of the best-selling candies in the United States, you'll see recognizable ingredients like sweetener, skimmed milk powder, and chocolate fat. But, numerous elements are unfamiliar: gum arabic, starch gum, carnauba wax, soy lecithin, and curcumin.

There are thirty-four components in the candy, with no fewer than thirty countries involved in providing them. Each has its distinct supply chain that transforms base substances into usable parts – cocoa into cocoa liquor, plants into sweetener, petroleum into blue food dye.

These ingredients then journey globally to a main manufacturing plant where they are mixed and converted into tiny blue, red, yellow and green chocolate gems.

It's becoming better understood that food systems are a major driver of the environmental emergency. Scientists can examine deforestation for agriculture or methane emissions from livestock. But the environmental impact of ultra-processed foods – like these candies – is more ambiguous and is only now to come into focus. One reason they have been so difficult to assess is the inherent complexity of UPFs: these industrially made foods include a huge number of ingredients and processes to assemble them, making it extremely difficult to track.

But it doesn't mean it's not important. As ultra-processed foods dominate American supermarkets and eating habits – they now comprise seventy percent of products purchased in grocery stores, and over 50% of dietary energy intake – specialists say that understanding their environmental toll is essential to build a greener food system.

The Information We Know

Although researchers are just beginning to examine the environmental impact of ultra-processed foods, what's already known about them is worrisome.

"The more processed foods are, the more harmful they are to human health and the environment," said a senior researcher. The main reason, he clarifies, is that the ingredients are so resource demanding. Once assembled, the toll balloons.

Take M&Ms. The first step in producing the candies is cultivating for cocoa, sweetener, dairy and palm.

It has been well-documented that farming for ingredients like cocoa drives consistently rising rates of deforestation worldwide. For over a century, farmland growth has driven nearly ninety percent of worldwide forest loss, which has been responsible for thirty percent of worldwide carbon output. Major companies have been criticized in the past for farming practices in their supply chain, and have since created environmental initiatives, but these fail to address that large-scale agricultural practices are, at their core, unsustainable.

Additionally, sweetener, milk solids and palm oil – likewise significant carbon dioxide sources.

Furthermore are the industrially made ingredients like food dyes – perhaps the signature of ultra-processing – which M&Ms contain 13 different types of. Blue M&Ms are colored with artificial blue dyes; these dyes are primarily produced in food dye manufacturing hotspots India and China, through synthetic processes of petroleum derivatives with diazonium salt, catalyzed by the elements copper or chromium.

Creating soya lecithin, an ingredient made from plant oil that's used to change the consistency of chocolate, requires steps like degumming in a heated vessel, chemically isolating fat molecules, decolorization using chemical agents and dehydrating under reduced air pressure. And, dextrose, begins as corn that gets steeped in acid before being ground, separated and dehydrated. From there, it's broken down into smaller molecules using biological catalysts and acids, and then reformed into crystals.

While highly manufactured candies are among the most damaging, other kinds of ultra-processed foods are burdensome on the environment as well. Take for instance another popular snack, which has thirty-nine components. Maize is the primary component, and for every acre grown, 1,000kg of carbon dioxide is released to the air. Like major brands, producers have developed their own environmental pledges, but several such commitments are supported by methods that are considered greenwashing.

Consequently, researchers have started to calculate the ecological cost of ultra-processed foods.

A study estimated that well-known sweets generate at least 13.2kg of carbon equivalents per kilo produced. With 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 zero point one percent of yearly carbon output in the country. But, this is only an estimate based on accessible information; the actual impact is probably significantly greater, according to specialists.

There's a "black box" when it comes to carbon accounting in the manufactured food sector, notes a professor who studies how corporations respond to the climate crisis. "There exists so much uncertainty as production networks get complicated."

What We Don't Know

Calculating precisely of the ecological impact of ultra-processed foods is nearly impossible, given that, definitionally, these products consist of many ingredients and a significant number of non-transparent procedures. Ingredients aren't just mixed together like one would do to make a stew at home. Instead, these ingredients are altered synthetically, some parts removed, and flavors, colors or consistencies added in – and it's unclear what the cost of these methods are because numerous providers and parts are included.

Another reason is that all UPFs are the creations of food companies that have minimal motivation to disclose their environmental footprint and may not comprehend it to start with.

As an example, major brands do not farm primary components themselves, but instead rely on hundreds of farms that may not have accurate carbon accounting measures in place. This means that carbon output from large manufacturers may be underestimated. Experts noted that corporations "don't have actual data, so they use estimated values, which are approximations."

Specialists say that corporations provide reports on straightforward aspects like transportation, which are easier to calculate, and frequently exclude or convolute the farming-related carbon of their product. After all, reporting high emissions contradicts the objectives of major manufacturers, so the intricate assessments needed to determine the environmental impact of large-scale agriculture and multi-step industrial chemical processes used to make processed food components remain un-researched.

"The main point of manufactured products is profit," said Fardet, pointing out that they're designed to be attractive, convenient and enjoyable to eat.

"The majority of individuals in the manufacturing sector's production network are not concerned with climate change from an ideological point of view, but they are interested in money," explained a specialist. He clarifies that to shift those incentives, the cost of products and components would need to incorporate their impact on our global environment. But that would require official policies and economic consequences based on the true environmental cost of UPFs.

Why It Matters

For less than two dollars, the price of popular candies at the grocery store barely represents their true cost on the environment. But to tackle these problems with ultra-processed foods, more than just a minor adjustments to the ingredient list are required.

"Lowering the sodium, or sugar of just one product is just superficial eco-marketing," said the expert. "We need to change the entire system." To do that, he suggested consuming more regionally produced, unprocessed items, which often take much less resources and transit to produce, and therefore have a much smaller environmental impact.

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