Our reliance on ultraprocessed foods was "decades in the making," he added, and it "could take decades to reverse."

We consulted Kelly Brownell, a professor emeritus at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University; Michael F. Jacobson, co-founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the founder of the National Food Museum; Stuart Gillespie, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute; Tera Fazzino, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas; Dr. David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Carlos Monteiro, a nutritional epidemiologist and emeritus professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil; Michael Moss, an investigative journalist in New York City who has written about the food industry; Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University; Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina's Gillings School of Global Public Health; John Ruff, a food scientist and former executive at Kraft and General Foods; Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco; Laura Shapiro, a culinary historian in New York City; Dr. Chris van Tulleken, a professor of infection and global health at University College London; Helen Zoe Veit, an associate professor of history at Michigan State University.