Digital Discourse On Processed Foods: Insights From Consumer & Key Opinion Leader Commentary

The public conversation around processed and ultraprocessed foods has increased significantly in recent years, driven by rising interest in food, nutrition and health-related topics and growing concern over food ingredients. The new 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released January 7, 2026, bring processed foods further into the spotlight via their recommendations to limit “highly processed foods” in favor of “real foods.”

Many online discussions remain emotionally polarized and often lack the nuance found in evidence-based messaging and guidance. Clarifying how consumers, credentialed experts, and other key opinion leaders understand and address issues related to processed food is essential for improving communication strategies and promoting healthy dietary behaviors.

As part of a multi-phase research initiative, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) sought to understand the dialogue around how processed foods intersect with overall diet quality and health via a robust digital and social listening analysis. The analysis, conducted in June 2025, will be used along with other quantitative and qualitative research to help inform effective communication strategies and tools to empower consumers to achieve improved diet quality.

This analysis explores the digital discourse surrounding processed and ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) in the United States, examining more than 135,000 social media posts from January 2024 to May 2025. A mixed-methods approach was employed to investigate how different audience groups—especially millennial parents, credentialed experts, and other key opinion leaders (KOLs)—engage with these topics online. The findings offer insights into prevailing themes, sentiment trajectories, and implications for food, nutrition, and health communication strategies.