What’s in Processed Foods?
Processed foods are a major part of modern diets, thanks to their convenience and long shelf life. However, we still don’t fully understand their impact on human health. Some studies suggest that eating a lot of ultra-processed foods may increase the risk of various diseases.
But here is a problem: while cutting back on processed foods might be a great way to stay healthy, not everyone can do this. Some people lack the time, skills, or money to cook from scratch.
Fortunately, many processed foods can still fit into a healthy diet. This chart shows the fiber and protein content of common store items. These nutrients help to feel full, avoid overeating, and support overall health.
We hope exploring this chart will help people find options that support their health goals like reducing calories or sugar.
How this chart was made
Data from the Australian Food Composition Database was downloaded in May 2025. The creators of this database used various sources to compile it. Nutrient data was obtained either from lab analysis, calculations based on individual ingredients, or documented from labels.
Elena used the Release 2 - Nutrient file.xlsx data file to create this data visualisation.
To save only information for processed products and filter out raw foods, items that contained the words commercial, processed, formulated, purchased or canned were collected. Additionally, Elena recorded data for Food Names containing the following words: cream, yoghurt, salami, chips, crisps, muesli, bar, sausage, spread, cereal, butter, or cheese.
Data for Sauce, hoi sin (hoisin) was removed as a likely calculation error.
Only one data point for each type of food was saved to reduce the number of dots on the chart and facilitate exploration. For example, if there were three items that started with the word Biscuit, only one was displayed on the chart.
To calculate calories, the values provided in energy_with_dietary_fibre_equated_k_j were multiplied by 0.239.
Data preparation was done in R using the dplyr package. The chart was created using the following technologies: D3, React, Tailwind.