How to Fix Processed Food

Sit still, and lawsuits and labels define you. Move early, and you define the category.

I have spent the last month hanging around Washington, and this is what I learned. There is growing, unyielding pressure from the market, investors, and Washington for reformulating processed food products. It will be some combination of influencers, MAHA, the trial bar, and consumer demand. A redux of Oreo Reese's cups is a momentary lapse of judgment. Real and substantial pressure is coming.

The MAHA report is expected to be released soon, likely early next week. The new dietary guidelines already lean toward fiber and protein, with a hard shift away from fructose. Regulators are talking about new front-of-pack warnings: "This product contains fructose and may increase diabetes risk." GRAS changes will be used to bring more pressure. GLP-1s are hollowing out the snack aisle. Lawyers, fresh from Round Up wins, are seeking sugar and chemical liability cases in state courts.

The Logic

Processed food needs to move fast.

CPGs can't fix this with a marketing veneer. The only path is to reduce the metabolic harm baked into ultraprocessed foods.

Dr. Robert Lustig already showed how. His "Metabolic Matrix" isn't complicated. Three rules: protect the liver, feed the gut, support the brain.

Kuwait's KDD quietly reformulated 180 products using this framework. No fanfare. No hype. Just a methodical cut in glycemic impact across the portfolio. They tested everything at Eurofins. Built a tiered system to track progress. It worked.

The Step-by-Step

Take any SKU. Apply Lustig's framework systematically.

Start with the sugar. Measure current fructose load. Cap it at one teaspoon per serving. Replace with alternatives that don't spike insulin or inflame the liver.

The economics of sweeteners are brutal but improving. Sucrose costs $0.0011 per teaspoon. Allulose runs $0.093, about 85 times more. Tagatose sits at $0.12. D-mannose is even pricier. Erythritol and monk fruit cost around $0.025-0.046. These rare sugars and sugar alcohols bypass normal metabolic pathways. Allulose actually lowers blood glucose. Tagatose barely raises it. The cost curve on all these solutions is coming down with innovation from firms like Bonumose (one of our portfolio companies). Costs will bend as production scales. Corn will realize the need to change production from fructose to tagatose. First movers will get access to the current limited capacity. Others will be stuck with a sucrose albatross.

Next, fix the fats. Strip out seed oils high in omega-6. Anthropological evidence suggests that Paleolithic diets had an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio close to 1:1, compared to 15–20:1 in the modern Western diet. Replace with olive oil, avocado oil, or algal DHA/EPA. The brain is 25% DHA. Starving it of omega-3s while flooding it with omega-6s drives inflammation.

Then add real fiber. Not cellulose powder. Actual prebiotic fiber that feeds gut bacteria. Inulin, resistant starch, beta-glucans. These produce short-chain fatty acids that reduce inflammation and improve insulin sensitivity. Replace emulsifiers like carrageenan and carboxymethylcellulose with fiber-based stabilizers.

Test each reformulation on humans. Use continuous glucose monitors. Measure the spike, the area under the curve, and the recovery time. KDD ran 75,000 data points per product. They tested heavy metals, pesticides, fatty acid profiles, everything.

Iterate until the metabolic impact drops without losing taste or texture.

How KDD Did It

Protect the liver. They capped fructose. Shifted to erythritol, stevia, monk fruit where approved. Removed partially hydrogenated oils. Added omega-3s from algal sources.

Feed the gut. Replaced carrageenan with alternative fibers. Added both soluble and insoluble fiber. Maintained probiotic cultures in dairy. Built texture through fiber, not emulsifiers.

Support the brain. Fortified with EPA/DHA. Kept whole-fat dairy (which reduces metabolic syndrome risk). Added B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc.

They didn't guess. They measured. Each product got tiered from conventional (Tier III) through progressively healthier reformulations (Tier II, Tier I). Clear metrics at each level: omega-6/omega-3 ratios under 4:1, minimum fiber thresholds, heavy metal limits.

The Toolkit Emerging

Bonumose produces allulose, mannose, and tagatose through enzymatic conversion. Brightseed maps plant bioactives using AI to find new metabolically beneficial compounds. Holobiome engineers next-gen prebiotics. One.bio delivers soluble fiber. Prisimbio offers natural dyes. Edacious measures nutrition, micronutrients, and toxins.

These aren't at scale yet. That's the point. First movers will secure the supply and establish the science.

And yes, these are all our portfolio companies. We have been thinking about this for more than 10 years.

Don't Stop at the Label

Labels are blunt instruments. To prove that reformulation works, test it on humans.

The ZOE Predict study showed continuous glucose monitors rank foods consistently with 4% variability. A trial in type 2 diabetes patients found reformulated diets plus CGM feedback cut HbA1c by 1.1% in three months.

Imagine being the first brand that can show: "Our reformulated snack produces 30% smaller glucose spikes than our old one."

A biomarker on the label. Integrate it into the POS at the Grocery. Motivate change with a shift in SNAP payout for reformulated goods. Prove to Wall Street you are lowering health costs. Take market share from healthcare.

Why First Movers Win

Reformulation invites questions about the rest of your portfolio. However, those who act first earn the trust of consumers, investors, regulators, and payers. Get ahead with labels and influencers so you own the consumer message, shelf space, and market. Build the reformulation muscle memory.

The ultraprocessed food consumption data is damning: each 10% increase in ultraprocessed food intake increases all-cause mortality by 14%. The mechanistic evidence is clear. Fructose inhibits mitochondrial ATP production. Emulsifiers trigger gut inflammation. Omega-6 overload promotes insulin resistance.

The processed food industry has a choice. Wait for regulation to force change. Or lead it.

Take the SKU. Apply the matrix. Test on humans. Iterate. Ship.

Protect the liver. Feed the gut. Support the brain.

It is really that simple