UPF manufacturers are taking advantage of the DGAs.

If they can manufacture something with low enough overall fat content, sat fat content, sodium content and added sugar content for a stated serving size, then they get to claim that it's a healthy food. Never mind that the package contains 15 servings and most people would eat at least 3 servings - the nutrition stats for the stated serving size is what matters.

And the big thing is that having a carb count in the stratosphere is fine - as long as not too much of it is added sugars. But the higher the percentage of the RDA of total carbs, the better, especially if you can consider any of it to be fiber.

So if they can manufacture a product that uses a lot of grains/flour (cheap), vegetable oils (cheap, with none of that pesky sat fat or cholesterol), and come up with a serving size that gives a good percentage of the RDA of carbs, and maybe even provide some small amount of fiber (even if it needs to be pulverized so it's not discernible from the flour, because even a tiny bit of fiber looks good on that nutrition panel), but still keeps the overall fat and sodium content low, minimize added sugars by using something like maltodextrin or maltitol to help sweeten it - they will make a huge profit on it, while claiming it as a healthy food.

The manufacturers also know that between the addictive nature of starchy and sweet (with just the right amount of salty - mostly added to the outside of the product so it's perceived on the tongue as saltier), they'll achieve the addictive quality that will have consumers eating several times the stated "serving size" at one sitting... and heading back to the store for more, more, more for profits, profits, profits.



It reminds me of someone telling me about these wonderful frozen treats (some kind of popsicle type thing) and that they were sooo good, but had "almost nothing in them!" This person was looking at the percentage numbers, and of course it had no fat, sat fat, or cholesterol. It also had no sodium, and maybe a couple grams protein from non-fat milk (but protein doesn't have a number in the percentage column any more). It was all carbs, but the carb count was so low compared to the whopping 300 g of recommended carbs that even if it had been 30 g of carbs, that's still only 10% of the RDA for carbs so to this person it looked like "almost nothing in it!!!"

The junk manufacturers really do take advantage of the supposedly healthy dietary guidelines.