Because so many different types of food are included in the "ultra-processed" category, it's impossible to tell which foods might have contributed to the small increased risk in deaths among the people taking part in the study. We certainly cannot conclude that all processed food is bad, or that eating processed food is killing us. But the study is a reminder that relying on pre-prepared food or eating too many snacks, sweets and ready meals can make it easy to consume too much salt, sugar and saturated fat, and not enough fibre, green vegetables and fruit.