This all has very big "uncured bacon" energy to me (if you didn't already know: there's no such thing; vendors of uncured bacon performatively drive the same chemical nitrite reaction using vegetable extracts). For example: yogurt becomes a UPF simply by dint of adding carrageenan, which is on the order of calling dashi a UPF because of the kombu.

It's not that there isn't a very legitimate issue underneath all this: packaged, hyperpalatable, low-nutritional-density low-satiety foods are probably a major driver of health problems. It's just that "UPF" isn't the right metric for isolating those foods, and with the wrong metrics you end up in a similar place as California does with the Prop 65 warnings.

We went through a similar thing with "pink slime" (transglutaminase preservation techniques).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-a9VDIbZCU

>which is on the order of calling dashi a UPF because of the kombu

when you use a comparison like this, you choose an example that people will understand so they can then, by analogy, extend that understanding to the point you are trying to make...

like the kombu in the dashi, you say? dash-it-all, that's a combunation I hadn't considered!