Is the very low calorie shake approach to type 2 promoting ultra processed foods?

Well its certainly not a "real food" approach.
I'd not even define it as "food".

All to do with marketing I guess, in Australia hospitals are contracted to have dieticians push Sustagen shakes as a healthy meal replacement. However, they are also used for many other reasons in hospitals. Sustagen is a high carb drink, one drink of unflavoured sustagen contains 39g of carbs, per serve which ends up being a 200ml drink. Ingredients include corn syrup solids and of course sugar galore, plus a host of vitamins and minerals.

If you market something it needs a catchy name, like, Slimming world, total solution plan, Slimfast, or cambridge 121 plan. It's a bit unappealing and hard to sell something if you called it "Starvation shake" or "Extreme Starvaton diet." or perhaps, Nutrient deficient diet. All of these market approaches revolve around shakes.... not sure if that promotes junk food shakes or not. Maybe there is a similar look to them and a Mcdonalds shake full of glucose and fat?

As this approach is intended to be a temporary treatment perhaps it is about simplicity and standardisation rather than promotion?

It has been mentioned on the forum in the past and I myself have called these shakes "the ultimate processed food".