We call it junk food, high sugar-salt-fat food. We know it’s bad for our health and yet continue to consume it on a regular basis.

Why is ultra-processed food so appealing? What are the consequences of its consumption and how can we consume less of it?

Let’s go all in ultra-processed food.

1. THE 3 TYPES OF FOOD

• Unprocessed/whole food is the natural edible food parts of plants and animals.

–> fruit, vegetables, nuts, meat, fish ...

• Processed food has been altered in some way during preparation : it has been canned, concentrated, fermented, salted, smoked, and/or tinned. *

–> cheese, yogurt, jam, tomato sauce …

• Ultra-processed food is industrially produced edible substances made by using commodity ingredients, a lot of which are waste products from old food processing (whey protein from dairy, corn syrup from corn…). These ingredients are reduced into powder form, pastes, and oils and recombined with additives, texturised, and flavoured.

–> sodas, potato chips, candies, breakfast cereals …

* We are the only animals that process their food and have been doing this for a long time. We’ve extended our digestive tracts out of our bodies and into our kitchens, chopping and cooking to better chew and digest. This food processing has shaped our (fragile) jaws, (tiny) teeth, and (very short) guts. Ultra-processing, although more recent, has already proven to be quite impactful as well.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD SYSTEMS

In the 1970s, with a booming post-war population and women in the workplace, the food environment changed. People went from growing a lot of their own food, buying some ingredients from local shops, and cooking them at home, to extremely appealing and convenient store-bought products. These products became widespread : the industrialisation of food supply and the financialization of the food industry had begun.

Today, 75 % of the calories we consume globally come from a very small number of companies with enormous power. Their goal is commercial efficiency and their priority is not public health but money. The logic behind them can be summed up as follows :

3. WHY DO WE CONSUME ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD?

Ultra-processed food is :

• cheap : people of all incomes can purchase it

• convenient : it requires no or little time and energy to prepare

• accessible : it is sold nearly everywhere (shops, fast-food restaurants…)

• appealing : it is constantly brought to our attention and promoted as high-value

• comforting, tasty, and highly addictive : it is salty, fatty, and sweet.

We consume it to quench our hunger and get a dose of comfort and pleasure. It has become a part of our culture, our childhood memories, of moments spent with friends.

All this makes it overall hard to resist. But how nourishing is it for our bodies?

4. WHAT IS IT MADE OF?

All types of additives are needed to preserve and to make ultra-processed food irresistible and addictive : sugar, artificial sweeteners, flavourings, phosphoric acid, modified starches, xanthan gum, emulsifiers, texturants, colourings …

All are used for a reason and all have an effect on our organisms.

• Sugar is used for its sweetness and its preservative properties. It is known to promote overeating, weight gain, and tooth decay.

• Sweeteners are used to replace sugar. Their sweet taste is a false signal to the body that it should prepare to receive refined carbohydrate. They do not help with weight loss and, as they affect our microbiome, can in fact be more metabolically harmful.

• Flavourings, made chemically or extracted from natural products (tomatoes, strawberries…), are used to make flavour more intense. As the flavour of food signals the nutritional content of it, they are physiologically confusing.

• Phosphoric acid provides a tartness and tangy taste, and improves shelf life. It also dissolves the minerals out of our bones and teeth.

Products we consume daily are solutions of flavourings, acids, and sweeteners, or combinations of palm oil, caramelised sugar syrup, and colourings.

Most of them are characterised by their softness and their energy density, due to how hardly they were mechanically processed. They are consumed very quickly, essentially before we can even feel satiety.

Ultra-processed products are rich in additives but lack phytonutrients, the natural chemicals or compounds produced by plants. Phytonutrients are high in antioxidants which help prevent damage to cells throughout the body and thus help prevent several diseases.

5. WHAT ARE THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF AN ULTRA-PROCESSED DIET?

Dr. Chris Van Tulleken went on a diet of frozen pizza, chocolate bars, and chicken wings. As he said, it was quite enjoyable - at first. The effects he noted on his body and mind were quite revealing :

But the ultra-processed food did not only interfere with his body’s evolved mechanisms. It also impacted his mental health.

The elevated cortisol due to stress increased his desire for low quality food and overeating. Anxiety and overeating then made it harder for him to sleep.

6. WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN UP FOOD SYSTEM?

An increased consumption of ultra-processed food has been shown to be responsible for a long list of health problems and diseases many of which are susceptible to cause early death :

A high ultra-processed food diet is linked to more deaths globally than any other health risk. It represents 22% of all deaths.

It has overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of early death for humans, but also for animals we farm and wild animals. It is produced by a food system that is :

• the leading cause of loss of biodiversity

• the second leading cause of carbon emissions

• the leading cause of plastic pollution

7. ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD AND OBESITY

The change in our food environment has made us lose our natural ability to balance our nutritional needs from our environment. Ultra-processed food has led to overeating and has turned obesity into the biggest public health problem. According to Dr. Van Tulleken, it is not a matter of willpower. It is rather a set of accidents and coincidences and a powerful food environment that led us here.

8. HOW CAN WE REDUCE ITS CONSUMPTION?

Be aware.

Knowing how to recognise ultra-processed food is the first step. Looking at the list of ingredients of these products is quite revealing. They usually contain ingredients that are not in our kitchens, such as dextrose and palm fat.

Although the trafic light/nutri-score system is meant to describe whether a food is healthy or not, it can hardly be trusted as it is optional, incomplete, and highly influenced by the food industry.

Health claims on the packets are usually misleading as well.

Be intentional :

Doing an audit of the things we’re consuming is the second step. By identifying the products who fall into the ultra-processed category, we can then make more informed choices.

Bringing in more whole foods into our diet and enjoying food preparation, seeing it not as a chore but as something that connects us to our ancestors, can help replace ultra-processed products with healthier options.

Be an activist :

We are all victims of a system but the journey from victim to activist can be done pretty quickly. We can get rid of ultra-processed food by using our resources, money, and skills.

But we can also try to change the system for others. By communicating the information we have or fighting for access to healthy food for all, we can take our emotional reaction and direct it out to the food system that controls us.

9. HOW TO OVERCOME ADDICTION?

Ultra-processed food makes all the criteria for addiction : a continued use of a substance despite knowledge of harms physical or psychological, and despite repeated attempts to quit.

It can be as addictive as tobacco products, drugs of abuse, alcohol, and gambling and should be treated as such : with abstinence. But constantly trying to resist something that is ever-present can be too much.

There is another strategy that relies on love and disgust being anatomically close in the brain and neurologically quite related : turning addiction into disgust.

However counterintuitive it might sound, it consists in not forbidding ourselves any of this food. Quite the opposite, it invites us to wallow, indulge, taste, immerse in it, and eat along as we check the list of ingredients on the packet or read about it.

There is a switch in the brain that can make it less than appealing and that switch can be flicked quite quickly.

10. IN SHORT

We eat food for nourishment but there is an important cultural, social, personal, psychological, and physical aspect to it. It makes us connect with people, it is part of the culture we’ve inherited.

Ultra-processed food is part of our lives and it remains the cheapest (and sometimes only) option out there for a lot of people.

Knowing why it’s been designed, what it is made of, and what the consequences of a regular ultra-processed food consumption are just makes for a more informed, conscious, and deliberate choice of what we’re consuming.

by : antιdrastιc element

based on : Dr. Chris Van Tulleken’s interview on DOAC

The Junk Food Doctor : This Food is Worse Than Smoking

addιtιonal sources :

hsph.harvard.edu, nhs.uk, healthline, unlockfood.ca, pubmed

photo credιt : miradormanagement

ιmages credιt : istockphoto, vectorstock, clipart-library