Ultra-processed foods are a big part of U.S. diet and can make people sick : Shots

Dr. Chris Van Tulleken participated in the month-long experiment. He got 80% of his calories from ultra-processed foods. He describes what happened in his new book. Ultra-processed people.

Johnny Story/Chris Van Thaleken

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Johnny Story/Chris Van Thaleken

Dr. Chris Van Tulleken participated in the month-long experiment. He got 80% of his calories from ultra-processed foods. He describes what happened in his new book. Ultra-processed people.

Johnny Story/Chris Van Thaleken

Eating processed foods is nothing new. Humans have been grinding grain to make bread. thousands of years. However, our food supply has changed in recent decades, with more ultra-processed products made with fillers, additives, stabilizers, and synthetic ingredients our grandparents wouldn’t recognize.

In a recent analysis, Access to Nutrition Initiativefound that about 70% of food sold in the United States is unhealthy. Categorized as ultra-fabricated products.

So are we frogs in a boiling cauldron adapting to the transition to ultra-processed foods, unaware that they encourage overeating and can harm us?

With diet-related diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes becoming a global boom, Doctor.Chris Van Tuleken author of ultra-processed peoplemade himself the subject of a short-term experiment of one month.

Van Talleken, an infectious disease physician in his mid-40s, replaced his usual healthy diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean protein and whole grains, consuming mostly packaged, boxed and jar foods.

We spoke with Dr. Van Tuleken about his writings and research.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How specifically did your diet change? What did you eat?

I started eating more snacks, so I started snacking in the morning. And I started eating the kind of cereal I loved as a kid, chocolate-covered breakfast cereal. I drank more soda. And I made small changes, for example, eating chips instead of nuts as a snack. And at night, I had more instant food, so I was eating a little more vegetables, but I was eating microwave lasagna, takeaway fried chicken and pizza.

Overall, about 80% of my calories are ultra processed food It’s that simple. Most breads in supermarkets are ultra-processed, almost all breakfast cereals and snack foods are ultra-processed, and most ready-to-eat foods are also ultra-processed.

Note: A. classification system This index, used by researchers, classifies foods into one of four categories, from unprocessed, minimally processed to ultra-processed.

In your book, you describe how you gained weight, which isn’t all that surprising given the food you ate. We also measured what happened to gut hormones. What did you know and how did it make you feel?

I soon became ill. I felt terrible. I couldn’t sleep, I was anxious and I was very unhappy. I was a pilot patient in a study I was conducting with colleagues at University College London. I have found that it affects my gut hormones. So, there are hormones in our bodies that tell us when to stop eating. they are very well evolved. All animals have these hormones, and ultra-processed foods interfere with them. So even after the meal is over, hunger hormones are still very high.

This sounds very dramatic. If you’re getting enough calories, why do you think you want to eat more?

I think a lot of this food is designed to encourage overconsumption. This food is rich in energy. Full of fat, salt and sugar. Therefore, you can burn calories at a much higher rate than eating whole foods. Also, ultra-processed foods are often processed into smaller particles. Therefore, it may be absorbed in a different part of the intestine than the part that signals satiety. So I suspect you’re eating this food faster than your body can signal your brain that it’s over.

This is consistent with evidence that refined carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, crackers, and potato chips (basically many ultra-processed foods) can increase consumption. Blood sugar and insulin can stimulate appetite. What’s new here?

There is a very respected scientist in the United States named Kevin Hall. He conducted clinical trials and found that: People eat about 500 more calories a day when they eat ultra-processed foods, Compare that to people on a whole food diet that consumes the same amount of fat, salt, sugar and fiber.and there are many epidemiological evidence This shows that ultra-processed foods interfere with our body’s ability to say, “I don’t have to eat anymore.”

This was a small study with 20 people. Are you doing further research on this?

Yes, we were collecting data to get funding for a large study we’re doing now.

Note: Van Tulleken and colleagues Looking for participants Researchers investigating the effects of ultra-processed and minimally-processed foods in the UK say this is the longest dietary trial of ultra-processed foods and the first to help people reduce their intake.

If ultra-processed foods had the same effect on everyone, wouldn’t we expect the entire population to become fat and unhealthy, or would different people react differently?

I think there are two groups of adults. Many people can develop a relationship similar to that of ultra-processed foods and alcohol. Most people just enjoy a couple of glasses of wine or a bottle of beer on a Friday night, and that’s fine. They can have such a relationship with it. However, many will recognize that their relationship with these foods is actually much more addictive in nature.

But can we, as a society, really return to a diet consisting of whole foods, minimally processed foods?

There is no perfectly clear line between conventional food processing and ultra-processed food. We have chopped, cooked, smoked, pickled, salted, crushed, crushed, all this for thousands of years, and we must. So processing is fine. But ultra-processing is where food is made in factories. wrapped in plastic. It contains weird additives you can’t find in your kitchen. And the purpose of the diet is profit. So I eat cheese, but I don’t eat processed cheese. I eat butter, but I don’t eat margarine. I eat traditional wheat flour bread, but not emulsified supermarket bread.

Obesity has multiple causes, some of which are related to food insecurity. People who don’t spend a lot on groceries often buy perishable processed foods because they are affordable. Do you think the government should intervene in regulation?

Governments need to start treating products like cigarettes. The sale of these products should be restricted and the packaging relabeled. The easiest thing is what is Chile doing? Ultra-processed food packages are labeled with black hexagons. Therefore, the government should not ban it or tax the food because it is the only affordable food for many people. But governments may start warning people that it is strongly associated with adverse health effects.

Edited for broadcast and web by Jane Greenhalgh.