What happened when ultra-processed foods were matched for calories, sugar, fat and fiber content in the first randomized controlled trial?
In the United States, “junk food” is often used to describe less healthy foods such as candy, ice cream and chips, but there is no fixed definition, so nutrition researchers came up with the idea of over processed.
The term “super-processed food”—if you want to call it that—describes industrial formulations that usually appear in this long list of ingredients, which, apart from salt, sugar and fat, are not usually found in any cookbook, such as various flavors, sweeteners, colors, emulsifiers and other additives used to ape real foods or to hide undesirable properties of the final product. This roughly corresponds to my idea of ”red foods” in my light system, in which, ideally, we should maximize our intake of green-light foods, minimize yellow-light foods, and avoid red-light foods. Indeed, most people eat are red foods: soda, ice cream, candy, cakes, most breads and breakfast cereals, ready-to-heat TV dinner-type products, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, sausages, burgers and hot dogs. There is it was a dramatic increase in ultra-processed foods. In fact, the US food supply is dominated from them. More than 200,000 products were evaluated and 71% were classified as overprocessed.
And, of course, them is not only in grocery stores. Sugary drinks and processed junk are ubiquitous even in non-food retailers, sending pervasive signals to consume products that are calorie-dense but nutrient-poor. As former CEO of Coca-Cola put Thus, the soda should be kept at an “upright point of desire.” A great brand of candy they boasted“We put them everywhere: grocery stores and supermarkets, gas stations and chiropractor offices, bowling alleys and grocery stores, which we already mentioned. I’m not sorry.”
Well, this it is where we are today. What percentage of food consumed by US children and teenagers is classified as junk? An incredible 56% to 70% of what our children and teenagers eat throughout the day is junk. But kids will be kids, right? In the United States, more than half the calories are taken all over the surface is garbage. In fact, all over the world, highly processed foods consistently account for more than 50% of dietary caloric intake in higher income countries. No wonder unhealthy diets hectare humanity’s biggest killer, the leading risk factor for death worldwide, as you can see below and at 2:25 in my video Over-processed junk food that tastes good.
What exactly are the health consequences? The biological effects of modern foods were studied using rats, showing that they plunge into dramatic weight gain, inflammation, and cognitive and metabolic abnormalities. And just like highly processed foods it was Binge eating was recognized as a new eating disorder and has evolved into the most common form of eating disorder. And it’s no surprise that the binge was I establish to be 100% overprocessed. That’s no surprise—these foods are made so you can’t have just one. People don’t tend to eat broccoli.
About 9 out of 10 studies I establish that eating too much processed food was associated with adverse health outcomes—and not just obesity, but cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, frailty, and all-cause mortality (which means living a shorter life). Studies on youth add asthma to the list as well report higher DNA damage. Not even a study was mentioned a link between highly processed foods and beneficial health outcomes.
Conversely, populations with minimally processed foods, low meat consumption, and high fiber intake have far fewer chronic diseases, enjoy lower rates of obesity and live longer disease-free lives. But most of the findings were based on in observational studies. You don’t know for sure if the hyper-processed foods themselves are to blame until you try it.
In the first randomized controlled trial on highly processed foods, it was essentially 20 people locked in a hospital ward and received both highly processed and unprocessed diets for 14 days each. Here’s the bottom line: The diets were designed to provide the same calories, sugar, fiber, fat, and macronutrients. Why? In response to criticism, manufacturers are now suggesting reformulating their products, keeping them highly processed but modifying them by adding some fiber, for example, or reducing sugar, fat or salt. So the researchers wanted to try to counteract the effect of overprocessing by giving study participants the same amount of calories, sugar, fat, fiber, carbohydrates, and protein in each of the two diets. So, for example, for breakfast on the highly processed weeks, participants had Cheerios and a muffin or an egg and cheese muffin with turkey bacon and orange juice. When it came time for less processed breakfasts, people had, say, oatmeal with blueberries and almonds. The meals had the same amount of total sugar and fat, but the unprocessed option featured more whole food. For lunch, the ultra-processed group might get a turkey sandwich with low-fat Greek yogurt, canned peaches, baked potato chips, and sugar-free Crystal Light Lemonade, as opposed to a Southwestern salad with black beans, carrots, corn, avocado, and nuts, along with a grape. They were offered the same calories, with instructions to eat as much or as little as they wanted.
So what happened? On the highly refined diet, people ate about 500 more calories per day and, as expected, gained about two pounds on the refined diet or actively lost two pounds on the less refined diet, as you can see below and at 5:31 in my video.
Well, the problem it wasn’t only the unbalanced nutritional profile of highly processed foods. Simply adjusting them wouldn’t magically make them healthy, but that’s what the industry would prefer do. The reformulation is referred to as the “no-mess strategy,” creating “the prospect of nutritional improvement without dietary changes.” But what this study showed is that it may be best to cut down on highly processed foods altogether.
Why the industry love them so much? They’re made with cheap ingredients like taxpayer-subsidized corn syrup, allowing for huge corporate profit margins. But at what cost? The food industry takes to more than a trillion dollars each year, yet most of our health care dollars go to treat chronic diseases exacerbated by these same foods, such as diabetes and heart disease. So you could argue “we lose three times what the food industry produces”. The food industry supports that these days, it is “unrealistic” to tell people to avoid highly processed foods, given social time constraints and the difficulties of food preparation, but this may simply be consistent with the same propaganda and misinformation campaign that the processed food industry has used to engage families for decades. Anyone who thinks healthy food can’t be convenient has never met an apple.
That it was a response to the essay by dr. Lustig on processed food as a failed experiment, in which he said, “One-third of American mothers today don’t even know what real food is or how to cook; they and their children are destined to remain hostages of the processed food industry.” I don’t like him blaming his mother, but I appreciate his recipe: “There’s only one solution—real food, which is low in sugar and high in fiber.” We need to start thinking outside the box.
Doctor’s note
It’s no surprise that processed foods wreak havoc on our health. Learn about The role of processed foods in the obesity epidemic. Is there a solution? Yes. Cut out high-calorie and processed foods.
This is the third video in a series about junk food. If you missed the first two, check it out Do healthy fast food choices lead to healthier choices? and How we won the fight to ban trans fats.
I mentioned my traffic light system for choosing the healthiest foods. Learn all about it at Dinner by the lantern: Green is to go, red is to stop.
