Why hello, you ultra-processed human
A review of Ultra-Processed People & our atrocious modern diet
Heuristics are mental shortcuts humans use so we’re not overwhelmed by daily decisions. A few examples of a heuristic include; items which cost more tend to be higher quality, a politician will sell her own mother into indentured servitude to get reelected, the amount of tequila consumption at a company function is directly correlated with one’s chances of waking up unemployed.
What about the food you eat, what heuristics do you apply there? Whether you’re already a healthy weight and want to stay that way, or you want to lose weight, you probably have a few rules about what you shovel into your intake port. Nothing high in fat? No soda? Something else entirely? One of my food heuristics is that I try to avoid eating anything with a lot of preservatives in it.
I must qualify this Tweet by pointing out that my family cooks unusually healthy meals and so I’m largely able to escape the American food trap I identified here. However, the sad fact is that most Americans aren’t eating well, and many probably don’t even realize just how bad their diet is. Enter Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken.
Ultra-Processed People gives us a new food heuristic: when crafting your diet you can largely ignore fat, sugar and carb content. Instead, pay attention to the extent to which a food has been processed. Ultra-processed food (UPF) is addictive, difficult for our body to process, and is likely the primary cause of the obesity epidemic. Even ostensibly “healthy” UPF like Lean Pockets or Beyond Meat are actually bad for your body and should be avoided.
If this thesis is correct, Ultra-Processed People could revolutionize how we think about what we eat and the steps we take to finally get America’s obesity epidemic under control.
UPF now makes up as much as 60 per cent of the average diet in the UK and the USA. Many children, including my own, get most of their calories from these substances. UPF is our food culture, the stuff from which we construct our bodies. If you are reading this in Australia, Canada, the UK or the USA, this is your national diet.
Let’s define our terms. Our rule of thumb is that if a product contains ingredients that you wouldn’t find in a well-stocked kitchen, it’s probably UPF. For example, my peanut butter contains hydrogenated palm oil and my guava juice contains xanthan gum. This means that both of these products are technically UPF, as they contain ingredients that have been heavily processed.
UPF exists on a scale. A product may contain trace amounts of UPF ingredients, like these local food bars that contain soy protein isolate and vanilin, but are otherwise made from wholesome ingredients.
Or a product can be made almost entirely from processed materials. For example, look at this toxic sludge 👇 We sold these culinary abortions at the convenience store I managed when I was in college, and they’re so fucking foul that a single large bite was enough to make my stomach hurt. Ultra-Processed People refers to this crap as an “industrially produced edible substance,” and if you look at the ingredients list you’ll see why that label is justified.