Maintenance Phase - Ultra-Processed Foods

00:00:00.000 uh what do you have i have one too even though it's not my turn but what is yours

00:00:15.060 wait i want to know what yours no no no no no no i want to see what you do with it first

00:00:19.400 hi everybody and welcome to maintenance phase the podcast that's finding new and exciting ways to

00:00:24.640 stigmatize the foods you love oh that's good that's very direct on brand the other thing that

00:00:30.440 i thought about it as an opening is uh asking you what your favorite ultra processed food is

00:00:35.360 mine is smoked salmon oh nutella oh no mine was gonna be uh welcome to maintenance phase the

00:00:41.140 podcast that is finally going to tell the story of yellows one through four uh i'm michael humps

00:00:48.080 i'm aubrey gordon if you would like to support the show you can do that at patreon.com

00:00:54.160 slash maintenance phase or you can subscribe to premium episodes on apple podcasts it's the same

00:00:59.560 content same content michael ombre we're talking about ultra processed foods and this is a thing

00:01:05.060 that people are like sort of constantly asking us to cover asking us to talk about all of that sort

00:01:11.020 of stuff and i am fascinated to hear where we land well okay so the bad news is we have to start with

00:01:18.680 the same tedious caveat that we start every episode with. This is like my test of like,

00:01:24.420 can I do research without going down a bunch of like unnecessary rabbit holes and then cutting

00:01:28.740 like hours of footage out of the show? The one thing we're going to talk about is like the

00:01:33.480 definition of processed food. Oh my God, I can't wait. I think the core challenge of talking about

00:01:39.760 this in a nuanced way is that there are two definitions. There is the colloquial definition

00:01:44.280 of processed food, like when you are going about your business, you constantly hear people say,

00:01:49.020 like, I'm trying to avoid processed foods. It's one of those concepts that is sort of like,

00:01:52.120 I know it when I see it. That's what I was going to say is

00:01:54.540 revised tagline is, uh, welcome to maintenance phase, the podcast where like pornography,

00:01:59.860 we can't define ultra processed foods, but we know them when we see them.

00:02:04.980 Right. Like you kind of know that a Twinkie is like an ultra processed food. You know,

00:02:08.220 that wonder bread is an ultra processed food. And I, I want to say that like, as a colloquial

00:02:12.900 matter. I don't really police this stuff. Like if I'm with somebody and they say like, oh,

00:02:16.780 I'm trying to cut back on processed foods. I'm not like, how are you defining that?

00:02:20.220 The research disagrees with you.

00:02:22.520 Yeah. If you are a person who's trying to avoid processed foods, like you know what

00:02:26.520 that means. There's all kinds of kind of arbitrary concepts in our lives that we still

00:02:30.200 manage to live by. And I think this is totally fine. The question that we're trying to confront

00:02:34.740 on the show is like, is this useful as a scientific concept and as a concept that is

00:02:41.280 now driving policy. So there are numerous countries that are passing taxes on processed foods. We

00:02:46.620 talked in our last episode about how RFK Jr. potentially might want to remove, quote,

00:02:53.060 processed foods from food stamps. And so it's kind of fine to have a colloquial understanding

00:02:58.940 of a term that it's like a little murky or a little, you know, sort of changes depending on

00:03:02.300 the circumstances. But if we're going to be passing laws and if we're going to be putting

00:03:06.480 out studies that say, okay, ultra processed foods is associated with a 5% higher risk of

00:03:11.360 cardiovascular disease. We need to have a clear understanding of what this term means.

00:03:15.420 I also think there is a way that sort of processed food has come to act as a stand in for what folks

00:03:22.980 maybe previously would have referred to as quote unquote junk food. God damn it, Aubrey. This is 0.99

00:03:26.680 in my conclusion. Oh, shit. I'm so sorry. There's sort of an understanding that it might be uncouth 1.00

00:03:34.680 they're sort of judgmental to refer to some foods as quote unquote junk foods and processed sounds

00:03:40.480 like more technical or more descriptive or something to people. Fine, Aubrey, I'll scroll

00:03:45.560 down to the part of my notes where I have information about this. You know, I was thinking

00:03:49.340 about this episode last night and I was looking at my beloved bean shelf. Do my beans count as

00:03:54.520 ultra processed? What about I have a jar of barley? Is that ultra processed? The closer you get to

00:04:00.240 trying to find a line the murkier it gets right it's very sort of impressionist it makes sense

00:04:05.560 from a distance and then you get up close and you're like no the thing is the more i read about

00:04:09.980 this the more i actually i think i prefer the term junk food because when people say junk food you

00:04:16.180 know that it doesn't actually have a lot of informational content it basically just means

00:04:19.560 like food i don't like you're like okay everybody's going to define it differently whereas processed

00:04:23.760 food feels objective. Yeah. But like, it turns out to be like, just as arbitrary. It just sounds

00:04:30.480 less arbitrary. There is something that is genuinely helpful about people just sort of

00:04:35.800 owning up to their judgments and biases, because then you actually can have a conversation about

00:04:40.560 it. Exactly. Versus someone who goes, Oh, it's not junk food. It's ultra processed foods.

00:04:44.420 Totally. Where they just sort of keep sort of seeking a new refuge from any kind of conversation

00:04:49.480 about how they actually feel?

00:04:51.080 So the first thing to know about the term processed food

00:04:54.240 is that it's been around like much longer than I knew.

00:04:57.060 So I went on that like Google gram thing

00:04:59.760 that is like, how much is this term being used?

00:05:01.500 The first reference that it has for processed food

00:05:04.120 is from 1912.

00:05:05.820 You can find old articles in like the New York Times

00:05:08.240 like decrying processed food and how it's harming people.

00:05:12.280 One of the first articles I found was from 1970

00:05:15.580 called Bread is Fatal to Rats.

00:05:19.480 but that's not the point.

00:05:20.900 Wait, wait, wait, Mike.

00:05:24.240 Are you doing a rat soundboard right now?

00:05:26.700 No, I'm not.

00:05:27.180 I'm not doing a soundboard. 0.98

00:05:30.760 I'm trying to find my fucking Zoom window 0.99

00:05:33.000 to turn on the camera. 0.99

00:05:34.580 Oh, wow.

00:05:35.820 When is this from?

00:05:36.560 This appears to be from the 50s.

00:05:38.400 I found this in an antique shop.

00:05:40.120 It's a print that says

00:05:41.980 bread helps to keep up your energy.

00:05:45.200 In this sensible reducing diet,

00:05:47.500 bread helps burn up safely the fat you lose. Dude, bring back this graphic design. It looks

00:05:53.060 dope. It's so wordy. It's like all these words and then like people at a prom or something

00:05:58.780 because they ate bread. Also, now I want a rat soundboard. Sorry. This is okay. I know I said

00:06:03.040 I wasn't going to go down rabbit holes and shit, but the first paragraph of this article is for 0.99

00:06:08.200 what may be the 1000th time, the question of whether or not rats can live on nothing but 0.98

00:06:13.720 ordinary white bread has been raised once again i'm like is that is that something we were raising

00:06:20.040 a lot in the 1970s sorry are we coming back to this one a bunch just like a first date question

00:06:26.020 where are you from do you have any siblings can rats live on bread if a tree falls in the woods

00:06:31.340 around to hear it doesn't make a sound can rats live on bread so this is a study where they fed

00:06:37.520 rats like ordinary white bread of course like refined flour you know they remove a lot of the

00:06:41.160 fiber, a lot of the nutrients, etc. If you feed rats just white bread, they do die. Like they

00:06:46.280 starve to death basically because there's not enough nutrients. However, if you feed them an

00:06:50.620 enriched white bread that has these vitamins and minerals put back in, they live. But what's

00:06:57.040 interesting to me is like in this article from the very beginning of this term, nobody could

00:07:02.380 really define what processing is because one way to think about it is like, okay, you're processing

00:07:06.800 the wheat you're taking out all the nutrients but also boiling down foods to get the nutrients out

00:07:12.100 and turning them into powders and putting them into bread is also processing it's arguably 100

00:07:17.420 more processing yeah this is just a different kind of processing so it's like everyone uses

00:07:23.060 the term process just to mean like food i don't like food that i think is bad right absolutely

00:07:27.720 like there are very few definitions of processed foods in terms of the like colloquial usage that

00:07:33.800 would include like olive oil. This does actually get to like the biggest problem with the term and

00:07:38.640 the biggest problem with like efforts to define it. So the term becomes much more popular in the

00:07:43.000 early 2000s, especially with like the rise of Michael Pollan. I went back to the omnivores

00:07:47.160 dilemma for this and like he refers to processed foods many times, but he doesn't refer to ultra

00:07:51.600 processed foods. The term ultra processed is coined in 2009 by a Brazilian researcher named

00:07:58.260 Carlos Montero, who had been doing kind of field work in Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s,

00:08:04.060 originally on malnutrition. But he was noticing with these poor populations,

00:08:08.620 eventually the problem of malnutrition had started to shift to what he calls overnutrition.

00:08:13.340 You basically have, as the Brazilian economy is developing, there's more of these like

00:08:16.700 commercial foods being produced and traditional diets are starting to give way to like, you know,

00:08:21.740 sodas and Twinkies and all the kind of stuff we associate with ultra processed foods.

00:08:25.480 So in 2009, he puts out the first use of this term in academia, ultra-processed, and also an attempt to define it.

00:08:34.800 So this is a paper called The Issue is Not Food Nor Nutrients, So Much as Processing.

00:08:41.160 So I'm going to send you the first couple paragraphs.

00:08:43.580 It is now generally acknowledged that the current pandemic of obesity and related chronic diseases has, as one of its important causes, increased consumption of convenience and pre-prepared foods.

00:08:57.340 However, the issue of food processing is largely ignored or minimized in education and information about food, nutrition and health, and also in public health policies.

00:09:07.060 So this is happening in the context of the shifting understanding of food, right?

00:09:11.620 That the original understanding of like, quote unquote, unhealthy food was food that was

00:09:15.200 high in saturated fats, right?

00:09:16.560 We talked about this coming out of the 1950s.

00:09:18.320 It was like, we need to cut down on fat.

00:09:19.720 Then in the early 2000s, we get this stigmatization of sugar and carbs.

00:09:24.120 And so what Monteiro is saying is like, we need a more holistic understanding of this,

00:09:28.900 that it's not just like you measure the grams of sugar and then you're like, this food is

00:09:32.280 level eight bad.

00:09:33.320 Like that's really one dimensional.

00:09:35.040 we need a three-dimensional understanding and that comes from understanding the way that the

00:09:39.740 food is made basically god the whole time you're talking about this i'm just thinking about other

00:09:43.740 foods that are ultra processed protein protein powder protein powder that's ultra we're getting

00:09:49.860 there we're getting there we're getting athletic greens you read two more paragraphs aubrey and

00:09:54.280 then we'll get to the fun part which is us trying to define what ultra processed food is dunking on

00:09:59.140 fuel. Yeah, exactly. Fuck you, moon dust. So I'm sending you these paragraphs about where he lays

00:10:07.420 out like, what is the problem with ultra processed foods? Modern diets usually do contain some

00:10:13.440 unprocessed plant foods and meat and milk, but also keep several of the unhealthy features of

00:10:18.760 the processed ingredients they are mostly based on low nutrient density, little dietary fiber,

00:10:24.600 and excess simple carbohydrates, saturated fats, sodium, and trans fatty acids. What makes snacks,

00:10:31.820 drinks, dishes, and meals mainly made up from the ultra processed foods different from traditional

00:10:36.740 dishes and meals is that they are inalterable. They come ready to eat or heat. Diets that include

00:10:43.920 a lot of ultra processed foods are intrinsically nutritionally unbalanced and intrinsically harmful

00:10:49.740 to health well now hang on are you gonna are you gonna mention exactly what i was about to say

00:10:56.520 like you can say this but we just talked about like enriched flour and enriched cereals right

00:11:02.480 that like growing up yes absolutely breakfast cereal was kind of everywhere but all of that

00:11:08.220 breakfast cereal was like very prominently labeled as being enriched with vitamin a vitamin c vitamin

00:11:14.720 I don't know that you can argue necessarily that it's intrinsically nutritionally unbalanced.

00:11:22.620 Again, athletic greens is an ultra processed food that advertises itself as being nutritionally balanced, right?

00:11:31.620 There's also this core problem that you find in like every single paper about this where it says, okay, it's not about the nutrients.

00:11:38.280 It's not about what's inside of the food.

00:11:39.880 It's about the processes by which the foods are made.

00:11:42.300 and then it's like okay why are ultra processed foods bad it's about what's in the food so he's

00:11:47.120 saying they're high in fat they're high in sugar and they're calorie dense oh my god mike are we

00:11:52.020 gonna end up doing the reporting version of that briars commercial from the 90s where they made a

00:11:58.120 little kid try to read the ingredients on a bucket of ice cream oh that was a briars commercial i

00:12:02.900 actually looked up the ingredients of briars for this episode yeah because they were like but look

00:12:06.300 at briars and the kid is like milk cream sugar guar gum that kid could pronounce guar gum

00:12:11.680 it just really feels like that's sort of where we're headed we finally get to like the meat of 0.83

00:12:18.080 this paper and like just such fucking mic bait the attempt to actually operationally define

00:12:25.020 what ultra processed food is so he proposes in 2009 this classification that has three groups 0.86

00:12:30.920 every single person who writes about ultra processed food has like the same paragraph

00:12:35.980 where they're like, well, all food is processed.

00:12:39.060 Slicing up an apple is processing it, but it has no nutritional content whatsoever.

00:12:43.940 But also like Pringles, like making like a slurry of potato

00:12:48.780 and then shaping it into like chip shape is also processing.

00:12:52.740 It's like this term encompasses such a wide range of activities

00:12:56.220 that it's probably better to just find a different term.

00:12:58.800 So he does acknowledge this.

00:13:00.780 So the first group in his classification is minimally processed foods

00:13:05.460 or unprocessed foods, obvious stuff, right?

00:13:08.240 Of like, you pick an apple from the tree

00:13:09.500 and it's like a group one food, right?

00:13:11.540 But then he also acknowledges

00:13:13.380 that even these foods include processing.

00:13:17.020 So he says, such processes include cleaning,

00:13:20.500 removal of inedible fractions,

00:13:22.700 portioning, refrigeration, freezing,

00:13:25.300 pasteurization, fermenting, pre-cooking,

00:13:28.300 drying, skimming, bottling, and packaging.

00:13:30.980 Skim milk process.

00:13:32.260 This is the problem.

00:13:33.340 is it's like he's saying these are forms of processing but like they don't count

00:13:37.560 it's not about whether foods are processed it's about like the intensity of the processing yeah

00:13:41.980 it just feels real goofy to be like the dried beans are not processed but you put them in a

00:13:48.820 can and then they are so that is group one these are these are foods that are like they're processed

00:13:53.820 yeah but they're not like ultra processed so they're they're gonna look the other way yeah

00:13:58.520 They're fine, right?

00:13:59.700 Yeah.

00:14:00.000 Group two is substances extracted from whole foods.

00:14:05.380 So this is anything like, you know, refining flour.

00:14:09.160 Oh, is that my olive oil?

00:14:10.280 Yes, this is olive oil.

00:14:11.100 So when you press olives, you get oil out of them.

00:14:13.360 This is, again, also a form of processing, but it's not like the bad kind of processing.

00:14:17.940 You're basically making ingredients out of whole foods.

00:14:20.720 So he says, traditionally, they are ingredients used in the domestic preparation and cooking of dishes,

00:14:25.960 mainly made up of fresh and minimally processed foods.

00:14:29.380 Because all of this is based on his work with like traditional families and like rural poor

00:14:34.480 populations in Brazil, what he's really trying to do with this classification is separate

00:14:38.300 kind of traditional food practices from modern food practices, right?

00:14:42.860 This is a critique of the modern food system.

00:14:45.760 And so what he's doing with group one and two is like, well, yeah, you know, if you

00:14:49.480 look at like a poor family in rural Brazil, like they might be using some flour.

00:14:54.740 They're probably using some oil when they like sauté vegetables.

00:14:57.240 They're using spices.

00:14:58.720 Technically, that's processing, but that's not the kind of processing that is going to be harmful to health.

00:15:02.740 These are like traditional practices, right?

00:15:04.940 But then he contrasts this with group three, which is ultra-processed foods.

00:15:10.540 So we're finally getting to the definition of ultra-processed foods.

00:15:13.620 So here is this.

00:15:16.580 These are made up of group two substances to which either no or relatively small amounts of minimally processed foods are added.

00:15:24.220 plus salt and other preservatives, and often also cosmetic additives, such as flavors and colors.

00:15:31.380 This group of foods includes breads, cookies, ice creams, chocolates, candies, breakfast cereals,

00:15:36.500 cereal bars, potato chips, and savory and also sweet snack products in general,

00:15:42.280 and sugared and other soft drinks. That's the kind of you-know-it-when-you-see-it thing.

00:15:46.520 Meat products such as nuggets, hot dogs, burgers, and sausages made from processed or extruded

00:15:51.700 remnants of meat can also be classified as ultra processed foods. Boy, if anyone ever describes

00:15:58.940 anything I'm eating as extruded remnants of meat. I mean, that's what they are. It's true. And I

00:16:05.960 don't want to hear it. I know. Don't think about it. Ultra processed foods are basically confections

00:16:12.520 of group two ingredients, typically combined with sophisticated use of additives to make them

00:16:17.620 edible palatable and habit forming they have no real resemblance to group one foods although they

00:16:23.660 may be shaped labeled and marketed so as to seem wholesome and quote-unquote fresh unlike the

00:16:29.560 ingredients included in group two ultra processed foods are typically not consumed with or as part

00:16:35.200 of minimally processed foods dishes and meals they are designed to be ready to eat sometimes with

00:16:41.400 addition of liquids such as milk, or ready to heat, and are often consumed alone or in

00:16:47.140 combination, such as savory snacks with soft drinks, bread with burgers. It really feels

00:16:53.060 like a very vibey definition. The core definition is that ultra-processed foods are made up of group

00:16:59.620 two substances to which either no or relatively small amounts of minimally processed foods are

00:17:06.120 added. So the idea is that these products are majority like oil and fat, like something like

00:17:12.480 Nutella, which is like 13% hazelnuts. And effectively everything else is just like oil

00:17:18.280 and sugar. But Michael, that's not typically consumed with or as part of minimally processed

00:17:23.820 foods, dishes and meals, which means I'm sorry, you never have dipped a banana into Nutella.

00:17:30.380 You know, earlier he said like the problem with ultra processed foods, right, is that they're very

00:17:34.020 high in sugar. They're high in fat. They're very calorie dense. But then he includes things in

00:17:38.440 ultra processed here that are not particularly high in sugar or fat or energy dense. Like all

00:17:43.500 breads, you're including tortillas. This also excludes a lot of foods. This definition does

00:17:48.740 not include potato chips because like I looked at Lay's potato chips, like Lay's original potato

00:17:53.980 chips have three ingredients. It's potatoes, oil, and salt. And like lots of French fries

00:17:58.740 also are just three ingredients, right? It's potatoes, oil, and salt. That's kind of like

00:18:03.500 the canonical food of, like, you shouldn't be eating so many potato chips. You shouldn't be

00:18:07.600 eating French fries. But those actually count as minimally processed foods under this definition.

00:18:12.080 Yeah.

00:18:12.360 You're saying ultra-processed foods are bad for you. But then you have this definition of

00:18:16.000 ultra-processed foods that includes a lot of foods that are not particularly bad for you.

00:18:20.260 And then you have this definition of unprocessed foods that includes a ton of foods that are bad

00:18:23.900 for you. Or, like, at least they're calorie-dense, energy-dense. I was thinking because he includes

00:18:28.100 milk in the sort of unprocessed category like a creme brulee would count as like unprocessed

00:18:34.260 even though it's extremely calorie dense it's still mostly cream right yeah and just so very

00:18:39.880 similar ingredients wise to like ice cream ice cream always makes the list of ultra processed

00:18:45.020 foods but like i looked this up haagen-dazs ice cream has five ingredients it's like cream sugar

00:18:49.820 vanilla there's nothing you can't pronounce in there as a person who occasionally makes ice

00:18:54.460 cream. There's not much to it. But then the second problem with this definition is that

00:18:59.280 it includes these concepts that are just not related to human nutrition. So he goes into

00:19:06.420 this whole thing that the real problem with ultra processed foods is that they're profit

00:19:10.900 maximizing. They're produced by large corporations. They're these kind of international commodities.

00:19:15.780 Ah, yes. More vibes. Exactly. So he says ultra processed products are typically branded,

00:19:22.880 distributed internationally and globally heavily advertised and marketed and very profitable 0.99

00:19:27.460 but the problem with this is that fucking like fruits and vegetables and food that is good for 0.99

00:19:32.760 you is also very profitable and also produced by fucking international global corporations like if 1.00

00:19:38.080 you go to the grocery store and get strawberries they're going to be from fucking driscoll's driscoll's 0.99

00:19:42.660 is like a massive corporation i mean i think here's the interesting thing here there is a critique to 0.97

00:19:48.340 be had about the behavior of any number of multinational corporations. That criticism

00:19:56.000 of corporate behavior isn't the same thing as proving that there are negative health effects

00:20:00.300 as a result of that bad corporate behavior. Again, they're trying to kind of ride the coattails of

00:20:06.500 like, this kind of makes sense to you, right? Yeah. You kind of know that corporations are

00:20:10.760 like bad, so they're probably also bad for your health, right? We found this in the Michael

00:20:13.860 Pollan book too, that people keep presenting these dietary choices as somehow like a break

00:20:19.400 from capitalism or somehow virtuous in all of these other larger economic ways. And they just

00:20:24.920 aren't. Food can be healthy and produced by miserable corporations. This is the way that

00:20:30.660 we've chosen to structure our economy. You cannot escape from this by buying virtuous food. I think

00:20:35.820 this is a huge mistake in the way that people frame this stuff. And if you can, then the escape

00:20:41.180 is only an escape that is available to people who can afford it exactly maybe the push then should

00:20:46.860 be a we first have to establish that there is hard and fast evidence that this is like actively

00:20:52.320 uniquely bad for you and b then i think the task becomes then you like regulate healthier products

00:21:00.080 so as we just covered like this this definition is like not all that useful i i think this paper

00:21:06.500 is like actually quite bad like kind of shockingly bad considering it like began this entire field

00:21:11.360 like it's just obvious contradictions you know that i love like a petty like academic paper

00:21:17.580 opera you know i love like peer-reviewed like hmm interesting you and i both love the big brother

00:21:24.080 house aspect exactly of academia absolutely so i found an article on all of the ways that they had

00:21:31.320 to change the definition of this term over time between 2009 and 2017 they changed the definition

00:21:38.340 of ultra processed foods seven times yeah that tracks and there's this article called ultra

00:21:43.760 processed foods definitions and policy issues by michael j gibney that follows all of these changes

00:21:49.320 in like a super petty but also very useful way oh it's our weight watchers episode yes you're the

00:21:56.280 17 different diets that Weight Watchers has been.

00:21:59.000 So in 2010, the definition of ultra processed foods is updated to durable, accessible, convenient

00:22:07.020 and palatable, ready to eat or ready to heat food products liable to be consumed as snacks

00:22:13.380 or desserts or to replace home prepared dishes.

00:22:16.640 I like that they keep throwing in highly palatable, which is just like if it tastes good, it's

00:22:21.100 one of these.

00:22:22.160 The other like the first thing that jumped out to me about this the first time I read

00:22:25.580 is this ready to eat thing where it's like these are often ready to eat but like do you know what 0.66

00:22:29.660 else is ready to eat a fucking apple totally and some of that is like a grilled chicken breast 0.94

00:22:35.800 that's cut up and thrown in a package at the grocery store and then you pick up right so like 0.98

00:22:40.640 to refer to a food like that while conjuring an image of just like a heap of like hostess cupcakes

00:22:47.500 and cheetos right feels misleading in a way that really verges on deliberate here there's also

00:22:54.380 the thing you know it says it says they're they're intended to replace home prepared dishes

00:22:58.420 but also this is not a biological concept the purpose of making food does not affect your body

00:23:04.380 differently if i'm eating a brownie to replace a meal that doesn't make the brownie like affect

00:23:09.400 my body differently it's like again we're just throwing in these concepts that are not actually

00:23:13.380 related to nutrition at least let's just be honest about what we're grappling with exactly you

00:23:18.600 already know which foods it is it's the foods you already don't trust right and you already

00:23:23.380 And you know who eats those foods and it's people who probably make less money than you do.

00:23:28.200 We then in 2012 get another update where ultra processed foods are defined as

00:23:32.580 these are formulated mostly or entirely from ingredients and typically contain no whole foods.

00:23:39.280 So this is yet another like message that you see in this world, even in like academic articles.

00:23:43.980 It's like they're not even food.

00:23:45.560 They're like edible food like substances.

00:23:47.620 Right.

00:23:47.800 This is the frankenfoods.

00:23:49.720 Yeah, I'm sorry, but, like, a Dorito is mostly corn.

00:23:53.660 I'm sorry.

00:23:54.800 Yeah, I mean, to your point earlier about Lay's, another one of those is Fritos, where you're like, oh, it's just corn and oil and salt?

00:24:01.200 So, okay, so finally, we finally—this is the whole episode, Aubrey.

00:24:05.620 Just walking through definitions.

00:24:07.440 Technical definitions.

00:24:08.620 Walking through definitions.

00:24:09.960 These efforts go on for, like, a decade to, like, try to come up with a classification.

00:24:14.400 they finally in 2017 come up with what's called the nova classification which is now what is used

00:24:20.880 in all of the studies and from three groups they've now made it four groups there was a period

00:24:26.600 where they're like 3a and 3b or whatever but now they're just like fuck it there's four groups

00:24:30.720 so i'm gonna send you a jpeg of like the current definitions and some examples group one is

00:24:39.160 unprocessed or minimally processed foods naturally occurring foods with no added salt sugar oils or

00:24:44.800 fats group two is processed culinary ingredients group three is processed foods defined as food

00:24:52.340 products made by adding sugar oil and or salt to create simple products from unprocessed or

00:24:58.660 minimally processed foods with increased shelf life or enhanced taste and then the last one is

00:25:04.440 like a brick yeah and that is the definition of ultra processed foods industrially created food

00:25:11.720 products created with the addition of multiple ingredients that may include some group two

00:25:16.720 ingredients as well as additives to enhance the taste and or convenience of the product

00:25:22.020 such as hydrolyzed proteins soy protein isolate maltodextrin high fructose corn syrup stabilizers

00:25:29.520 flavor enhancers, non-sugar sweeteners, and processing aids such as stabilizers

00:25:35.140 and bulking and anti-bulking agents. They're industrially created food products created with

00:25:41.400 the addition of multiple ingredients to enhance taste and or convenience. The examples here are

00:25:47.140 commercially produced breads, rolls, cakes, cookies, donuts, breakfast cereals, soy burgers,

00:25:52.900 flavored yogurts, ready-to-heat meals such as frozen pizzas, soft drinks, and candy.

00:25:58.520 Soft drinks are not ready to heat.

00:26:00.420 I know, it's such a weird...

00:26:01.680 The order that they're doing it in is weird.

00:26:04.180 The people who are doing this defining are not writers.

00:26:07.220 I'll say that.

00:26:08.160 I think the greatest challenge that they come up with is this thing of there's processed foods, which are fine, and then there's ultra-processed foods, which are bad.

00:26:17.300 Yeah.

00:26:17.760 This is like, I think, what they spent 10 years kind of trying to figure out, because obviously everything is processed.

00:26:22.560 and there's stuff like cheese which is produced in like a very processing kind of process god

00:26:28.800 damn it but they don't want to call that bad for you because that's kind of traditional or

00:26:34.200 kind of virtuous i guess so that's in like group three yeah it just feels like so clearly such a 0.99

00:26:40.220 a line drawing exercise around like how do i keep in the things i like and cut out the things i don't

00:26:46.480 there's also the one that really stuck out to me the first time i saw this was in group three which

00:26:50.600 again is good you have freshly made bread and then in group four which is bad you have commercially

00:26:57.400 produced bread yeah again these are not nutritional concepts something can be made in very large

00:27:04.000 batches and also be very good for you and the other way around and like at what point does 0.95

00:27:09.900 bread become commercially produced on some level all fucking bread is commercially produced i bought 0.98

00:27:14.020 it at the bakery well also group four talks about like high fructose corn syrup but group two 0.92

00:27:20.980 includes honey and maple syrup yeah exactly so what is the metabolic difference right it feels

00:27:27.240 like they're trying to have like a hundred sort of like scientific conversations at once and i'm

00:27:32.640 like no dudes you got to go through beat by beat and be like here's the problem with emulsifiers

00:27:37.540 and why they might be bad for your health here's the evidence for that here's why honey is different

00:27:43.420 than high fructose corn syrup it isn't also aubrey what no one even like in academia can can

00:27:50.600 fucking agree on what the four groups are i have seen honey in all four groups good yes no one can

00:27:57.680 decide this is when i turn into that like elmo in front of flames like yes yes there's also i mean 0.97

00:28:04.960 maybe this is me being annoying but like i also kind of object to like cakes and cookies being

00:28:11.340 in ultra-processed because like yeah some cakes and cookies are ultra-processed but some cakes

00:28:16.880 and cookies you bake at home with like five ingredients and surely the whole point of a 0.91

00:28:21.380 fucking processing scale is to organize foods according to how processed they are like the 0.95

00:28:27.900 processes by which they are made you just have like all cakes and all cookies are in here 0.99

00:28:33.480 presumably because they're very high in fat and high in sugar but then if we're just putting in 0.92

00:28:37.400 all foods that are high in fat and sugar then why isn't this just the fucking how high are foods in 0.87

00:28:40.940 fat and sugar scale you could also argue that like while they've got like cookies in group four 0.95

00:28:46.880 that if you're talking about macarons those are made with ground up almonds instead of wheat

00:28:52.980 flour so does that mean that they're sugar nuts they're really trying to put a real fine point

00:28:58.420 on it but in the process of so doing they are revealing how blunt that point is i could yell

00:29:03.900 that on the internet for saying this the other day but like there's also the thing of like ultra

00:29:07.060 processed foods are characterized by the addition of multiple ingredients and then they list like

00:29:11.700 maldodextrin and all this kind of stuff. But am I losing my mind, Aubrey? Ingredients are not the

00:29:16.660 same as processing. Like if I make bread with like water, flour, yeast, and cyanide, that's not bad

00:29:24.560 because it's processed. Like the process of making that is precisely the same as if it wasn't

00:29:29.620 poisonous. The reason it's poisonous is because of the ingredient. None of this stuff is processed.

00:29:34.040 it's like if the ingredients are bad then it's bad for you but then the whole the the original

00:29:39.840 article that kicked all this off was like it's not what's in the food it's the process but then

00:29:44.620 they define it and it's like oh so it is what's in the food it really mimics the kind of way that

00:29:49.080 i feel myself behaving when i'm looking for like shampoo or something and the container will say

00:29:54.380 like no parabens and no phthalates and i'm like i don't know what those things are but it seems good

00:29:59.840 But they don't have them. And you're like, sort of creating this weird, deliberate Byzantine

00:30:06.140 definition that carves out all the things that you trust and leaves in all the things that you

00:30:11.740 don't trust. So okay, so that was the sort of decade long, and I think unsuccessful effort

00:30:17.220 to define what this term means. We then in 2019, get the first evidence that this category of food

00:30:24.620 is uniquely bad. So this comes from a researcher named Kevin Hall, who was previously a physicist,

00:30:31.300 but sort of drifted into diet research. He was the guy that wrote the Biggest Loser study,

00:30:36.700 the study that found that like their metabolisms were still hella slow, like years after they were

00:30:41.320 on The Biggest Loser. He, in 2015, meets Carlos Montero at a conference. And Montero is like,

00:30:49.140 you're looking at this the wrong way. You shouldn't be looking at nutrients. You should

00:30:52.260 be looking at processing according to the lore he's like i don't really buy this i don't i don't

00:30:58.300 know about this whole ultra process thing i'm gonna design a study to disprove this concept

00:31:03.800 and then he like accidentally ends up proving the concept i feel like what you're ramping up for is

00:31:09.820 like what i was ramping up for when i was like richard simmons says he got a book deal by sitting

00:31:14.400 next to someone yeah i don't have concrete evidence to be like no that definitely didn't

00:31:19.580 happen but i'm gonna go out on a limb and be like but really doesn't happen so the way that he does

00:31:24.800 this is he gets a grant from the nih to basically take 20 people and like lock them in a room not

00:31:32.720 really but like metaphorically and monitor their diets and so what he does is he gives them for

00:31:38.740 two weeks a unprocessed diet so like completely whole foods and then for the next two weeks he

00:31:44.900 gives them a ultra processed diet. And he switches this to like 10 people start with unprocessed and

00:31:50.580 then go to processed. 10 people start with processed and then go to unprocessed. So that

00:31:53.560 way he's like flipping them around. They're given this food and they have 60 minutes to eat as much

00:31:58.240 of it as they want. And then when they're done, the researchers take it and they weigh it to see

00:32:02.040 exactly like gram by gram, exactly how much of it did they eat. So that way they can measure their

00:32:06.040 intake. And then of course, there's like a ton of tests at the beginning and at the end.

00:32:09.740 You and I have talked about sort of like, there are a couple of ways to do nutrition research.

00:32:13.340 and one is like in a lab in a vacuum, it gets you much more limited in scope kind of data,

00:32:21.060 or you can go sort of larger scale, more longitudinal, but that's usually dependent

00:32:26.180 on self-reports and people sort of like adhering based on the honor code.

00:32:31.440 Yes.

00:32:31.920 So much of what I've heard about processed foods is about long-term health effects.

00:32:36.860 Aubrey, are you saying you can't measure the long-term effect of lifestyle on health in two

00:32:41.400 weeks with 20 people. I, Aubrey, I don't know. Mike, I'm not a scientist. Have you co-hosted

00:32:48.880 the show? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Let me just make you read the description

00:32:54.800 of the results. This is from a New Yorker article by Drew Kular. When participants were on the

00:33:00.600 ultra-processed diet, they ate 500 calories more per day and put on an average of two pounds.

00:33:07.560 They ate meals faster.

00:33:09.220 Their bodies secreted more insulin.

00:33:11.580 Their blood contained more glucose.

00:33:14.220 When participants were on the minimally processed diet, they lost about two pounds.

00:33:19.580 Researchers observed a rise in levels of an appetite-suppressing hormone and a decline in one that makes us feel hungry.

00:33:26.740 So this is very decisive.

00:33:27.900 It's like people who ate ultra-processed foods gained a bunch of weight.

00:33:31.200 They ate more.

00:33:32.200 All of these markers got worse.

00:33:33.640 The unprocessed people, they did great.

00:33:35.840 They lost weight.

00:33:36.520 they felt awesome. This study, when it comes out, is like, it's wild how popular the study was. The

00:33:42.500 study has been cited 1,200 times. Yeah. And I don't know, this feels sort of like the glycemic

00:33:49.160 index all over again, which is like a teeny tiny group of people have a specific response to a food

00:33:56.360 or group of foods. And that then somehow becomes like conventional wisdom in really short order.

00:34:02.860 This study is so much worse than just the fact that it was two weeks.

00:34:07.760 So the whole kind of point of a study like this is to hold everything else constant and only look at the effect of quote-unquote processing. 0.91

00:34:15.760 But then if you read the fucking text of the study, that was not remotely true. 0.64

00:34:19.580 The ultra-processed diet had twice the energy density of the unprocessed diet. 0.98

00:34:26.080 It had twice the saturated fat, and it had 1.5 times more sugar.

00:34:29.980 So these are not equivalent diets at the most basic level. 0.99

00:34:33.680 And this is like in the fucking study. 0.98

00:34:35.860 You're like one group had a green salad and the other one had like a value meal from Wendy's. 0.99

00:34:40.880 And the ones who had a value meal from Wendy's gained weight.

00:34:44.160 Would you believe it?

00:34:45.180 Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey. 0.98

00:34:46.700 Oh no, is it going to be a fucking biggie size Frosty? 0.96

00:34:50.560 Is that what we're about to talk about? 0.97

00:34:51.820 The supplementary material of this study includes the daily menu.

00:34:57.140 So for every day, it includes specifically what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

00:35:00.800 with photos.

00:35:01.720 Go-Gurt.

00:35:02.260 I am about to send you.

00:35:03.480 Pudding packs.

00:35:04.720 We're going to do day two dinner.

00:35:06.600 Unprocessed menu, day two, dinner, stir-fried beef tender roast with broccoli, onions, sweet

00:35:14.460 peppers, ginger, garlic, and olive oil, basmati rice, orange slices, pecan halves, and salt

00:35:22.040 and pepper.

00:35:22.580 So it's like a nice dinner of like, I guess essentially like a stir-fry.

00:35:26.000 Yeah.

00:35:26.180 sauteed vegetables sauteed beef it looks nice right sure and then we have day two processed

00:35:34.360 what what are you just the visual okay the visual is so fucking funny it is two whole 0.62

00:35:44.460 chicken salad sandwiches for dinner white bread dinner a cup that appears to be an entire can 0.85

00:35:52.920 of canned peaches in

00:35:54.980 heavy syrup. In heavy syrup. You get

00:35:56.940 two Keebler shortbread

00:35:58.940 cookies and four Fig

00:36:00.860 Newtons. And then you get

00:36:02.840 five crystal

00:36:05.200 lights with

00:36:07.100 fiber added.

00:36:09.380 Even in my

00:36:10.780 darkest days of like 0.99

00:36:12.900 80s, 90s, low-fat fucking 0.99

00:36:15.060 dieting, I did not get through 0.99

00:36:16.600 five crystal lights

00:36:18.960 in one day. This is actually the reason

00:36:21.080 why the energy density is so different between the two diets is because I think in an effort

00:36:26.540 to hold the fiber constant, there's no fiber in ultra-processed foods. It's like one of the things

00:36:31.040 that makes them ultra-processed foods. So the only way to get participants fiber was to basically

00:36:35.840 give them sodas every day with like fiber supplements in them. So these are diet lemonade,

00:36:42.100 but oftentimes it's just like juice or like a little smoothie or milkshake, something like that.

00:36:45.980 But like there are drinks with every meal for the ultra processed people.

00:36:50.300 There are no drinks for the unprocessed meal.

00:36:52.560 Every once in a while they get a milk or something, but like they're not getting like diet sodas or anything.

00:36:57.220 So that's a that's a huge difference between the two diets.

00:37:00.400 If you were sitting down to make yourself a meal, the chances that you that like most people would make two whole sandwiches and eat an entire can of peach.

00:37:11.820 it like right it just is it's not representative of like how people eat well also the thing that

00:37:18.220 really stuck out to me is that there are three desserts with this meal there are cookies there

00:37:24.280 are fig newtons and there's a can of peaches in syrup yeah almost every single meal of the older

00:37:29.940 processed comes with like cookies or shortbread or like some sort of like pudding there are no

00:37:35.980 desserts with any of the unprocessed meals yeah the other like really striking thing about this

00:37:42.100 is that they're not the same meal they're completely different if you want to do a

00:37:47.340 one-to-one on your ultra processed you get the like i don't know stouffer's version of like beef

00:37:54.040 and broccoli exactly okay let's go head to head with similar dishes this is the thing it's like

00:37:59.320 what they're actually fucking doing they're they're calling this a test of like our ultra

00:38:03.020 processed foods worse for you but it's literally it's like you give one group of people salads it's 0.98

00:38:07.360 like a lot of salads you give another group of people fucking cookies and you're like oh my god 0.96

00:38:12.040 the people ate more cookies therefore ultra processed foods are bad for you right you gave 0.97

00:38:16.340 them six cookies with every meal yeah i actually think there's like a huge missed opportunity here

00:38:22.080 because something people always talk about in this field is it like well pizza isn't necessarily bad

00:38:27.380 for you right if it's if it's a frozen pizza from the grocery outlet then it's bad for you

00:38:31.660 but if it's like artisanal and there's only three ingredients in the dough and it's like lovingly 0.98

00:38:35.960 made then it is good for you right it doesn't have to be bad yeah so why didn't you fucking

00:38:40.180 test that hypothesis can we look at their final meal they're like the the goodbye meal the farewell 0.84

00:38:46.660 um is that it sorry i have so many i have so many files called supplementary material i have no

00:38:54.500 doubt oh there it is day seven dinner it was only seven days i thought it was 14 i think they must

00:39:01.480 are repeated oh they repeated yeah yeah yeah yeah okay the ultra processed menu for day seven dinner 0.93

00:39:07.800 is it looks so bad also again there's fucking two desserts is made for a child yeah it really is 0.83

00:39:17.600 all of them are it is two pb and j's that are packed to the gills yeah they really are like 0.96

00:39:24.060 overflowing two cups of two percent milk with fiber added wolf horrible and then you get a

00:39:31.500 snack pack of chocolate pudding graham crackers baked cheetos that's the way you disappoint

00:39:39.340 everyone they're the color of like glow sticks at a rave they're the color of delicious

00:39:44.860 i hate cheetos dude oh my god i love dude anything with powdered cheese anything with

00:39:53.640 powdered cheese i love it so much there's there's these long sections of these articles where they're

00:39:58.880 like people can't stop eating doritos and i'm like really day seven dinner unprocessed menu

00:40:05.620 what you're seeing is a pretty sizable bowl of pasta it looks like a salad with a side salad

00:40:11.940 it does this is my nightmare aubrey this is it this is where i flip over the table also with a

00:40:19.680 side salad of green leaf lettuce baby carrots and broccoli can't have too much salad apparently

00:40:24.720 god it's raw broccoli too wow i wonder why people ate 500 fewer calories wow

00:40:31.560 we give them the most boring food imaginable uh they're not listing the giant bowl of grapes you 0.97

00:40:38.180 gluttons i guess that's the dessert it seems visually like there's an implication here 0.94

00:40:43.460 like if you weren't having two cookies you would be eating a bowl of grapes and i'm like i just

00:40:49.540 don't think that's how people think and eat but also if the title of the study was like people

00:40:54.140 eat more cookies than grapes i'd be like yeah yeah i don't know that this says anything about

00:41:00.480 processed versus unprocessed foods these are different foods but listen if you sort of

00:41:05.400 scrape off this top layer of like, sort of window dressing kind of stuff around like,

00:41:12.260 we're actually concerned about long term health conditions, we're actually concerned about blah,

00:41:15.540 blah, blah. Most of those things are things like diabetes, like heart disease and things that we

00:41:20.620 associate with fat people. So I think part of what you're seeing here is an assumption about

00:41:25.800 how fat people eat. Yeah, and how poor people eat. Okay, so that was the experimental study that was

00:41:34.420 that was the attempt to prove that ultra-processed food is bad for you like in a lab. We then of

00:41:40.180 course get a huge wave of observational studies. You can look up on like Google Scholar. There are

00:41:46.540 dozens of studies that measure ultra-processed foods versus non-ultra-processed foods. And like

00:41:52.700 they all basically find the same thing. It's like higher rates of cancer, higher rates of

00:41:55.860 cardiovascular disease. Like it's all the stuff that you would expect. This is sort of the second

00:42:00.460 way that you can measure the effect of food on health is like you take these big studies of like

00:42:06.380 hundreds of thousands of people. You give people food frequency questionnaires. How often are you

00:42:10.340 eating something? Oftentimes they'll do this in two ways at the same time. They'll be like,

00:42:13.320 how often do you eat these foods in general? And they'll also do a 24-hour recall. Like,

00:42:17.800 what did you do yesterday? This is like kind of as good as it gets, although people are so

00:42:22.120 bad at estimating what they're eating and like especially the amounts, right? Like if you go to

00:42:27.340 a restaurant, you have like pad thai, can you say how many ounces you ate? So there's that sort of

00:42:32.220 layer of just gathering the basic information. But then on top of that, researchers will then go in

00:42:38.620 and they will code people's answers for ultra processed food. So they get these answers. This

00:42:45.100 is what I eat. I ate cake yesterday, cookies yesterday, whatever. And then researchers will

00:42:48.680 go in and go, aha, cake is ultra processed. So this person is, yes, eating ultra processed food.

00:42:54.520 so there's two layers of errors with this and the biggest thing with this is that they're not 0.64

00:43:00.080 fucking measuring whether people are eating ultra processed food they're just having these food 0.97

00:43:04.620 categories so again fucking cake cake can either be ultra processed or not ultra processed it 1.00

00:43:11.200 depends on the fucking cake well and also again like i wonder about like how are they coding 0.99

00:43:16.380 things like tofu exactly we've seen now multiple ways that processed and ultra processed foods are 0.98

00:43:23.580 categorized and we've already sort of explored that like reasonable minds can differ right that

00:43:30.300 like two people could in good faith put the same thing in like any of the four different categories

00:43:37.240 or two of the four categories or whatever right and they do some of the studies do actually attempt

00:43:42.300 to control for that they'll have blinded uh like one researcher will do it and then another

00:43:46.420 researcher will also do it like independently and they'll say like okay we have 95 agreement

00:43:52.360 They're attempting to control for this, but then what the real problem is that it's not

00:43:56.920 actually the coders, it's the actual designers of the research.

00:44:00.980 They all say like, oh, we use the NOVA classification system.

00:44:03.500 But if you read studies, different studies have like different classifications.

00:44:07.500 So like we mentioned honey before shows up in all different categories.

00:44:10.340 I also noticed alcohol.

00:44:12.160 Some studies just like remove it all together.

00:44:13.940 They're like, we're not looking at alcohol consumption.

00:44:15.460 Some studies will put it as like not ultra processed.

00:44:18.660 Some studies will put it as ultra processed.

00:44:20.500 I also found one that put wine and beer as not ultra-processed, but like vodka as ultra-processed.

00:44:28.280 Mike, it's the potatoes, it's the carbs.

00:44:30.300 The same study also put it was bread was not ultra-processed, but pretzels were ultra-processed.

00:44:36.460 When you put it in a shape that's processing, Mike.

00:44:39.360 The other one that really bugs me is like hamburgers are always in the ultra-processed category.

00:44:44.640 But like, I looked this up, a McDonald's hamburger is 100% beef.

00:44:49.480 It's beef.

00:44:49.940 it doesn't have a bunch of weird ingredients in it do you think there may be counting on like

00:44:53.460 buns and american cheese and ketchup and all of that kind of stuff well that's the thing is like

00:44:57.740 technically yeah you could put it in there but you again it could be ultra processed or it could not

00:45:04.140 be like everything fucking else like the cookies and the cakes and the pizza like pizza is always

00:45:08.360 in ultra processed as well but like it kind of matters for your whole thesis whether it's like 0.98

00:45:13.960 frozen pizza or like homemade artisanal whatever quote unquote nice pizza what's has anyone hazarded

00:45:20.160 a guess at what the mechanism is here yeah this is this is something that you find in like the

00:45:24.500 critical literature is that they're like we're actually like as a research field we're actually

00:45:30.160 missing a crucial component and we're kind of leapfrogging over this because we thought it was

00:45:35.020 saturated fat then we thought it was sugar now we think it's processing but no one can agree on what 0.66

00:45:38.920 the fuck processing is yeah there's also aubrey i wrote down like nine other problems with these 0.85

00:45:43.380 studies i'm gonna try to go through them very quickly i know you were talking a big game about 0.98

00:45:49.220 we're gonna record for two hours i know i'll tell you what i'm looking at that ticker we're at one

00:45:53.540 hour 54 how's it coming well we're getting we're on page 40 of 91 another problem with these studies

00:45:59.660 is they don't distinguish between different types of ultra processed food oftentimes it's just this

00:46:04.460 weird binary distinction between like ultra processed food and everything else so all three

00:46:09.360 of the first three categories are just like good and ultra-processed is bad. But there's a couple

00:46:14.300 studies that actually look at different categories of ultra-processed food. They're like, okay,

00:46:17.900 breakfast cereal, candy bars, various other things. In this study that looked at 10 categories of

00:46:23.780 ultra-processed foods, the only ones that showed a clear and consistent association with worse

00:46:29.920 disease was soda, processed meats, and alcohol. All the other ones like cookies, refined bread,

00:46:37.060 all this other stuff it was like too mixed to really say anything but even within those right

00:46:41.080 like if we're talking about breakfast cereals my guess is that grape nuts is going to have a

00:46:45.400 different health effect than like lucky charms all of this stuff breaks down once you try to

00:46:50.060 get granular yeah that's kind of what i'm thinking and like okay so you've got the entire category of

00:46:57.120 sodas i think there are probably a lot of people out there drinking like poppy and olipop and all

00:47:02.960 of the like probiotic sodas thinking that that's a different thing. So, and the final thing I want

00:47:08.180 to mention is the lack of a dose response. So the way that they do these studies is they compare

00:47:13.580 the people who eat the least ultra processed foods to people who eat the most ultra processed

00:47:18.400 foods. And it's like a really wide gap. Like some people are eating like 60% ultra processed foods

00:47:22.520 and some people are eating like 7%. When you compare the least versus the most, you do get

00:47:27.560 these like pretty large effects. However, there's some studies actually list the effect for each of

00:47:32.060 the quintiles in between. And there's something weird that like the death risk actually goes down

00:47:38.020 sometimes if you eat more ultra processed foods. You heard it here first, team.

00:47:43.120 A real effect should have a dose response. Like a little bit of ultra processed foods is a little

00:47:48.020 bad for you. A lot is a lot bad for you. But we don't find that in the results. One of the papers

00:47:52.720 found a 50% higher cancer risk if you're eating a ton of ultra processed foods. But then once they

00:47:58.440 adjusted it for the dose response they only found a five percent difference whoa some people if you

00:48:04.500 eat a little bit of ultra processed foods you're actually less likely to get cancer that's something

00:48:08.840 that never comes up i mean i don't think this is causal right and also it's based on these

00:48:12.060 fucking food frequency questionnaire so who knows but it's like to the extent that we can give diet 0.97

00:48:16.500 advice which we all know everybody's going to give diet advice on the basis of these fucking 0.98

00:48:20.260 correlational studies to the extent we can give diet advice it's like well yeah if you're if you're

00:48:24.340 not eating any ultra processed foods you should start eating some because those people actually

00:48:27.780 have a lower risk of dying well this is sort of like the like for seniors it can be more beneficial

00:48:33.220 on a number of health fronts to be in the overweight category versus the quote-unquote

00:48:37.500 healthy weight category right but you're not seeing that as like health guidance for folks

00:48:43.020 because like this we already have some sort of cultural conclusions drawn right ultra processed

00:48:49.500 foods or cheetos and candy bars and those are bad for you and you shouldn't eat them this is maybe

00:48:54.680 more damning than i mean it to be but like it feels like it's sort of masquerading as science

00:49:00.240 this is what i mean with this like is this a scientific term or is this just like a thing

00:49:04.400 people say yeah because i don't really mind if people say processed food but if we're gonna have

00:49:09.120 a scientific term we should have clear consistency about what is in that category and what is not in

00:49:15.340 that category you don't read biology papers that like can't agree on what a mammal is yeah like

00:49:21.140 Yes, there's some edge cases, like there's platypuses, but also like in general, that's

00:49:26.180 like a pretty fixed category.

00:49:28.080 For this, it's like, sorry, we can't decide where bread goes.

00:49:31.960 I would argue that honey is processed by bees.

00:49:35.080 It's flowers processed by bees.

00:49:37.340 If it's animal processed, then it's fine.

00:49:39.660 I mean, I guess milk is processed by cows.

00:49:41.860 Maybe we're onto something, Aubrey.

00:49:43.080 Let's publish.

00:49:44.060 So this brings us to the massive mainstreaming of this term in 2023 when a guy named Chris

00:49:50.640 Van Tiliken comes out with a book called Ultra Processed People. Why do we all eat stuff that

00:49:55.780 isn't food? And why can't we stop? As soon as it came out, we got so many episode requests.

00:50:02.140 So many episode requests. So Chris Van Tiliken is a professor at my alma mater, UCL. Do you know

00:50:08.600 what UCL stands for? University College of London? It's the worst name of a university in the whole

00:50:14.140 fucking world. University College? Guys. That's really funny. Yesterday I had lunch at food 1.00

00:50:20.060 restaurant listen i went to a school called portland state oh portland's not a state do

00:50:25.700 they know correct do they know correct i know oh no also you went to brown why are you pretending

00:50:31.420 you went to a different school i went to two years of portland state and two years of brown

00:50:36.160 no i do know this i just like reminding listeners that you went to brown because you hate him 0.99

00:50:40.840 any excuse now you're gonna leave all this shit in too 0.96

00:50:48.000 So the thing is, we're not going to go super duper into this book, mostly because I already 0.97

00:50:55.420 have a podcast that does that. I can't just do fucking books all the time. The book, honestly, 0.97

00:51:00.900 I've read worse from British TV presenters. As I was going, I would sort of double check things.

00:51:06.900 And most factually, it mostly checks out. You don't catch him saying anything completely false.

00:51:11.380 But I think the core problem of the book is that this concept of ultra processed food

00:51:17.220 just does not hold up to like 300 pages of discourse. I think throughout the book,

00:51:24.180 you keep getting this sense that like the ultra process concept is not really helping us

00:51:30.180 understand anything. So he has a whole section about climate change that like the way that

00:51:34.580 we're eating is like really bad for the climate, which is absolutely true. And then he says like,

00:51:38.060 well, ultra process foods are driving climate impacts. And I was like, are they though? I went

00:51:43.900 to their various ngos have like rankings of like foods that are the worst for the climate

00:51:48.200 and so the top 10 foods that have the worst climate impacts are beef lamb cheese cow's milk

00:51:54.660 kind of like dairy products generally chocolate coffee shrimp palm oil pork and chicken oh shrimp

00:52:01.600 and chris ventillican like admits this he's like well you know these aren't necessarily

00:52:05.500 ultra processed foods but they're part of like this ultra processed food system and he sort of

00:52:10.480 tries to like make that work but it's like if you if you want to reduce your climate impacts

00:52:15.600 you wouldn't stop eating ultra processed food you would stop eating meat like meat is like

00:52:19.500 catastrophically bad for the climate especially cows anything involving cows is really bad well

00:52:25.400 and you could argue just as much if you're saying like beef is part of the problem imported beef is

00:52:33.200 also a big part of the like fine dining landscape this is the thing is he's constantly straddling

00:52:39.940 ultra processed and unprocessed because you can eat a steak which is unprocessed but that's

00:52:45.300 terrible for the planet even worse if it's like why you from japan yeah like flown in frozen

00:52:52.640 it just it's like i don't like over and over again in the book you're like this is interesting

00:52:57.220 as like a critique of the food system but processing isn't like a very good entry point

00:53:03.000 to this he also has a whole section about how ultra processed food is addictive so i'm gonna

00:53:09.080 send this to you. Nicole Avena is an associate professor at Mount Sinai in New York and a

00:53:15.360 visiting professor at Princeton. Her research focuses on food addiction and obesity. She told

00:53:21.180 me how ultra processed foods, especially products with particular combinations of salt, fat, sugar,

00:53:27.000 and protein can drive our ancient evolved systems for wanting. Quote, some ultra processed foods

00:53:35.500 may activate the brain reward system in a way that is similar to what happens when people use

00:53:40.940 drugs like alcohol or even nicotine or morphine. The neuroscience is persuasive, if still in its

00:53:47.740 early stages. There is a growing body of brain scan data showing that energy-dense, hyper-palatable

00:53:54.260 food, ultra-processed but probably also something a really good chef might be able to make,

00:53:59.840 can stimulate changes in many of the same brain circuits and structures affected by addictive

00:54:06.680 drugs. Is this just pleasure? Yeah, this is. Are you just experiencing pleasure?

00:54:10.820 I read a really good paper on this called Food Addiction, a Valid Concept, where like it was

00:54:17.120 basically a debate, like here's the case for food addiction as a real thing. And here's the case

00:54:20.740 against food addiction as a real thing. And like, again, there's there's a colloquial definition of

00:54:26.460 food addiction when people say like, I'm addicted to chocolate. Like the authors are actually very

00:54:30.260 like compassionate about this and are like, if that helps you, that makes sense. Like the way

00:54:35.520 that people talk about it colloquially is fine. However, as a scientific concept, the term

00:54:40.500 addiction means something specific in like brain science. And we don't actually have good data on

00:54:46.020 that for food. I think that there are pitfalls to the ways that people talk about it colloquially

00:54:50.640 because there is a point at which it stops being your own internal lens and starts being a lens

00:54:55.380 that you apply to other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It also turns into like scrutinizing other

00:55:00.140 people's eating and eating habits through the lens that works for you. Right, right. I don't

00:55:06.640 think that it's like totally unproblematic how people talk about it colloquially, but agreed

00:55:11.240 that like the research should have a higher threshold than that. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of

00:55:16.620 it basically is based on these functional MRI studies where like they show you pictures of food

00:55:21.240 or you eat food and like you can see different parts of your brain light up as you do that and

00:55:26.500 so we always get these studies there's like it lights up the same part of your brain is cocaine

00:55:30.320 but like yeah that's just like the i'm happy part of your brain like this this is the same part of

00:55:35.000 your brain that lights up when like you see your best friend we talked about this with like the

00:55:39.000 idea of quote-unquote sugar addiction yeah sugar episode right that like yeah dude you get that

00:55:44.280 when you eat like a chocolate bar but you also get it when you pet your dog it's also very different

00:55:49.540 person to person, like which part of your brain lights up. It's not as easy to say, it's like,

00:55:54.140 oh, the cocaine part, like you're touching the cocaine part of your brain. It's just like,

00:55:58.180 that's like the happy part. And it's very different for people. It's not really,

00:56:01.480 it's not like a mature enough science to say that this exists. And then the other kind of

00:56:06.580 category of evidence for food addiction is rat studies. Oh, your favorite. You can't really do

00:56:11.660 rat studies on ultra processed foods because rat, like they feed rats like little pellets

00:56:17.440 of like specific formulations, right?

00:56:19.500 Of like, it's 40% carbohydrates and 20% protein.

00:56:22.280 So like, that's basically as processed as it comes.

00:56:24.060 You're making like a slurry

00:56:25.580 and then drying it into pellets and feeding it to rats.

00:56:28.420 So all rat food is like equally processed,

00:56:32.300 like as processed as it can possibly be.

00:56:34.340 There is something, there are studies where they feed,

00:56:37.220 this is literally what it's called.

00:56:38.520 They feed rats sweet fat chow,

00:56:41.300 which is like a specific kind of chow.

00:56:43.420 And then they measure like what they do.

00:56:45.640 i'm like there's some evidence but also most of the rat study work is on sugar addiction

00:56:52.160 and sugar addiction as we talked about is like very disputed in the literature and it's just

00:56:56.780 like not clear that it exists hang on i gotta go on etsy and find a uh like a potter to make

00:57:02.500 me a cookie jar with a label that just says sweet fat chow i know i love these sweet fat chow

00:57:10.380 At a very basic level, it's sort of indicative, this sort of stuff, but it's, it's very, we're, we're very far from like kind of proving that food is addictive. And we're also very far from proving that ultra processed food is specifically addictive.

00:57:24.520 It is sort of feels like a frustrating thing when we do cover concepts like these that like the assumption from jump is that this has to be a biological reality and that culture plays little or no role in how all of this stuff, you know, sort of gets metabolized by people.

00:57:44.000 It also brings us back to the definitional problem because there's actually a study by Nicole Avina, this researcher that he's quoting here, where it's just like a qualitative survey.

00:57:52.760 They just asked people, like, what food are you most, quote unquote, addicted to?

00:57:56.320 Like, what are the foods that you feel out of control around?

00:58:00.040 And the number one answer.

00:58:01.680 Beans.

00:58:04.120 My bean shelf.

00:58:05.060 I'm clawing at my bean shelf all the time.

00:58:09.260 That's only you, Aubrey.

00:58:10.580 And if you want to talk about it like that, that's fine.

00:58:12.460 But scientifically, the bean shelf is not in the rock studies.

00:58:17.140 Listen, get back at me when you see me at 2 a.m. in the kitchen just chomping down on dried beans.

00:58:25.760 But the top five foods that people feel addicted to are chocolate, ice cream, french fries, pizza, and cookies.

00:58:35.740 Most of these are not ultra processed. 0.99

00:58:37.980 Like, another thing that really bugs me about this ultra-processed food research is that it always includes fucking chocolate. 0.93

00:58:43.480 And, like, you pick up any, almost any, like, milk chocolate, basic milk chocolate bar at the store, and it has, like, five ingredients. 0.97

00:58:50.120 Like, I looked at Girodeli.

00:58:51.700 It's unsweetened chocolate, cane sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla extract, and soy lecithin.

00:58:56.400 And the only sort of frankenfood ingredient in there is soy lecithin.

00:59:00.320 Like, are there health effects of soy lecithin?

00:59:02.800 Well, exactly.

00:59:03.340 Then it's sort of like we're back to this issue of, like, what's the mechanism here?

00:59:07.560 because is so are we saying soy lecithin is addictive in food or harmful because soy lecithin

00:59:13.180 is in a shitload of foods it's in like salad dressings bread etc those foods aren't addictive

00:59:18.780 the way that chocolate is right people don't have the same relationship with those foods that they

00:59:22.100 have with chocolate so it's like sorry what what is this theory is it that soy lecithin is bad

00:59:27.600 or is it that like well chocolate is an ultra processed food because it's high in sugar and

00:59:32.560 high in fat if it's ultra processed because it's high in sugar and high in fat then ultra process

00:59:36.660 isn't doing anything for us right i mean like if you're gonna take aim at like stabilizers and

00:59:42.080 emulsifiers uh-oh green juice right because if you don't put something in the green juice it

00:59:47.680 separates and then you end up with like yellow liquid and green silt right in a bottle on the

00:59:53.720 shelf and nobody's buying that shit right like right another emulsifier is when you put a little 0.83

00:59:58.520 bit of mustard in your vinaigrette right right you can sort of give all of these things more 0.98

01:00:02.900 sort of nefarious sounding names or whatever more complicated names but like that doesn't actually

01:00:08.300 establish the case make the case that they are harmful to your health i i feel like there's

01:00:14.000 there's this systematic lack of precision because i'm actually open to the idea that like there's 0.91

01:00:19.340 stuff in food that is harming us and like i don't love the fact that there's like weird fucking like 0.96

01:00:24.400 hormones and the beef and shit like i don't love the the artificialness of our food supply however 0.98

01:00:30.860 Like, I would much rather that conversation be led by actual scientists who know, like, the dosages that are shown to be harmful and the ways in which it is harmful. 0.96

01:00:39.920 Like, we need actual evidence for these things.

01:00:42.280 We can't just say, like, there's chemicals in the food.

01:00:44.660 Because, like, baking soda is a white powder that you add to bread.

01:00:47.820 It's in everything.

01:00:48.680 Is that bad for us?

01:00:50.100 Well, and, again, we're throwing all of this stuff in the same bucket, right?

01:00:53.860 And if you sort of chase down each one of these ingredients individually, some of them may have some mixed scientific evidence.

01:01:00.500 Some of it may have none.

01:01:02.520 We're just shunting so many things into this sort of giant bucket labeled ultra-processed foods.

01:01:09.560 Yeah, I think, I mean, this also sort of brings us back to his own problems with defining the term.

01:01:14.480 Because throughout the book, the definition of this term changes a bunch of times.

01:01:17.380 He starts out by saying that an ultra-processed food is any food with any ingredient that, like, you wouldn't find in a standard home kitchen.

01:01:26.420 Well, what?

01:01:27.120 It doesn't matter the amount of that ingredient.

01:01:29.060 it doesn't matter sort of like some of these ingredients there's like things you haven't

01:01:32.320 heard of because like you're not a chemist well and also some of them are like the chemical names

01:01:36.960 for shit you already know the gimmick of the book is he's doing a supersize me thing where he's like 0.91

01:01:42.120 for 30 days i'm gonna only eat ultra processed food and of course he like gains a bunch of weight 0.99

01:01:46.080 and he feels worse and he says his like mri is different whatever well yeah he's eating two pb

01:01:49.960 and j's and a half a pack of graham crackers for every meal again it's it's just very hard to

01:01:54.960 separate this from like the actual contents of the food but so he has this section as my diet

01:02:02.640 went on i became obsessed with what is and isn't ultra processed food so did everyone around me

01:02:09.320 friends started sending me ingredients lists does fruit concentrate means this is ultra processed

01:02:15.080 food yes it does by the way to reiterate that means one ingredient if it has one ingredient

01:02:19.920 it it's ultra processed and also like fruit concentrate is just like boiled down fruit

01:02:25.820 juice yeah you could also get fruit juice and boil it down yourself and make like a barbecue

01:02:31.760 sauce or whatever like i just like sugar is i met b wilson at a food festival at which we spoke on

01:02:39.000 a panel together she's a food journalist and author who has written about ultra processed food

01:02:43.960 she asked whether i would classify baked beans as ultra processed food she didn't think that

01:02:49.740 they were. Canned baked beans comprising white beans in tomato sauce are a staple in the British

01:02:55.720 diet. As Wilson put it, although they're obviously not the healthiest food in the world, quote,

01:03:00.660 in the context of so much else that's in the average diet, there's quite a lot of real food

01:03:05.500 in the can. This is true. Most of a tin of baked beans is actually beans and tomatoes.

01:03:12.860 So these are these are back to back paragraphs, by the way. It's like if it has fruit concentrate

01:03:16.840 in it. One ingredient means it's ultra processed. But then as soon as we get to baked beans, he's

01:03:21.980 like, well, a lot of people like them. And most of it's, you know, beans and water. Sorry. Is this

01:03:28.420 a scientific concept or not? Hang on. I'm looking it up, dude, Michael. Would you like to know the

01:03:36.520 ingredients to Heinz baked beans? Oh, I have it. That's like the next thing in my notes,

01:03:40.260 but read it read it read it water white beans tomato puree sugar salt calcium chloride mustard 0.98

01:03:48.660 onion powder paprika extract spices and garlic powder now sir they're fucking ultra processed 0.56

01:03:57.680 by your own definition you can't just say oh well they're like a big part of like the british diet 0.61

01:04:02.100 and it's important culturally and it's mostly beans sorry what are we doing here it's if it's

01:04:07.680 this qualitative, where just anything can sort of jump from this category to the other category,

01:04:13.140 then this is not a useful category for scientific research.

01:04:16.480 Well, and if you're talking about like ingredients that you don't have in your kitchen,

01:04:20.220 calcium chloride, if you're right, like tomato puree, like, I don't know, guys, I don't know.

01:04:25.540 What is tomato paste if not a fruit concentrate?

01:04:29.560 This is like really, this is not the end of the book, but this is like, to me,

01:04:32.740 the culmination of like my engagement with the book because I got so annoyed at this section.

01:04:37.200 So he's trying to eat a healthy diet while also doing ultra-processed food. 0.94

01:04:41.860 So he's like, okay, I can't just like cheat and like eat fucking cookies all the time. 0.94

01:04:44.760 So like I need to look for some ultra-processed food that isn't so bad. 0.95

01:04:47.660 He goes to Sainsbury's, which is like the relatively high-end grocery store in the UK.

01:04:52.560 He gets a frozen lasagna.

01:04:54.860 But the problem with the frozen lasagna is that it's all like normal ingredients.

01:04:58.320 It's just like wheat, pasta sauce.

01:05:00.140 It doesn't count as ultra-processed in his own definition.

01:05:03.540 But then he looks, he goes to Aldi, which is like the much cheaper grocery store.

01:05:07.360 And that one has a bunch of like additives and emulsifiers and stuff.

01:05:10.540 And he's like, OK.

01:05:11.840 So then he calls a member of Carlos Montero's team to kind of ask about this.

01:05:17.180 Like, well, is lasagna then kind of ultra processed and not ultra processed at the same time?

01:05:23.760 So here's sort of the answer.

01:05:25.720 Some products are not technically ultra processed food, she explained.

01:05:29.400 but they use the same plastics, the same marketing and development processes,

01:05:34.940 and they're made by the same companies as ultra-processed food.

01:05:38.960 The additives are part of the definition, but they are not the only problem with the food.

01:05:44.220 Some additives are harmless, whereas others cause direct harms.

01:05:48.200 But in either case, their presence indicates that a product probably has lots of other properties that may cause harmful effects.

01:05:55.480 According to Lusada, the Sainsbury's lasagna is not ultra-processed food if you apply the

01:06:01.340 technical classification, quote, but these foods are like a fantasy. They are not homemade foods.

01:06:08.180 There is a very consistent, like, snobbishness throughout this book. And I think this whole

01:06:14.340 concept, you're basically looking at frozen lasagnas, which meet all of the criteria you

01:06:19.780 say that you want, right? These are whole foods. They don't have too many ingredients. They don't

01:06:24.380 have a bunch of chemicals in them and you're like oh but they're still ultra processed because like

01:06:27.720 they're not homemade people should be making it at home again is this a scientific concept or not

01:06:33.440 because like do we all want people to have more time to make stuff at home yes fine whatever

01:06:37.600 but it's like now we're just judging people for like microwaving a dinner also just like

01:06:42.520 you really could say hey some frozen foods are actually not ultra processed yeah you could

01:06:48.080 actually add some nuance and this appears to be leaning away from that nuance and going no no it's

01:06:54.360 frozen it's still bad you didn't make it it's still bad also like i have made plenty of bad

01:06:59.860 food yes my housemate and i when i was in my 20s decided that we were gonna make cheese sticks at

01:07:05.820 home and instead of using breadcrumbs we used flaming hot cheetos that is a homemade meal

01:07:12.080 i would argue it's maybe not nutritionally our strongest effort but also again not nutritionally

01:07:21.140 devoid of value right like mozzarella cheese has like a bunch of fat and protein in it that are

01:07:26.980 like generally pretty good for you like you know what i mean like there's like a bunch of stuff

01:07:30.360 well i think the only thing i like ever like bake at home because i'm really bad at baking 0.86

01:07:34.460 is banana bread because it's like any dumb ass can make banana bread but it's extremely bad for 0.97

01:07:38.960 you it's really good but it's a fucking cake it's not like delicious at one point in the book 0.99

01:07:44.400 he actually says like well if something is like made with love and then it doesn't count as an 0.98

01:07:48.640 to process food i'm just like dude please have a fucking definition and stick with the definition 0.87

01:07:55.620 man yeah i think increasingly as we talk about this the more i'm sort of in your camp of like 0.99

01:08:00.400 oh well then just say junk food because that is honest fucking junk food yeah it's not my favorite 0.93

01:08:05.060 term but it is more honest than being like actually there are these like extremely concrete 0.98

01:08:10.800 health effects that are like widespread for like every preservative that is ever used in foods 0.98

01:08:17.200 or every ingredient that you can't pronounce what a deeply weird bar yeah i can't pronounce shit

01:08:23.820 people know it's like all of our inboxes me not being able to pronounce stuff let's hope there's 0.94

01:08:28.260 not a denouement in your food york is technically ultra processed food at this point i i now have

01:08:34.420 no conclusion aubrey because all i had was the junk food thing we already talked about the junk

01:08:37.220 food thing oh sorry sorry sorry now i have no closing can i tell you a conclusion oh yeah what

01:08:41.500 is yours you were talking about pringles earlier and i remembered that there was a specific name

01:08:45.800 for the shape of pringles saddle saddle bags no michael it's the universe it's called a

01:08:51.920 hyperbolic paraboloid wait what uh it's mathematically known as a hyperbolic 0.97

01:09:00.440 paraboloid put that on the fucking labels and nobody will ever buy them again like i will give 0.98

01:09:05.400 you a food that is that uniform in color flavor texture and shape i'm like i won't fight you on 0.99

01:09:14.420 that being ultra processed. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing is I feel the need to reiterate that

01:09:18.460 like both of us are like relatively careful about how we eat. And like, I really do go out of my

01:09:23.580 way to like try to eat healthy. And part of that is like avoiding like, I don't know, foods that

01:09:28.840 should go bad, but don't go bad. That's like one of my like little food rules. I'm like, if it

01:09:33.480 should be perishable and it's not perishable, I probably don't want to eat it. I don't know how

01:09:37.560 like scientific that is. I think if people have food rules like this and they're kind of arbitrary

01:09:42.740 or like kind of weird, like, fine, I don't really police other people. Obviously, diet related

01:09:47.480 disease is like is real and is like something that we need to address. But also, we need to

01:09:52.080 have scientific concepts if we're going to have like scientific approaches to issues.

01:09:56.960 We're still so deeply in the process of discovery about this stuff.

01:10:01.120 Yeah, totally. Yeah.

01:10:01.800 But the stuff that takes off is the stuff that comports with our cultural ideas of what is and

01:10:06.940 isn't healthy, which are not the result of science, right? I just wish that we were able to

01:10:13.260 have a cultural conversation about the cultural stuff and a science conversation about the science

01:10:18.900 stuff. I think it's just worth being honest with ourselves that most of our sort of like hard and

01:10:25.880 fast thinking about what is and is not okay to eat comes much more from like a set of assumptions

01:10:31.480 and sort of a mismatch of like life influences. And also if it's working for you, then keep doing

01:10:36.840 it and i'm not gonna tell you not to we're not here to tell you yeah what to eat or what not

01:10:41.320 to eat i am here to tell you not to eat hyperbolic paraboloids i'm here to tell you to eat though

01:10:45.980 only hyperbolic paraboloids

01:11:06.840 We'll be right back.

Maintenance Phase - June 03, 2025

Ultra-Processed Foods

Episode Stats

Transcript