Dr. Chris Van Tureken He was finding it difficult to control his eating. But unlike his twin brother, Dr. Zand van Tureken, he was never bothered by his weight. thorough inspection and children’s programs A painful strategy!
But he found himself obsessively drawn to ultra-processed foods (UPFs), new industrial products designed to be convenient, cheap, and luxurious. This is because they often contain additives. “It was really hard,” he says.
But these days, he finds it so easy to wean off the UPF that he literally wrote the book on the subject. Ultra-processed people: Why do we eat things that aren’t food…and why can’t we stop? “I didn’t make any special effort to quit UPF,” he says. “As I was writing this book, I realized that I was so disgusted that I couldn’t eat these foods anymore.”
This is a compelling and eye-opening read that exposes the evils of the modern food industry. Food has recently overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths worldwide. It will make you feel angry and nauseous, and hopefully a little optimistic that a better way is possible.
Men’s Health: A lot of people still find the whole ultra-processed food business a little complicated. What is your advice to them?
Dr. Chris Van Tureken: We can argue endlessly about where we draw the line with ultra-processed foods, but that’s a discussion that the food industry wants us to have because it’s very distracting. .
But as a general rule, it is enough to look at the label and ask yourself how many ingredients can be found in your home kitchen. If it contains things like xantham gum, modified cornstarch, palm oil, and emulsifiers, it’s probably ultra-processed.
There is a lot of evidence that diets high in ultra-processed foods have negative health effects. And what the UPF evidence collectively highlights is that diet is the leading cause of death worldwide, whether it causes weight gain or not. Food contains more than just fat, sugar, and salt.
Were there any foods that surprised you while researching the book?
I’m not trying to demonize any particular product. However, the reason bread is on the cover of this book is because bread is representative of the problem. Look at the ingredients. Contains flavorings, preservatives, and emulsifiers.
Now, one of the claims put forward by the British Nutrition Foundation (which, by the way, is largely funded by industry) is that people are benefiting from the whole grains in these ultra-processed products. Thing. Whole grain ultra-processed bread is almost certainly better than white ultra-processed bread. But there’s also plenty of evidence that emulsifiers, fats, flavorings, and the extreme softness of bread can cause inflammation, microbiome changes, and overconsumption.
My 10 year old son loves Nutella. It’s basically sugar and palm oil, but it feels mean to deprive him of something that gives him pleasure. How do you respond as a parent?
My kids generally eat a lot of Nutella and ultra-processed foods. Because I think a really important part of childhood is normalcy. If you eat a meal that no one else eats, you feel a little left out.
This book is definitely causing mild neurosis in my college-educated, middle-class friends. But the truth is, if you’re a book reader, men’s health If you’re cooking at home and have some weird Nutella, you’re probably fine. What I’m much more concerned about are teenagers whose diet consists of 85% of their UPF, or those who can only afford UPF.
Who do you think would most like to hear the message of your book?
There are two groups affected. One is people living with food addiction. Food poisoning is real. There’s good evidence for that. Also has bulimia. There is evidence that these people can benefit from abstaining from all ultra-processed foods.
Second, because UPF is much cheaper than whole foods, there are groups who are forced to consume large amounts of UPF at a disadvantage. If there’s one thing we can do, it’s to fight poverty. Poverty is very expensive for our country. We can solve poverty for less than £80 billion a year. And it’s very cheap to fix it compared to dealing with the consequences.
In recent years, there has been an explosion in high-protein foods and meal replacement beverages. Does this bother you?
Some of these products almost go beyond the definition of super-processing and have entered the realm of super-processing. I won’t name names, but these meal replacement shakes often contain no discernible ingredients at all. They are all amino acids, protein isolates, sweeteners, gums, and gels with no nutritional value. At least Tesco’s ice cream has sugar in it.
Despite all the harms of ultra-processed foods, you are not in favor of banning them. Why?
What I want is for people to have true freedom and choice. I’m a food liberal. If people want to eat bad food, they should be able to eat it. What I want is for people to be able to make informed choices about what they eat. That means it has a warning label on it. [ultra-processed] Making food and good food affordable. Less fortunate people are effectively forced to buy shitty food, which seems extremely unfair. So I’m not calling for a ban.
Are warning labels really enough?
The reason I’m so insistent on warning labels is because Latin America has started putting black hexagons on ultra-processed foods.
Coke cans now have one red light in the UK [for its sugar content] and three green lights [fats, sat fats and salt]. This is confusing because it suggests that Coca-Cola is mostly healthy.
Once you get the warning label, everything else becomes easy. These are the foods that can be banned in schools and the foods that can be changed in prisons and hospitals. It is food that is subject to progressive taxation. The debate the industry wants us to have is a debate over the definition of ultra-processed foods. The question we should be discussing is: How big should warning labels be?
How big do you think it should be?
In Argentina, cola has three warning labels. They are above the logo and are larger than the logo. That’s what we do.
A warning label is displayed first. Then comes marketing constraints. Cartoons or health claims are not allowed on packaging. Next, start working on product placement in the supermarket.
Well, that’s easy. How can we make delicious food cheaply?
This is a thorny problem in the sense that there is no single technical solution. But the first thing to do is create a more demanding market for real food. [That’s] That’s part of what I wanted to do with the book. I believe in market economics to some extent.
The second thing to remember is that we live in a very controlled food system. A complex structure of subsidies, incentives, and tax systems has been introduced to make super-processed substrates very cheap. Ultra-processed foods contain perhaps 10 different plants and animals, including wheat, rice, soybeans, corn, sugar, palm oil, cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. All of this is subsidized and produced on a large scale. Often all we eat is leftover animal food. The soy protein isolate found in energy bars is a byproduct of soybeans that are fed to cows. That’s why it’s cheap.
So you can reorganize everything. You can create incentives. You can subsidize broccoli or apples instead. I can do it. There’s a good chance that’s the case.
In recent years, more and more people are becoming vegan for health reasons. However, many vegan products are highly processed. What is your advice to them?
I feel a contradiction. Veganism is clearly a net benefit. But if you’re vegan for ethical reasons and you’re buying vegan sausage from a company that makes meat burgers, you’re actually taking an ethical stand. not.
When it comes to health, the purpose of your diet is paramount. Questions to ask are: Is my food made by a huge multinational food company to generate dividends and stock growth for institutional investors? If so, it’s almost certainly addictive to some degree. It’s probably designed to make you eat too much.
So is it all the fault of evil food companies?
I’ve talked to many scientists in industry, and the bankers who fund industry, and they all say the same thing. “It’s very simple.” You have to sell the next box in the next quarter faster than you bought it in this quarter. The cost of production must be lower, the price of raw materials must be lowered, the salary of everyone in the company must be lower, and the food must be more addictive. ”
The product is iterated through a tasting panel and the main thing tested is how much the panel participants eat and how fast they eat it. I am working with economists to conduct further research to understand the incentives within the system.
So what you’re saying is that we’re going to destroy capitalism?
no! i don’t think so. As with tobacco, we can have a well-regulated capitalism. There have been major public health campaigns regarding smoking. There’s a big warning on the package, it costs a ton of money, and we don’t sell cigarettes to children. It’s well-regulated capitalism. And you know what? Philip Morris is doing really well.
This book was a great success. Does thinking like that make you optimistic?
He has a great swing. From abject pessimism to tremendous optimism. There is pessimism here. The important thing to remember is that the food industry is not the same as the tobacco industry.that teeth tobacco industry. Tobacco giants Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds bought some of the world’s biggest food companies, including Kraft and General Foods, in the 1980s and sold them in the 2000s. Many of the flavor compounds used in ultra-processed foods were developed by tobacco companies. There are important similarities between tobacco and scientifically robust ultra-processed foods.
But there is optimism here. Just as the tobacco industry used a playbook to create and sell addictive foods, so too do we have a playbook on how to regulate addictive substances and stop their active marketing to children. I have a playbook. We finally succeeded in regulating the tobacco industry. So it shows that it’s possible.
This conversation originally appeared in the April 2024 issue. Edited for length and clarity.
