Ultra-processed foods should come with warning labels

Given the health threats, how have ultra-processed foods come to dominate our diets? (Source: Bloomberg)

You encounter them constantly — plastic-wrapped foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce. Dubbed “ultra-processed foods,” they include “fresh” breads in the supermarket bakery, organic granola bars and the juices you buy your kids. Now, they comprise 60 percent of what the average US adult eats and even more of what kids eat.

And according to Chris van Tulleken, an infectious diseases specialist and an assistant professor at the University College London, they’re making us seriously sick. His recent book, Ultra-Processed People, explores the economics, science, history and health impacts of overengineered foods. I reached him on his vacation in the Canadian wilderness to get his take on how toxic products have come to dominate the business of food and what to do about it.

We started the conversation where research began — with an experiment on his own body.

Amanda Little: Let’s start with the story of your month-long junk food diet. What did you eat, and what were the results?

Chris van Tulleken: First, this wasn’t a stunt for the book. I did it as part of an academic study to gather pilot data for a University College London trial. I wasn’t switching to an extreme diet or laying my body heroically on the line. I was eating about 80 percent of my calories from ultra-processed foods, or UPFs. That’s a completely normal diet for the average US or UK teenager, so I didn’t think much would happen, really.

AL: But things did happen.

CT: I gained a huge amount of weight — 14 pounds — in one month. Within weeks, I felt exhausted, achy and depressed. Had I continued eating at that rate for a year, I would have doubled my body weight. There was also a massive change in my MRI scan — in the connectivity between the habit-forming parts of the cerebellum and the addiction-reward parts of the limbic system. And at the end of the month, my satiety hormones, which cue feelings of hunger, were sky-high. In a very short time, this UPF diet had changed my response to all food, so it was harder for me to feel satisfied.

AL: The early stages of addiction.

CT: Yes.

AL: Can you define “ultra-processed” foods?

CT: There’s a critical distinction between processed and ultra-processed
foods. Cooking is itself a form of food processing that humans have been doing for about a million years. Ultra-processed consumer foods emerged after World War I. They’re not foods, per se, but what my colleagueFernanda Rauber describes as “industrially produced edible substances.” They often contain emulsifiers, stabilisers, gums, softeners, sweeteners, modified starches, artificial flavorings, preservatives and so forth. Many ingredients are replacements — artificial sweeteners that replace sugars, gums that replace fats and bacterial exudates that create textures in place of the real molecules that should be in food.

AL: You’re triggering my gag reflex.

CT: That’s a healthy form of disgust. Think about xanthan gum — a substance made from the slime that oozes from bacteria so they can cling to surfaces. It’s motivating to be appalled by the ingredients in modern food, and it’s also a serious problem that so many in our society can’t afford to eat anything else.

It’s almost impossible to buy breads that aren’t softened, dairy products that aren’t stabilised, or drinks for children that aren’t artificially sweetened. Foods that are engineered to accelerate the speed of consumption — so that we swallow and take the next bite before the food has reached our stomachs.

AL: Given the health threats, how have ultra-processed foods come to dominate our diets?

CT: What happened in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s was the financialisation of the food industry. Our food is now made by companies owned by institutional investors propelled by profit motive. The marketing campaigns for these foods heavily target kids, and the resulting diet-related diseases, particularly obesity, are commerciogenic —  which is to say, they’re caused by the interests of industry.

AL: But we can’t ignore the benefits. Ultra-processed foods are notably cheaper and more accessible to low- and middle-income households; they’re shelf-stable and, therefore, less likely to be wasted than perishables, and they save time for consumers, particularly working parents.

CT: Yes, yes and yes. My wife and I have found it uncomfortably expensive and extremely labor-intensive to phase out ultra-processed foods from our household — even though we’re lucky to be able to afford to do so. We do it because of the serious overlooked costs UPFs have on personal and public health. It’s hugely expensive to have an unhealthy, unhappy population. And the lowest income and most under-resourced populations take the greatest hit.

AL: Walk me through the human health effects of ultra-processed foods.

CT: There’s a substantial body of epidemiological and population data that associates ultra-processed foods with weight gain. They disrupt our bodies’ ability to regulate appetite and digestion. We also know that diets heavy in ultra-processed ingredients increase our risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease as well as dementia, metabolic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, cancers including bowel, liver and breast cancer, and early death.

AL: Excuse me while I sprint to the farmer’s market.

CT: There’s also laboratory science showing that ultra-processed foods damage the microbiome and that their addictive qualities can contribute to anxiety and depression.

AL: And there’s little incentive for the food industry to make its products less sickening or less palatable.

CT: Emmanuel Faber tried very hard as CEO of Danone to do exactly that — to turn the company into a social enterprise. He was fired by Bluebell Capital, who were activist investors. The financial logic is clear: Remember that whereas healthy food fills us up, ultra-processed food often makes us hungrier. If Danone started making food that we eat less of and we spent less money, its share price would fall.

AL: How do we begin to solve the problem? Is this fundamentally a failure of governance?

CT: I’m not advocating for a ban on UPFs. The most powerful lever for change is when people stop wanting these products. To create more consumer agency, we need to first address the commercial ties between industry and policymakers. Every doctor should be required by law to declare outside income from food companies to government regulators — as should academics writing research papers on nutrition and charities advocating for policy.

Second, we need to limit the marketing of ultra-processed products — especially to children with cartoon characters. Their games, music, social media and television are saturated with UPF marketing. No more cute animals selling cereal and cheese doodles. This should be enacted by regulators but also enforced by platforms like Disney and YouTube Kids.

AL: And better product labeling?

CT: Yes. Clear warning labels. There is growing evidence from Latin America that a clear black hexagon makes children ask their parents to stop buying UPF.

Above all, real food must become more affordable and available. This is a complex problem, but we have enormous food subsidies that can be redirected. Remember that protecting public health is a way to help fight poverty — and all of this is compatible with economic growth. Even the tobacco industry has seen pretty much uninterrupted growth since the introduction of regulations. These proposals are in no way anti-capitalist.

Amanda Little is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering agriculture and climate. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.

Credit: Bloomberg