I listened to Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. And it was pretty life changing. Since reading the book, my consumption of ultra-processed food has fallen dramatically. I’ve cooked potentially edible meals from scratch and baked pizza, biscuits, cakes, bread, and many more bagels.
Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
(Oh, and my regrets? Zero. None. Zilch.)
This book isn’t preaching at you – it’s more of a ‘this is information you probably should be aware of‘ and then deposits it gently in your lap, and leaves you to get on with it. Do with it what you well. That sort of thing.
(Hence the bagels. I promise it will make sense.)
I guess it’s this study that perhaps started it all, finding an ultra-processed food diet caused excess calorie intake and weight gain. I’m sure that’s not exactly surprising, but it is quite concerning. I was Concerned.
‘But what is ultra-processed food?’ (…I hear literally no one ask me.)
Ultra-processed food isn’t for our nourishment, let’s be clear, it’s for profit. It makes sense – how can you manipulate people to consume as much of your product as possible? Why! Lure them with carefully manufactured scents and tastes, concealing the blandest, most processed ‘food’ imaginable. Alllll smoke and mirrors, my boi.
We’re eating edible products, not nourishing food. Your eyes and nose and tastebuds have been fooled.
The idea that our food is in the hands of impossibly large corporations that participate in actions that are devastating to the environment, is terribly disturbing. Lowkey really not the vibe 2023 needs. (Yes, I did cringe after writing that sentence. I am capable of feeling shame. Unlike the corporation that caused tragedies amongst mothers and their babies in the developing world.)
So I decided that I didn’t want to participate or partake in these processed products, thanks but no thanks, take your noice marketing, cheerful ‘if you eat this food YOUR FAMILY WILL BE TOGETHER AND HAPPY/YOU’RE HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE’ adverts and shove them in some dark, horrible hole, and not on a boat up the Amazon river to sell junk food to children. (I don’t need a social life anyway, pfft.)
I finished the book. I craved some bagels, and instead of reaching for processed bagels, the ingredients of which I wouldn’t be able to find in my kitchen … I baked some.
And those bagels? They tasted good.
An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.
It’s not you, it’s the food.
We have entered a new ‘age of eating’ where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it’s doing to our bodies?
Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what’s really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can’t save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).
For too long we’ve been told we just need to make different choices, when really we’re living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.
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