Ultra-Processed People

Introduction

Overview

The introduction frames the entire book’s mission: to investigate ultra-processed food (UPF) not just as a dietary choice, but as a powerful, engineered substance driving a public health crisis. It directly challenges the pervasive stigma surrounding obesity, arguing that our food environment—not individual willpower—is the primary culprit. The author invites readers on a personal, investigative journey, proposing a unique “experiment” to consciously experience UPF while learning about its effects.

The Weight of Words and the Burden of Blame

The discussion begins by confronting the difficult language of weight. The author acknowledges that terms like “obesity” are stigmatizing but sometimes uses them strategically, as labeling it a “disease” can shift focus from personal blame to systemic causes and unlock research funding. The core argument is laid out clearly: the simultaneous, dramatic rise in obesity across all demographics since the 1970s cannot be explained by a collective failure of willpower. Instead, it points to a fundamental change in our environment—specifically, our food.

A System Designed for Ill-Health

The problem is framed as a “commerciogenic disease,” akin to illnesses driven by tobacco. While deeper societal issues like poverty and trauma are root causes, UPF acts as the tangible vehicle through which these harms manifest in our bodies. The failure of hundreds of government policies to curb obesity is cited as evidence that we are treating the wrong problem. The author emphasizes that UPF causes harm (like increased risks of dementia or inflammatory bowel disease) independently of weight gain, and that the combination of obesity and stunting in children reveals it to be an issue of malnutrition, not simply overconsumption.

What This Book Is—And What It Is Not

This is explicitly not a weight-loss book or a prescriptive guide. The author states they have no opinion on what readers “should” eat or what a “correct” body looks like. Instead, the goal is to provide accurate information about the risks of UPF and to advocate for a world with better food access and honest marketing. Change, the argument goes, must come from transforming the food system, not from burdening individuals with advice they cannot easily follow in a hostile food environment.

An Unusual Proposal: The Conscious UPF Experiment

The author makes a provocative suggestion: instead of trying to quit UPF while reading, readers should intentionally keep eating it, but do so with new awareness. This mirrors the method of Allen Carr’s stop-smoking technique, where continued exposure coupled with education can breed disgust. The author shares their own experience of a controlled, month-long 80% UPF diet, during which the food became increasingly unappealing as they interviewed experts. The proposal is framed as ethically sound, as most readers are already consuming high levels of UPF, and this turns a corporate-driven experiment into a personal, enlightening one.

Key Takeaways

• UPF is an engineered product, designed to drive overconsumption, and its harms extend far beyond weight gain to include increased risks of numerous diseases.
• Obesity is not a personal failing. Its rapid, population-wide rise is proof of a changed environment, not a collapse in willpower. The stigma attached to weight is itself a major barrier to health and care.
• The problem is systemic. Diet-related diseases are “commerciogenic,” caused by a food system that profits from selling addictive, harmful substances, often targeted at the most disadvantaged.
• This book is an investigation, not a prescription. It aims to empower through information, not guilt through advice, advocating for systemic change in food marketing and access.
• Personal awareness is a powerful tool. By consciously experiencing UPF while learning about its production and effects, you can become its student rather than its subject, potentially changing your relationship with it for good.

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Ultra-Processed People

1. Why is there bacterial slime in my ice cream? The invention of UPF

Overview

It all begins with a simple, melting scoop of pistachio ice cream—or rather, one that doesn't melt. The author's investigation into its mysterious ingredients, a cocktail of gums and stabilizers, becomes a gateway into the world of Ultra-Processed Food (UPF). Through a revealing conversation with former food systems designer Paul Hart, a clear logic emerges: the primary driver is relentless cost reduction. To make food affordable for squeezed household budgets and resilient enough for vast national supply chains, the industry relies on ingredients that prevent melting, stop ice crystals, and mimic creaminess.

This leads to the fundamental principle at UPF's core: molecular replacement. Instead of using whole, recognisable ingredients, food scientists systematically replace the traditional molecules of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates with their cheapest possible versions. Modified starches extracted from corn can impersonate the texture of eggs or cream, while the story of margarine reveals how the quest for a cheap butter substitute led to hydrogenation and the RBD (refined, bleached, deodorized) process. This industrial alchemy transforms often inedible or low-grade raw materials, like crude cottonseed oil, into a bland, neutral "blank canvas" perfect for manufacturing.

Herein lies a profound health paradox. These same techniques were used to create "healthier" low-fat products, where gums and starches replaced fats. Yet, evidence suggests these UPF substitutes fail to deliver benefits and are instead linked to weight gain and disease. The chapter culminates by identifying Crisco—the deodorized, bleached, and solidified cottonseed oil shortening—as the archetypal pioneer of this model. It wasn't invented for nourishment, but for industrial utility, setting the template for a global system that prioritizes cost, convenience, and shelf-life above all else.

The author’s curiosity is piqued by his daughter’s untouched, un-melting pistachio ice cream on a warm day. Examining the ingredients reveals a list of stabilizers, emulsifiers, and gums—hallmarks of Ultra-Processed Food (UPF). This observation sparks a quest to understand why such ingredients are necessary and leads to a meeting with Paul Hart, a former Unilever food systems designer with decades of industry insight.

The Cost-Driven Logic of Industrial Ingredients

Paul Hart explains that the primary driver for using these ingredients is cost reduction. In countries like the UK and USA, where household food budgets are squeezed, UPF offers a cheaper, more convenient alternative. Ingredients like gums, emulsifiers, and modified starches make products like ice cream tolerant to temperature fluctuations during nationwide distribution, allowing for centralized, large-scale manufacturing. They prevent ice crystal formation, maintain creaminess, and extend shelf life, creating massive supply chain efficiencies. This is starkly contrasted with a traditional, artisanal ice cream brand, whose simpler, more recognizable ingredients result in a higher price and less distribution resilience.

Molecular Replacement: The Core of UPF

The secret to UPF is the systematic replacement of the three traditional food molecules—fats, proteins, and carbohydrates—with their cheapest possible versions. The aim is to mimic the textures and flavors of beloved traditional foods using ingredients often derived from subsidized commodity crops. Paul guides the author through two key examples: modified starches and fabricated fats.

Modified Starches: Chemists learned to precisely modify starch molecules extracted from plants like corn. These modified starches can replace expensive ingredients like eggs, dairy, and oil, providing creaminess, stability through freeze-thaw cycles, and bulk. They are fundamental in products from pie fillings to low-fat mayonnaise, dramatically cutting costs.

Fabricated Fats & The Story of Margarine: The pursuit of a cheap butter substitute led to the invention of margarine. The breakthrough was hydrogenation, a process that turns liquid plant oils into solid fats with customizable melting points. To use the cheapest oils (like toxic, foul-tasting cottonseed oil), industry developed the RBD (refined, bleached, deodorized) process, stripping away color, flavor, and nutrients to create a neutral, workable fat base. This exemplifies the UPF principle: transforming inexpensive, often inedible raw materials into palatable food components.

The Health Paradox of "Improved" Products

The conversation touches on low-fat products, developed in response to dietary guidelines. Gums and modified starches were used to replicate the mouthfeel of fat in items like mayonnaise. However, independent evidence suggests these UPF substitutes do not deliver health benefits and are strongly associated with weight gain and diet-related diseases. This creates a paradox: products marketed as healthier options may actually contribute to poorer health outcomes.

The Industrial Alchemy of Blandness

For natural oils like red palm oil, their vibrant colour, distinctive flavour, and nutritional complexity are marks of quality. In the world of Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) manufacturing, however, these very attributes become liabilities. A neutral, blank canvas is required—an oil so bland it can be invisibly incorporated into anything from ice cream to bread without altering the intended (and artificially created) flavour profile. This is achieved through a rigorous industrial process known as Refining, Bleaching, and Deodorizing (RBD).

The RBD process systematically strips the oil of its natural character:

• Refining uses heat and phosphoric acid to remove gums and waxes.
• Neutralization with caustic soda strips away free fatty acids.
• Bleaching with bentonite clay removes colour.
• Deodorization with high-pressure steam eliminates any remaining scent or taste.

This is the standard treatment for the oils that dominate the global food supply: soybean, palm, canola, and sunflower oil. Any oil that isn't explicitly labelled "virgin" or "cold-pressed" has likely undergone this transformation.

Crisco: The First Mass-Produced UPF

The chapter points to Procter & Gamble's Crisco as the archetypal success story of this technology. Having solved the toxicity issues of crude cottonseed oil through these methods, P&G marketed the deodorized, bleached, and solidified result as "Crisco" (short for crystallized cottonseed oil). By the 1920s, this "fake lard" had achieved widespread use, establishing a template for the industry. Crisco represents a pivotal moment: the first mass-produced food product whose primary reason for existence was not nourishment, but the industrial utility of its ingredients.

Key Takeaways

• Natural flavours and colours are seen as problems in UPF manufacturing, which requires bland, interchangeable ingredients.
• The RBD (Refine, Bleach, Deodorize) process is a standard industrial method to create this neutral "blank canvas" from vegetable oils.
• Procter & Gamble's Crisco, a de-toxified and deodorized cottonseed oil shortening, is identified as a historical landmark—likely the first mass-produced Ultra-Processed Food.

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Ultra-Processed People

2. I’d rather have five bowls of Coco Pops: the discovery of UPF

Overview

It all starts with a three-year-old girl devouring bowl after bowl of Coco Pops in a trance-like state, a scene that sparks a parent's urgent curiosity. Why would a child choose a highly engineered cereal over a simple, "healthier" option, eating rapidly and mindlessly past fullness? This personal observation becomes the launching point for an investigation that challenges everything we think we know about food.

To understand this allure, the journey goes back to the factory floor, where food manufacturing is driven by a relentless economic logic. Manufacturers use ingredients like refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) fats that become functionally identical, allowing them to swap between palm oil, shea fat, or even chicken fat based solely on global commodity prices—all without changing the packaging. This practice of ingredient swapping for maximum profit has deep roots, tracing back to the 19th-century innovation of mass-produced ice cream as a way to use up waste milk. The entire industry, it seems, was built on transforming cheap, often unwanted materials into profitable, long-lasting products.

The author's search for answers leads to a revolutionary scientific framework: the NOVA classification system, developed by Brazilian researcher Carlos Monteiro. Unlike traditional models that fixate on nutrients like fat and sugar, NOVA categorizes foods by the extent and purpose of their industrial processing. It formally defines ultra-processed foods (UPF) as industrial formulations made from fractionated substances, containing additives, and designed explicitly to be hyper-palatable, convenient, and supremely profitable. The radical idea is that the drive for corporate profit and market dominance is baked into the very definition.

This theory was powerfully tested in a landmark experiment where people ate freely from either an ultra-processed or unprocessed diet, matched for nutrients. They consumed far more calories and gained weight on the UPF diet. Motivated by this compelling evidence, the author embarks on his own real-world experiment, preparing to eat an 80% UPF diet for a month while scientists monitor his body's responses. This preparation alone—a four-week withdrawal from UPF—reveals how utterly pervasive these foods are in modern life.

The investigation exposes the profound flaws in our current food guidance systems, like the UK's "traffic light" labels. They operate on the delusional idea that people make rational, number-based decisions, completely ignoring our evolved biological systems for regulating appetite. The haunting question arises: what if UPFs hack and disrupt those very systems?

The narrative then delves into the origin story of the NOVA system through the work of Carlos Monteiro. Studying Brazil's rapid rise in obesity, he noticed a paradox: obesity rates soared among the poorest even as their purchase of basic cooking fats and sugars fell. This contradiction forced a radical rethink. Inspired by thinkers who argued that "food, not nutrients, is the fundamental unit," Monteiro stopped looking at chemical components and started analyzing overall dietary patterns. In 2010, his team drew a clear, if seemingly arbitrary, line around industrially formulated food products, creating the UPF category. The genius was in creating a testable hypothesis, much like using an arbitrary BMI threshold to diagnose the very real health risks of obesity.

This new framework had to be operationalized for science. Researchers began the massive task of categorizing the diets of hundreds of thousands of people in long-term studies according to NOVA. Despite fierce criticism from parts of the food industry and some nutritionists—who argued harm came from "bad" nutrients, not processing—the epidemiological results were striking. Even after accounting for sugar, fat, and salt intake, higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was independently linked to increased risks of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and depression. The evidence suggested the processing itself, through mechanisms like gut disruption and hyper-palatability, was causing harm. What began as a parent's breakfast-time concern had uncovered a fundamental challenge to traditional nutrition, pointing to the way our food is made as a critical factor in our health.

The Economics of Ingredient Swapping

The text begins with a practical insight from an expert, Paul, who explains a core economic driver of UPF production. He describes how manufacturers use a variety of refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) vegetable and animal fats—like palm stearate or shea fat—which become functionally identical after processing. This allows companies to swap between these fats based on whichever is cheapest on the global commodity market at any given time, without needing to change their packaging. This flexibility can lead to surprising and potentially unappealing ingredients, like the hypothetical use of chicken fat in ice cream, should market prices shift. This practice underscores that the primary malleable cost for food manufacturers is the ingredients themselves.

From Waste to Value: The Historical Roots of Processing

The narrative then traces how this drive for cost-efficiency and value addition has deep historical roots. The mass production of ice cream in the 19th century, for instance, originated as a solution for using up surplus waste milk. This theme of repurposing waste materials into profitable, long-shelf-life products is presented as a foundational element of the UPF industry, explaining why its rise was initially seen as a positive development. Similarly, ingredients like modified starches, now ubiquitous in UPF, were first developed for entirely different industries, such as mining and oil drilling, before being adopted for food.

A Personal Experiment Begins with Coco Pops

The focus shifts to the author's personal journey into understanding UPF, beginning with a contentious breakfast. Despite parental instincts and the "healthy" marketing via cartoon characters and nutritional traffic lights, his three-year-old daughter, Lyra, is irresistibly drawn to Coco Pops. Her consumption is described as rapid, mindless, and trance-like, eating far beyond a suggested portion as if compelled. This firsthand observation of hyperpalatability and a potential loss of eating control in a child serves as the catalyst for the author's deeper investigation.

Discovering the NOVA Classification and a Radical Hypothesis

The author details his introduction to the concept of UPF through two pivotal scientific papers. The first, by Carlos Monteiro, introduced the NOVA food classification system. This system doesn't just categorize foods by nutrients but by the extent and purpose of their industrial processing. The definition of Group 4, Ultra-Processed Foods, is extensive, describing them as industrial formulations made from fractionated and chemically modified substances, combined with additives, and designed to be profitable, convenient, and hyperpalatable. The revolutionary idea for the author was the inclusion of corporate profit and market displacement of whole foods as part of the scientific definition.

Testing the Theory with a Rigorous Experiment

The second paper, an experiment by Kevin Hall, put Monteiro's theory to the test. In a tightly controlled inpatient study, participants ate as much as they wanted from either an ultra-processed diet or a matched unprocessed diet. The result: people consumed significantly more calories and gained weight on the UPF diet, even though the available nutrients (fat, sugar, salt, fiber) were identical. While initially skeptical—aware that single studies can be misleading—the author found the combination of a compelling theory and supporting experimental evidence powerful enough to pursue further.

Launching a Real-World UPF Diet Study

Inspired, the author partners with obesity expert Professor Rachel Batterham to design a unique real-world experiment. He will consume an 80% UPF diet for one month—mimicking the intake of many children and adolescents—while his body and brain responses are meticulously monitored. The preparation involves a challenging four-week withdrawal from UPF, which heightens his cravings and reveals how pervasive these foods are in everyday meals, from shop-bought sandwiches to condiments. Baseline tests, including blood work, brain MRI, and body composition scans, are completed. As the experiment formally begins with the Coco Pops breakfast, the author reflects on the limitations of the dominant "nutritionism" model—judging food solely by its nutrient profile—and wonders if the processing itself holds the key to understanding overconsumption.

The Flaws in Current Food Classification Systems

The chapter scrutinizes the UK's voluntary "traffic light" nutrition labeling system and the opaque, complex Nutrient Profile Model (NPM 2004/5) used to classify foods as High in Fat, Salt, and Sugar (HFSS). These systems are revealed as not just confusing for consumers, but fundamentally delusional in their premise. They operate on the flawed idea that people make rational, number-based food choices, ignoring the biological systems of appetite regulation we have evolved. The text suggests that perhaps it is this very regulation of appetite that ultra-processed foods disrupt, leading to overconsumption regardless of the nutritional information on the box.

Carlos Monteiro's Path to a New Model

The narrative then traces the intellectual journey of Carlos Monteiro, the Brazilian public health researcher who developed the NOVA classification. His background, growing up on the edge of poverty and studying medicine under a military dictatorship, fueled a focus on social justice and the health of marginalized communities. His early work in the 1970s and 80s dealt with classic malnutrition, but by the mid-1990s, he began documenting a startling "nutritional transformation": a rapid rise in obesity, particularly among Brazil's poorest communities, even as their purchase of traditional cooking ingredients like oil and sugar fell. This paradox—obesity rising despite a diet that looked healthier by conventional nutrient metrics—forced a radical rethink. Monteiro decided to stop looking at individual nutrients and instead examine overall dietary patterns, using novel statistical methods to identify what foods were actually driving the problem.

A Historical Preoccupation with Processing

The text acknowledges that anxiety over "processed" or "junk" food is not new. It cites concerns dating back to Frederick Accum's 1820s treatise on food adulteration, through pioneering paediatrician Clara Davis in the 1920s, to Oxford biochemist Hugh Sinclair in the 1950s. However, these concerns always stumbled on a fundamental problem: almost all food is processed in some way, from cooking meat to baking bread. This made it impossible for traditional nutrition science to define "processing" as a meaningful health variable; harmful food was instead defined solely by its excessive content of "bad" nutrients like salt, fat, and sugar.

The Intellectual Foundation for NOVA

Two key publications in 2007 provided Monteiro's team with a crucial conceptual breakthrough. Michael Pollan's mantra to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" emphasized the healthfulness of traditional dietary patterns regardless of their specific components. Simultaneously, an academic paper titled "Food, not nutrients, is the fundamental unit in nutrition" highlighted a critical phenomenon: isolated nutrients (like beta-carotene or fish oil) fail to provide health benefits when taken as supplements, even though the whole foods containing them (like carrots or salmon) do. This underscored that food is a complex system, and its health impacts cannot be reduced to a sum of its chemical parts.

Drawing the Line: The "Arbitrary" Genius of NOVA

Monteiro's team used these insights to analyze their data and, by 2010, proposed the NOVA classification, formally defining "ultra-processed food" (UPF). The chapter directly addresses a common criticism: that the definition seems arbitrary. Why five ingredients? Why these specific processes? It argues that in science, the initial act of categorization can be arbitrary—what matters is whether the resulting category holds up to rigorous testing. The analogy is made to diagnosing obesity using a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30: the line is arbitrary, but the underlying health risks are real. Monteiro's genius was in deciding a meaningful line could be drawn around a class of industrially formulated food products, creating a clear hypothesis—the NOVA classification—that could be proven or disproven by evidence, sidestepping the snobbery and confusion of previous debates about "junk food."

Operationalizing the Definition for Science

The creation of the NOVA classification system provided a clear, testable hypothesis: that the processing of food, not just its nutrient profile, was a primary determinant of its health impact. To validate this, the NOVA framework had to be translated into a practical tool for epidemiological research. Scientists began categorizing the foods consumed by hundreds of thousands of participants in long-term cohort studies using the NOVA criteria. This massive undertaking aimed to move the theory from a conceptual model into hard, analyzable data, seeking to answer a pivotal question: does a diet high in ultra-processed foods actually lead to worse health outcomes?

A significant hurdle was, and remains, the intense pushback from segments of the food industry and some nutritionists. Critics argued that the NOVA system was too simplistic or that it vilified processed foods which could offer convenience and safety. The debate often centered on whether it was the poor nutritional content (high sugar, fat, salt) of these foods that caused harm, rather than their ultra-processed nature. This criticism set the stage for a scientific clash, forcing researchers to design studies that could disentangle the effects of processing from the effects of nutrients.

The Hypothesis is Put to the Test

When the results from large-scale studies like the NutriNet-Santé cohort in France began to emerge, they were striking. The data showed that even after statistically adjusting for the calorie, sugar, fat, and salt content of diets, the proportion of UPF in a person’s diet was independently associated with a higher risk of serious disease. Higher UPF consumption was linked to increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and even depression. These findings suggested something novel: the processing itself, and the industrial formulations and additives that define it, might be causing harm through mechanisms beyond simple nutrition—such as disrupting gut health, influencing hunger hormones, or promoting overconsumption through hyper-palatability.

The evidence provided a powerful validation of the initial hypothesis. It indicated that the NOVA classification was not just a theoretical exercise but a meaningful predictor of health risk. The conversation in nutritional science began to pivot, with a growing number of researchers acknowledging that what we eat cannot be separated from how it is made.

Key Takeaways

• The NOVA classification transitioned from a definition to a research tool, enabling scientists to test the health impacts of UPF in large population studies.
• Despite facing criticism from industry and some nutritionists, epidemiological research began to show strong, independent associations between UPF consumption and increased risk of chronic diseases.
• These early findings validated the core hypothesis, suggesting that the ultra-processing of food itself poses health risks that go beyond its nutritional composition, fundamentally challenging traditional dietary guidelines.

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3. Sure, ‘ultra-processed food’ sounds bad, but is it really a problem?

Overview

It begins with a personal story—a camping trip where indulging in snacks like Doritos left the author feeling off, sparking a family debate over whether a seemingly healthy muesli was actually ultra-processed food. This curiosity leads to a pivotal conversation with researcher Kevin Hall, a scientist who initially dismissed the entire idea as nonsense. His skepticism drove him to design a meticulous experiment, pitting a diet of ultra-processed foods against a matched, unprocessed one. The results were startling: even with calories, sugar, fat, and fibre identical on paper, people consumed 500 extra calories a day on the processed diet and gained weight, compelling evidence that the problem goes beyond simple nutrition.

Since that landmark study, a wave of epidemiological evidence has solidified the case. Large-scale reviews show a clear, "dose-dependent" link: the more ultra-processed food in your diet, the higher your risk for a host of health problems and even early death. This connection holds even after statistically accounting for poverty, lifestyle, and the nutrient content itself, challenging traditional food guidelines that focus solely on fat, salt, and sugar. This new understanding is framed by the NOVA classification system, which categorizes foods by their degree of processing. Unsurprisingly, this system faces criticism, but a closer look reveals many critiques are authored by researchers with financial ties to the very industry under scrutiny.

To understand the roots of this industrial system, the narrative reaches back to a dark historical precedent: the Nazi-era creation of synthetic "coal butter" from paraffin. This tale is a stark parable, revealing the ethical corners cut, the unknown health risks of novel substances, and the corporate amorality that can drive synthetic food production. It underscores a chilling industrial logic: food is reduced to mere fuel for labor, designed for speed over nourishment, directly contrasting with traditional meals seen as a cornerstone of health and culture.

The exploration of what we're really eating delves into the chemistry that makes it all possible, tracing a line from early 20th-century industrial breakthroughs in manipulating molecules like fatty acids. This science has a human cost, affecting factory workers who develop conditions like "popcorn workers' lung" from chemical exposures. Furthermore, the historical ties between major chemical corporations and unethical human experimentation during World War II cast a long shadow, revealing a past where scientific progress was catastrophically divorced from morality. Together, these threads build a compelling case that ultra-processed food represents a fundamental problem—not just for our health, but for how we relate to one of life's most basic acts.

The Camping Trip and a Radio Call

The author describes a camping trip in Wales with family, where his consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) like Doritos and Skittles left him feeling unwell. A breakfast debate erupts over Alpen muesli, which is technically UPF due to ingredients like milk whey powder, highlighting how persuasive packaging can mask a product's true nature. During the drive home, a call from the BBC leads to a pivotal conversation with researcher Kevin Hall.

Kevin Hall's Skeptical Journey

Kevin Hall, a physicist and leading nutrition scientist at the US National Institutes of Health, initially dismissed the UPF hypothesis as "absolute nonsense." He believed nutrition science was fundamentally about nutrients. When first presented with the theory, he found the definition fuzzy and questioned whether the issue was simply about high salt, sugar, and fat content, the displacement of healthier foods, or a proxy for poverty.

To settle the debate, Hall designed a tightly controlled experiment. He put two diets head-to-head: one comprised at least 80% ultra-processed foods, the other at least 80% unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Crucially, the diets were matched exactly for presented calories, salt, sugar, fat, and fibre. Participants lived in a clinical centre for a month, eating as much as they wanted of the provided food.

The Surprising Results of the Hall Study

The results shocked Hall and proved his initial skepticism wrong. Despite the diets being nutritionally matched, participants on the ultra-processed diet ate about 500 more calories per day and gained weight. Those on the unprocessed diet actually lost weight, even while eating to fullness. This occurred even though participants rated the meals from both diets as equally pleasant.

The author notes the study likely underestimates UPF's real-world impact, as it lacked marketing, packaging, and considered the significant cost and time savings UPF offers consumers. Hall's well-conducted study provided powerful evidence that something about the processing itself—beyond just nutrient content—drives overconsumption.

Epidemiological Evidence Piles Up

Following Hall's clinical trial, epidemiological research has surged. Scientist Sam Dicken reviewed around 250 studies, systematically addressing the common critiques. Research consistently shows that even after statistically adjusting for the nutrient content (fat, salt, sugar, fibre) and for overall dietary patterns, poverty, or other lifestyle factors, the strong associations between UPF and poor health remain.

This "dose-dependent" relationship is clear: as the proportion of UPF in the diet increases, so does the risk for a staggering range of health problems. The evidence indicates it is the ultra-processing, not merely the nutritional profile, that is the core problem.

Epidemiological Evidence and Industry Pushback

The chapter presents a compelling array of large-scale studies linking high consumption of ultra-processed food (UPF) to increased mortality. A UK study found a 22% increased risk of all-cause mortality for high UPF consumers, a US study showed a 26% increased risk, and a Spanish study reported a dramatic 62% increased risk. These consistent findings underscore a major flaw in existing nutritional guidelines: a diet can be technically "healthy" (low in fat, salt, and sugar) according to traffic-light systems like Nutri-Score yet still be dangerously high in UPFs, as seen with many diet shakes and plant-based reformulations.

This evidence, alongside Kevin Hall’s clinical trial, suggests the NOVA classification system explains health outcomes in ways traditional nutritionism cannot. However, NOVA faces criticism, primarily from papers that argue it is too simplistic. A closer examination reveals that many of these critical papers are authored by researchers with significant, and sometimes undisclosed, conflicts of interest with the UPF industry. One prominent critique was co-authored by a former Nestlé scientist, while another paper credited to a single author was actually conceived by a task force funded by major food corporations like PepsiCo and Mondeléz. This pattern mirrors evidence from the pharmaceutical industry showing that industry-funded science consistently biases results in favor of its sponsors.

A Historical Precedent: The Story of "Coal Butter"

The narrative then delves into a historical case study that acts as a foundational parable for UPF: the Nazi-era creation of synthetic "coal butter." Facing a fat shortage, German chemist Arthur Imhausen developed a method to turn paraffin, a by-product of coal-to-fuel processing, into an edible fat. This substance was flavored, colored, and approved for human consumption after "thousands of tests" conducted by Dr. Otto Fléssner—tests later revealed to have been performed on concentration camp prisoners. Despite internal data showing it caused kidney and bone problems in animals, the synthetic fat was fed to U-boat crews.

This story encapsulates the inherent dangers of synthetic foods: novel molecular mixtures require extensive, ethically fraught safety testing, and their promotion often involves fraudulent marketing. It also reveals the enduring nature of corporate entities. The companies involved, including Imhausen-Chemie and the notorious IG Farben (later broken into BASF, Bayer, and others), survived the war, with their wealth and legacy persisting despite their atrocities. This illustrates corporations as organisms in a financial ecosystem, where behavior is dictated by the flow of money, not moral shame.

The Inexorable Logic of Industrial Food

The creation of coal butter exposes the core philosophy of industrial food production: the reduction of food to a mere technical substance to fuel labor. A postwar paper advocating for continued synthetic fat research argued it was a "necessity of modern life" to allow industrial workers to work long shifts without a proper meal break. This logic directly connects to the modern prevalence of UPF meal deals—sandwiches, crisps, and fizzy drinks—designed for rapid consumption.

This stands in stark contrast to traditional eating patterns, exemplified by the Brazilian researchers who developed the NOVA system. They emphasize the importance of sitting down for a proper lunch, like rice and beans, viewing it as a cornerstone of health and a good life. The rapid, evolutionary-scale replacement of such traditional foods with UPF represents a profound shift in one of life's most fundamental activities.

Key Takeaways

• Robust, independent epidemiological studies consistently link high UPF consumption to significantly increased mortality risk, a connection often missed by standard nutritional guidelines focused solely on fat, salt, and sugar.
• Scientific criticism of the NOVA classification system frequently originates from authors with direct financial ties to the UPF industry, undermining the credibility of their critiques.
• The historical example of Nazi "coal butter" serves as a stark warning about the ethical dangers, unknown health risks, and corporate amorality inherent in creating synthetic foods from novel ingredients.
• The ultimate goal of industrial food processing, from coal butter to modern UPF, is to minimize the time spent eating, transforming food from a cultural and nourishing ritual into a mere fuel for economic productivity.

From Chemistry to Consequence

The inquiry into what "eating" truly is begins with an unexpected origin story for modern food processing: early 20th-century industrial chemistry. A key breakthrough came in 1925 with the production of methanol from zinc oxide. This simple alcohol, with the addition of catalysts like iron and cobalt, became a gateway to synthesizing more complex molecules, laying a foundational stone for the chemical manipulation of food.

This manipulation often centers on fundamental building blocks like fatty acids. The text illustrates how the same starting molecule can be diverted into wildly different end products through industrial reactions. Combining a fatty acid with an alkali yields soap. Combining it with glycerine creates triglycerides—the natural fats found in plants and animals. This principle of chemical recombination is central to creating ingredients for ultra-processed foods.

The Human Cost in the Factory

The impact of these industrial processes isn't confined to the final food product; it first affects the workers who make them. The text highlights a stark example: "popcorn workers' lung," or bronchiolitis obliterans, a devastating lung disease contracted by factory workers exposed to diacetyl, a chemical used to create buttery flavoring. This same compound has also been detected in some vape liquids, showing how food industry chemicals can migrate into other consumer products.

A Dark Historical Footnote

The narrative takes a sobering turn to the era of World War II, revealing how the science of nutrition and industrial chemistry became entangled in atrocity. In 1944, a conference in Berlin—attended by respected figures like Nobel laureate chemist Richard Kuhn and industrialist Otto Fléssner—unanimously voted to continue brutal nutritional experiments conducted on prisoners in concentration camps. These experiments were supported by companies like IG Farben, a predecessor of the modern chemical giant Evonik.

The legacy of this complicity is acknowledged by the company itself; Evonik's website details its involvement in the National Socialist era and organizes employee trips to Auschwitz to confront this history. While 24 IG Farben employees were tried after the war, consequences were light, with half acquitted and the maximum sentence being only eight years, underscoring a profound historical failure of corporate and scientific ethics.

Key Takeaways

• The science behind ultra-processed foods is rooted in early 20th-century industrial chemistry, which learned to break down and recombine basic molecules like fatty acids into new substances.
• The production of these foods and additives can carry direct health risks for the workers involved, as seen in cases like "popcorn workers' lung."
• The historical relationship between major food chemical corporations and unethical human experimentation presents a grave ethical backdrop, revealing how the drive for scientific and industrial progress has, in the past, been catastrophically divorced from morality.

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