ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE, Chris van Tulleken

I read this on Kindle, my partner did it as an audiobook, and, listen, this book is fucking terrifying and had made us review everything we eat. It’s about ultra processed foods, or UPF:

Paul Hart had explained how most UPF is reconstructed from whole food that has been reduced to its basic molecular constituents which are then modified and re-assembled into food-like shapes and textures and then heavily salted, sweetened, coloured and flavoured. Avena speculated that without additives these base industrial ingredients would probably not be recognisable as food by your tongue and brain: ‘It would be almost like eating dirt.’

Or, put more plainly and chillingly:

Whenever I talked about the ‘food’ I was eating, she corrected me: ‘Most UPF is not food, Chris. It’s an industrially produced edible substance.’

And here’s a small thing I had to sit and think about, after having spent years making smoothies:

The fibre that gives an apple crunch and solidity makes up just 2.5 per cent of the apple’s weight. The other 97.5 per cent is juice. The way the fibre is arranged around the cells and the fluid – that’s the matrix.

Apple juice, which is typically around 15 per cent sugar, behaves much like any soft drink. But so does the apple purée, even though it contains all the constituents of the apple, including the fibre, and was made moments before consumption. Fibre is important, but the matrix, the structure of the apple, is key.

This is when I switched to whole berries, sliced apple, almonds and honey for breakfast.

And here’s a new word: commerciogenic.

The Jelliffes catalogued instances of formula companies marketing breastfeeding as being ‘backwards and insufficient’, and in 1972 coined the phrase ‘commerciogenic malnutrition’ – malnutrition caused by companies.9 Modern obesity is also a commerciogenic disease.

…all diet-related diseases are commerciogenic.

Anyway. This book is long, detailed and as horrifying as Lovecraft. I did not want to find out how xanthan gum is actually made. Nor did I want to know what emulsifiers actually do to the gut. But this book lays out in excruciatingly clear sight exactly why I needed to know these things. It’s a really well written and deeply researched piece of work in very conversational and easy prose and fuck me it’s nasty reading.

ULTRA PROCE3SSED PEOPLE (UK) (US+)