Processed world?
This post is slightly different to other posts, but it discusses a topic that I find very interesting, this being processed foods. Having learned about food and nutrition a little bit over the past few years, I thought I would start sharing some of the things that I have picked up in the hope that it can help inform others of some important information.
I am recently read ‘Hooked’ by Michael Mosely. The book discusses how we have become addicted to processed foods and looks at both the internal factors, such as our bodies’ response to eating highly processed foods and external factors, such as the multi-million dollar advertising regimes that processed food manufactures use to lure us in. I thought I would share some of the key takeaways from this book, as well as some other comments related to processed foods.
Speed
The speed of production of processed foods to the speed at which they can be consumed once they reach our hands. Companies prioritise profit, so if they can make things quicker, using less tools and equipment, then this is good news to them. By cutting corners to make their foods emulate textures and flavours in ‘real foods’, they are able to shortcut their way to a seemingly equivalent end product. But here is the catch, that loaf of white bread wrapped in plastic in supermarkets is a million miles away from a freshly baked loaf of sourdough. The former’s production process is squeezed into a few hours, if that, with the rising process accelerated through the use of processing, whereas the latter takes many hours, if not days to produce. One of these - the processed version - harms our health far more than the other.
Having brought an item of processed foods, it is often very convenient and quick to consume the item. Companies intentionally lower the resistance to consumption of their products as much as possible, again, in the view of maximising the consumer’s intake in order to generate more profit. One example that jumps to my mind is nearly all chocolate and sweet bags, which are more often than not designed to open with just one ‘rip’ and stand up on their base so that someone’s hands can effortlessly dip in and out of the bag, removing any barrier to eating the chocolate.
There is another important factor, this being the speed at which these foods hit our brain. These big companies hire scientists to research ways in which they can make their foods more palatable, or effectively, more addictive. Unlike other addictive substances such as tobacco, food triggers a signal far quicker in our brain. This is because they can take a shortcut due to how the mouth and nose are linked to the brain (via the pharynx). Therefore, unlike tobacco, which has to enter the blood before it takes effect, processed foods act far quicker, around 20 times faster to be exact.
When I read about these things, it shocked my just how little control we actually have over our eating habits as soon as we enter a supermarket. As humans living in modern society, our busy lives often demand time-saving measures to enhance our productivity. Therefore, one might naturally lean towards more processed foods as they just seem so convenient. But I propose another solution. I strongly believe that by cutting out processed foods from one’s diet, unless completely constrained for time, one can become more efficient and productive at everything they do. By putting nutrient rich foods into our bodies instead of low nutrient density processed foods that sap our energy, we can now use food as a way of increasing our energy levels.
Every individual is different
The next point that I found interesting is the fact that different people have different sensitivities to reward and different capacities to inhibit this. An example of this is: let’s say someone is walking down the street and they see a KFC advertisement on the side of the bus stop. One person may pass by this obliviously and not take any further notice of the sign as it does not act as a trigger mechanism for craving of KFC. However, someone else, who may or may not be a KFC addict, may immediately start to experience a snowball of emotions that all guide them to thinking that they want that KFC, now. I found this interesting due to my personal experience of this. When I was in school, I had a sweet tooth and a liking for fast foods and whenever I was out with friends and we’d pass a fast food restaurant sign, I would immediately want that Big Mac. For me, I think this was because I had had one before and because of the clever work of the ‘food scientists’ at these fast food restaurants to manipulate their plastic-like foods to be as addictive as possible, now my brain viewed these foods as a reward. As a result, I would feel a compulsion to eat another Big Mac. Being perhaps intentionally unaware of the huge negative health effects of ultra-processed foods meant that there was no resistance to this path in my brain. But, over the years, as I have slowly realised just how bad these kinds of foods are for us, I now have no compulsion so eat some chicken nuggets when I walk past that sign.
Evolution
Michael Moss often refers to Ardi, who is an example of one of our earliest ancestors who could walk and how one small change led to big evolutionary changes. Before Ardi, our ancestors would crawl, however, in order to better access foods in the long grasses in Ethiopia, Ardi stood up. This changed the way we smell as we were no longer close to the ground, meaning that our ability to smell different things became far more sensitive. This is now working against us as how our food smells plays an important role in how much we like a certain food when we eat it.
As well as this evolutionary change, another interesting adaptation is that we’ve developed a stomach that acts as both a brake and an accelerator on our appetite. However, unlike Ardi, who’s principal source of food was high in fiber and water, processed foods lack these. This is important, as these are the main two things that stretch our stomach to signal putting the brake on. So, what’s the problem? Well, because processed foods are lacking these brake triggering features and also have high energy density, our stomachs are unable to put the brakes on quick enough and we store the excess energy as body fat.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
This point relates to the importance of appreciating that no visible fat does not imply that someone is healthy. People can appear a healthy weight yet be very unhealthy on the inside and vice versa. I am personally concerned about this mismatch between how visibly fat someone is and their actual physical health and believe that we need to be careful not to assess our health purely off this metric. Plenty of slim and lean individuals go on to develop metabolic syndrome and other metabolic disorders later on in their lives due to poor food choices. The primary reason why this is important is because the most dangerous fat is one that we cannot ‘see’ externally on someone. Instead, it is the fat that encases our organs, in particularly, visceral fat. It is this that we want to keep to low levels. This is also the reason why procedures such as liposuction don’t simply improve someone’s health as it leaves the visceral fat untouched.
Variety
Humans love variety. Processed food companies exploit this. From different shapes to color to flavour to size to texture… you get the gist. On paper, this looks great. When you walk into the shop and they have come out with a new flavour of crisps, your eyes might light up. This likely happens even if you don’t really like their other flavour anymore and lures customers into buying more of the product. The new flavour creates new pathways in the brain and our appetite is now satisfied with this ‘new’ product which is only slightly different. I am not too sure how to explain this in any more detail apart from the fact that we now effectively have an unlimited number of varieties of a singular type of product, so if we get bored of one variety, we seamlessly hop onto the next one.
Something that I found very interesting in the book is the fact that these processed food companies also tend to have a finger dipped into the ‘diet’ or ‘healthy eating’ sector. Many of these companies also create supposedly healthier alternatives to some of their worst culprits, in an attempt to make them look as if they care in the slightest about the consumers’ health. But, somewhat cleverly, they will often place these ‘diet’ alternatives right next to the other unhealthier variant in the shop. This means that if our ‘willpower’ gives in even slightly at the shop, then we can just slide right back into eating their other product. Moreover, I believe that this gives a false reassurance that we are heating healthily merely because the product is labelled in a particular way.
‘Nutrisionism’ This concept refers to the danger of paying too much attention to the nutrition labelling on processed foods. I’ve personally been sceptical about food labelling for a few years now. After reading a book by Gary Taubes, my eyes were opened to just how misleading those traffic light labels on the front of packaged foods can be. Well, the stuff on the back (you know, that really confusing looking black and white table) can be even more misleading. Simply put, processed food companies can manipulate the contents of their foods as much as they like such that these numbers don’t seem like something that we should be worried about. In fact, many of these ultra processed products seem OK based off these metrics. But the thing is, who even knows the relative amounts of each of the things that they should be eating? I believe that this give a false perception of eating healthily as it pays no attention to the ingredients included and their degree of ‘ultra-processedness’. To try to regain some control over our eating, we should instead aim to eat foods as close to the whole form as possible. A general rule of thumb that I use is the least amount of packaging and the least amount of labelling that is trying to convince me that the thing is healthy, then the better (usually). For example, a courgette doesn’t need a label to say that it is healthy for you, unlike some ready meals whose labelling is often designed to try and brainwash us into thinking that that product is good for you.
Ultimately, the processed food industry’s interest is best served if we as consumers overeat, in a similar fashion to the tobacco industry, whose interest is best served if we smoke. A chicken nugget at a fast food restaurant might look OK, but they are full of so many things that shouldn’t be anywhere near our body. To put it simply, the rise of the processed food industry has occurred at a far greater rate than evolution can possibly keep up with. Consequently, we are suffering it’s ill effects.
I believe that a shift of perspective is required, which will involve educating people about what ‘actual’ food is and the harm that processed foods can cause. That’s all from me for now, I hope you all enjoyed a slightly different blog post!