You are what you eat, so don’t be an ‘ultra processed food’

“YOU are what you eat.” It’s a common expression that is a good reminder to make healthy food choices.

If chocolate, fizzy drinks and crisps make up a sizeable chunk of your diet then, in a way, they make up a chunk of you too.

For a long time, the focus of public health advice has been to eat a balanced diet with the correct mix of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals.

“Yeah yeah,” you say, “we’ve heard it all before.” Don’t take in more calories than you expend and don’t over-consume fat, salt, and sugar to avoid getting fat, getting a heart attack or getting diabetes.

However, science now understands that it is not a simple energy in versus energy out equation that determines our weight. A complicated internal biological system between different parts of our brain, our hormones, our genes, the microbiota in our guts and our diet are involved in regulating our weight and our health.

Researchers are learning that what we eat every day impacts this highly evolved system. It’s not simply an excess of individual ingredients like fat, salt and sugar or a deficit of fibre or other micronutrients that are the problem in driving obesity and other diet-related health problems, it is the consumption of industrially mass produced ingredients into foods that are ‘ultra-processed’ (also often high in fat, sugar and salt) that are driving the obesity epidemic and raising the risks of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, mental health issues, and other chronic health conditions.

I’ve just finished reading Ultra Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food…And Why Can’t We Stop, by Dr Chris Van Tulleken and it is a book that makes you stop and really think about what we put in our mouths.

Tulleken might be familiar to you as one half of the twin doctor duo that present BBC’s kids show Operation Ouch, but in the real, non-TV world, he is an infectious diseases doctor who researches how food companies affect human health.

His book is an eye opening look at the foods or non-foods we eat every day, how they are undermining human health and planetary health, how they are designed to be over-consumed, and how difficult it is to eat minimally processed, healthy foods without spending lots of money and time sourcing and cooking them.

The term ‘ultra processed food’ comes from the Nova classification of food processing.

Loosely, category 1 foods are unprocessed or minimally processed like fruits, vegetables, meat, milk, etc.

Category 2 are “processed culinary ingredients” like butter, oils, sugar, flour.

Category 3 examples include traditional breads, cheeses, canned fruits and vegetables.

Ultra-processed foods (UPF) fit into category 4 and are ready-to-eat industrial formulations that are made with multiple industrial ingredients extracted from foods or synthesised in laboratories, containing little whole foods.

UPF uses ingredients like flavours, colours, sweeteners, emulsifiers and other additives to create desirable food sensory experiences. The overall purpose of ultra-processing is to create highly profitable, hyper-palatable ready-to-consume products with long shelf-life.

Ultra processed food has been deconstructed from its original ingredients, e.g. corn or soya, and put back together again with the help of artificial additives, flavourings, emulsifiers, colourings, etc. The result is an edible substance but not a food.

You can eat an addictive salt and vinegar potato-based crisp and want a second packet as soon as you finish the first, but it is not real food in the way a homemade roast potato is.

There is a short rule of thumb to identify if what you are about to eat is ultra processed. Tulleken says “if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t usually find in a standard home kitchen, it’s UPF”.

UPF is problematic because it is everywhere. It is not just the ‘treats’ like fizzy drinks, crisps and ice cream that we know we shouldn’t eat every day. It is the ready prepared meals, frozen pizza, sausages, biscuits, instant soup/noodles, sweet/savoury packaged snacks. breakfast cereals, and supermarket bread that are problematic.

In the UK. as much as 60% of the average diet is made up of UPF.

According to the First Steps Nutrition Trust in the UK, by aged two to five, UPFs account for nearly two thirds (61%) of the total mean energy intake of UK children - a higher proportion than their peers in the United States and Australia.

It would be interesting to see how Irish diet data compares. Judging by the amount of UPF stocked on aisles and aisles of our supermarket shelves, I’d hazard that Ireland would have comparable rates.

The impact that UPF has on our brains is something science is trying to get to grips with. Studies have shown that people who eat UPF over- consume calories, possibly because the consumption affects appetite regulation.

Studies have shown that eating a poor diet affects mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, and the role of gut and the microbiota that live in our digestive systems are involved in the gut brain axis.

If UPF is disrupting the normal signalling between our guts and brains, then the impact of UPF foods on the population and particularly the developing brains of our children is a major cause for concern.

Take Xantham gum. You may have seen it on a food label - it is in everything from toothpaste to teriyaki sauce.

Xantham gum is made by feeding corn syrup to the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris on an industrial scale. The bacteria consume the sugars in the syrup and excrete a gooey residue - xantham gum - it goes into mayonnaise, ice-cream, and yoghurt. It is used in oil exploration drilling as it is such a good lubricant for drill heads.

Xantham gum is used to replace more expensive food ingredients and give food a longer shelf life.

The problem is that our bodies don’t recognise xantham gum as a ‘food’ - it’s the effluence of a bacteria!

Science now understands that xantham gum generates a new strain of bacteria in the guts of billions of people, and it may have an effect on our immune system and that sophisticated gut brain axis that underpins much of human health.

Something to think about the next time you’re doing the grocery shop.

Canada, Brazil, France, Mexico, and other countries offer public health advice to avoid UPF.

The World Health Organisation and UNICEF both recognise the importance of addressing ultra-processed food consumption for ending childhood obesity,and we can all take positive steps to reduce our intake.

As Tulleken reminds us, food made from scratch in a kitchen by someone who loves you is going to be better for you than food made in an industrial kitchen by a transnational food company intent on making a profit.