Ultra Processed foods - we have a choice

I’ve recently finished reading Chris van Tulleken’s book, Ultra Processed People: Why do we eat stuff that isn’t food…and why can’t we stop, link to buy off Amazon here, which is both hugely validating and very scary.

It has concerned me for some time that increasing numbers of people are eating ultra processed food (UPF) to the extent that it has become more of the norm (in our busy lives) and for some people there is little choice as they live in food swamps where access to fresh food is minimal. It is perhaps not surprising that we are becoming increasingly sick as a society, not that the powers that be will acknowledge the connection.

In fact this is what scares me the most - that people are actually producing data to validate the need for UPF. these are people who are prepared to compromise on people’s health and wellbeing simply to make money. You have to be so careful with research - scientist can prove anything in their favour if they so wish and as our society now places them on pedestals, we can fall for their crap.

It’s a no brainer in my world - we are what we eat. Therefore eating UPFs devoid of any actual life force is certainly not going to help us thrive. We have to remember that we are energy first and foremost, as is nature, and nature provides us with all we need to thrive. We have to think in vibrational terms. A strawberry grown at home in the moon and sunlight, with love and care, if likely to taste a whole heap nicer than a strawberry grown on a mass level in depleted soil, covered with pesticides and picked with little love.

Of course it’s even worse with UPFs as they are not even real food.

The problem is that life is busy and many people live their lives in their heads, devoid of connection to their body, and have very little awareness of how much the food they eat negatively affects the way they feel. Furthermore lots of people are poor and cannot afford to eat well because sadly UPFs are often cheaper than proper food.

And of course UPFs are addictive, which means that people easily get hooked - look at Pringles, one of the classic addictive foods, developed with that very notion in mind, there is not one healthy ingredient in Pringles, even the way they have been shaped has been designed purposefully to maximise the taste buds on your tongue and cause you to want more - ““once you pop, you just can’t stop”.

Obviously all this UPFs is leading to changes in our relationship to traditional foods as well as creating chaos in our bodies, with increasingly levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Chris is keen to highlight that this is not our fault. We are sold the idea that UPFs are somehow good for us, affordable, plentiful and making our lives easier because we are spared the time is takes to prepare foods from scratch - sod the fact our body struggles to digest them and our overall wellbeing is negatively impacted, let alone the impact on traditional society and our ecosystem.

Sadly it all boils down to money. We live in a capitalist, patriarchal and consumer society and most people are driven solely by the idea of making money. They don’t care so much about our health and well-being, not really - a hard realisation to accept, I know I struggled, we have this tendency to think that people all think the same way we do -= they don’t!

Even those food stuffs marketed as healthy which you might find in Hansa might be ultra processed, containing ingredients that have been manufactured to take the place of more traditional (and healthier) binds and thickeners. The vegan craze was the worst. Yikes. It certainly isn’t healthy to eat those vegan products, a marketing dream thought, these fads.

I was saddened to read how many animals are bred, tested upon and therefore suffer, in the process of making UPFs.

I was also saddened to read how many people sell out to these big corporations and actually feel that they are doing a positive thing when they introduce indigenous cultures to these products, encouraging obesity and dental issues in numbers never known previously, when traditional foods were eaten. Even the Amazon has not been left untouched.

Mind you we are all contributing in some small way. if we’re not buying these products and therefore creating a market for them, then we might be invested in them, especially thorough pension funds.

And we wonder why the world is in the state it is in.

I was heartened though to read how many people are trying to make a differences who are not selling out to the broken system, who want to see positive change in the world and are prepared to do something about it, be they lawyers, activists, economists, doctors, nutritionist etc, people who actually care about their fellow man and this beautiful planet we live on.

I wa also heartened to read about a study which validated that children know what is best for them to eat. I am not talking about UPFs. I mean proper foods. Left to choose intuitively children knew when they needed to eat more tomatoes or fish or potatoes or whatever it might be, they knew how to make themselves well using food as their medicine. They take about food lags, where children will eat say a tomato at each meal for a few weeks and then suddenly they stop. This is not fussiness. This is them knowing that they have taken all the vitamins and minerals from the tomato that they need and are ready to address another lack instead.

Ayurveda has always recognised this. It is tried an tested, 5,000 years old and it too works on the premis that whole food are best and food can be used not only as a medicine but as a preventative, supporting optimal digestion and immunity. When I was given the choice for a blood transfusion following Elijah’s birth, I turned it down and chose to heal myself through food instead. A staunch vegetarian at that point, I was literally salivating at the idea of red meat and followed my body’s need to eat this until the desire dropped away, putting my morals to the side, realising that I was going to of little use to Elijah sick, especially breast feeding - and my iron levels returned to normal - a few months later and I went back to my staunch vegetarian ways!

I have food lags even now. Times when I want to eat say a ton of pumpkin seeds and then that desire drops away and I crave almonds instead, or whatever it might be. Ultimately our body knows what it needs. But the trouble is, our mind often gets in the way, or our emotions, and we eat for a myriad of reasons, not always healthy - in fact often not healthy, which is what leads to weight and other health issues.

Chris highlights the costs to our health of UPFs which I have summarised here:

1. The destruction of the food matrix, UPF food is generally softer, which means you eat faster and eat far more calories per minute than say a traditional meal. Potentially this reduces facial bone size and density and leads to bone and dental issues.

2. UPF is high in calories by way of fat and sugar and low in fibre so negatively impacts the body’s digestive system.

3. Whole foods are displaced from the diet, especially among low income households - this because UPF is usually much cheaper than whole foods.

4. Taste is disrupted when consuming UPF, which negatively impacts metabolism and appetite and can lead to over eating.

5. UPFs are often addictive and designed to be so - think of the of Pringles, which might lead to ‘one you pop, you just can’t stop, until you pop’. Inevitably overeating of UPFs leads to obesity and type 2 disabetes.

6. The preservatives, emulsifiers, modified starches and other additives negatively impact the body’s microbiome and can lead to increased suspectibilty to inflammation.

7. UPFs play into our busy lives, because they are marketed as convenient and at an atrcativce cost. No hours spent slaving away in the kitchen cooking from scratch and the time and money spent buy-in the ingredients in the first place.

8. The additives and physical processing affect brain and endocrine function, and of course the plastics used affect fertility.

9. And of course we cannot ignore the fact that the product methods lead to environmental destruction, increased carbon emissions and plastic pollution to say nothing of the harm to us.

It saddens me that not more is done to regulate this industry. Maybe the health services wouldn’t be so over run if people realised the connection between what they eat and their health and wellbeing.

The only way things will change - beyond government intervention and legislation - is for each of us to take responsibility. We have the choice of what we put in our mouths. We have the choice to thrive by remembering that we are what we eat.

I shall be forever grateful to Carol Champion and my Ayurvedic doctor for not only educating me, but inspiring me to make positive changes to my diet, which massively changed the way I felt and created a passion for good food.

But it is my Mum though, who I really have to thank. She is the best cook I have ever known and has always made us food from scratch which not only tastes amazing but oozes love You just cannot put a price on that. It’s her fault really that I struggle to eat out. No one makes food like my Mum and I don’t like not knowing what ingredients and products are being used in kitchens, let alone whether food is microwaved (yuck) or prepared/made by people who are not oozing love. I don’t want to eat that crap!

You see we are not only what we eat, because our digestion is also affected by the way food is prepared and cooked for us. Food made with love tastes very different to food made with anger. I like to eat well. I like to cook from scratch for my family. Some days I might make three different meals meeting everyone’s needs and the shopping and preparation takes time, but it is a form of meditation, and it helps to ground me as much as it helps to nourish my children. It is worth the sacrifice in other areas of my life.

I highly recommend reading Chris’ book, especially if you struggle to let go of UPFs. It’s not your fault by the way, they are designed to catch you and get you addicted to them - they want your money!

Love Emma x