Ultraprocessed foods documentary

[Deleted member 21371]

Halla argues that introducing eg taxes on ultraprocessed food would be massively regressive - lots of people just can't afford or just don't have access to wholefoods etc, and he doesn't see how a tax would lead to a situation where poorer people weren't severely hit.

So, again, ultraprocessed food is fundamentally great - tasty, convenient, long-life, potentially nutritious, affordable for ervyone. It's just that the way it is now, it causes people to over-eat. What to do about that?

I just had a look at the menu, and the results from the actual study.
The weight was caused by overeating, due to the calorie increase.
The overeating roughly tied into the increase in speed that the processed food was eaten at.
But the overeating may have been triggered by the food itself, in that the protein ratio was lower, and the way to get the same protein amount was to increase the overall amount of food.
Which makes sense, carbs and fats are cheap fillers, protein is dearer.
Legislate to have a minimum ratio of protein in food, or at least identify low protein foods.

Also, the ultra processed food was comfort food, easy to eat, no great requirement to think about it, and served with copious liquids to wash it down
The un processed food was quite dry, or messy, or some other requirement to think before you could swallow it, and served with no liquids.
So harder to eat, slower, and your stomach will be saying it's full before excessive mouthfuls go in.
Both a fairly easy fix.
Don't drink with the meal, and serve food that requires effort. (Even the spaghetti rather than macaroni is a slower meal without any other change)

 

[pm133]

Halla argues that introducing eg taxes on ultraprocessed food would be massively regressive - lots of people just can't afford or just don't have access to wholefoods etc, and he doesn't see how a tax would lead to a situation where poorer people weren't severely hit.

The idea that you need money to eat good quality food is absolutely wrong.
Fresh fruit and vegetables are incredibly cheap and certainly cheaper than anything you'd ever find in a takeaway.

It is extremely easy, quick and cheap to make a meal for a family of four. This is an education issue and a laziness issue.

 

[pm133]

I just had a look at the menu, and the results from the actual study.

I have to say I didn't like the look of any of those meals he was eating.

Also it's a bit difficult to judge from photos but it looked like his portion sizes were very large in many cases.

 

[Sally W]

I think there is a call from some quarters to require an ‘ultraprocessed’ label on packaging - but I’d imagine the food industry would be pretty resistant to that!

Chile are doing just that with children’s junk food apparently. Currently reading Spoon-fed by Professor Spector who says exactly that. The ultra processes foods are the worst, where he believes canned and dried foods are ok. Frustratingly labels aren’t required by law to list all the ingredients so home cooking seems to be the way forward. It’s a shocking but brilliant read which I’d really recommend.

 

[Eddy Edson]

The idea that you need money to eat good quality food is absolutely wrong.
Fresh fruit and vegetables are incredibly cheap and certainly cheaper than anything you'd ever find in a takeaway.

It is extremely easy, quick and cheap to make a meal for a family of four. This is an education issue and a laziness issue.

I eat mainly fresh plant minimally processed wholefoods & it's certainly more expensive than supermarket ready meals, packaged bread, tinned stuff, breakfast cereal etc etc. It also involves more shopping trips because most of it doesn't keep for long. I can go to the produce & supermarket 2km away, or the small supermarket 50m away and pay 30%+ higher prices. I'm fortunate to have the choice, living in the middle of a fairly large city. Lots of people don't have the options.

Hall comments that his dieticians found it challenging to construct the minimally-processed meals within his govt project budget.

Anyway, it's all anecdotes. I don't really care about anecdotes and opinions, versus data.

 

[pm133]

I eat mainly fresh plant minimally processed wholefoods & it's certainly more expensive than supermarket ready meals, packaged bread, tinned stuff, breakfast cereal etc etc. It also involves more shopping trips because most of it doesn't keep for long. I can go to the produce & supermarket 2km away, or the small supermarket 50m away and pay 30%+ higher prices. I'm fortunate to have the choice, living in the middle of a fairly large city. Lots of people don't have the options.

Hall comments that his dieticians found it challenging to construct the minimally-processed meals within his govt project budget.

Anyway, it's all anecdotes. I don't really care about anecdotes and opinions, versus data.

It depends on what you are eating. If you want to eat everything fresh and organic, free of containers then it'll be more expensive.

That's a different issue from suggesting poorer people can easily afford to eat more fruit and veg and learn how to cook simple, healthy meals properly and that this would be much cheaper and healthier than chicken nuggets, Findus crispy pancakes, turkey twizzlers buried in a mountain of baked beans, pizzas, takeaway curries, kebabs and fish suppers.
I know it's cheaper because after years of doing the latter, I have switched to the former and watched my household food bill drastically reduce.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Kevin Hall and others talking about ultraprocessed food on a BBC podcast:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1397923813598187527

 

[Robin]

Kevin Hall and others talking about ultraprocessed food on a BBC podcast:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1397923813598187527

I’m watching the BBC programme at the moment, they’ve just interviewed Kevin Hall talking about his 2019 experiment that found people offered ultraprocessed food ate 500 calories a day more, and put on a kilo in 2 weeks, compared with people offered minimally processed food.
His theory is that ultra processed food is so easy and quick to eat, it bypasses the body's natural signal that you’re full, which only catches up and tells you to stop when you’ve eaten too much.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I’m watching the BBC programme at the moment, they’ve just interviewed Kevin Hall talking about his 2019 experiment that found people offered ultraprocessed food ate 500 calories a day more, and put on a kilo in 2 weeks, compared with people offered minimally processed food.
His theory is that ultra processed food is so easy and quick to eat, it bypasses the body's natural signal that you’re full, which only catches up and tells you to stop when you’ve eaten too much.

That's interesting - previous commentary from him gave that as just one hypothesis.

 

[Robin]

That's interesting - previous commentary from him gave that as just one hypothesis.

To be fair, it might be just that that's the sound bite the BBC chose to use, it was a short piece.

 

[trophywench]

Having just finished watching it - Chris's brain actually proved that theory. In the 28 days he stuck to the diet the hunger response had increased by double the amount his 'I feel full' response had reduced. New pathways between different parts of the brain that we don't normally have (and he didn't pre diet) had been formed, and had not disappeared some months post experiment.

Food for thought most certainly!

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Very disappointing to be honest.
It quickly became nothing of any substance.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Having just finished watching it - Chris's brain actually proved that theory. In the 28 days he stuck to the diet the hunger response had increased by double the amount his 'I feel full' response had reduced. New pathways between different parts of the brain that we don't normally have (and he didn't pre diet) had been formed, and had not disappeared some months post experiment.

Food for thought most certainly!

The pathways were not explained.
It was a pleasure response.
We all have them, everyday.

 

[Robin]

The pathways were not explained.
It was a pleasure response.
We all have them, everyday.

The doctor at UCLH where the MRI was done said that the new pathways were more than they’d expect to see develop in one month; that they weren’t pure pleasure reposnses but links to habitual and routine behaviour, such as are seen when people smoke, drink, or take drugs. They did say that there needs to be some proper research done, now they’ve discovered this.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

The pathways were not explained.
It was a pleasure response.
We all have them, everyday.

I didn’t hear it that way. It was a set of new connections between reward centres in the brain and those that govern food/appetite. In exactly the same way that you would see if taking a known addictive substance.

Which suggests that the sensory experience of ultraprocessed foods is literally addictive. And that the more of it you have, the more cemented those pathways become, and the more of it you crave. (It’s not like he never ate anything ultraprocessed before, it was the proportion that was different). Which makes me wonder if there may be some sort of ‘tipping point’ where moving back to eating more minimally processed (less addictive) alternatives becomes much harder. Could explain a lot of the difficulty that public health initiatives have encountered over the past 30 years or so.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

To be fair, it might be just that that's the sound bite the BBC chose to use, it was a short piece.

I thought it was interesting (if I understood correctly) that the diets in that experiment were carefully matched for salt, sugar, fat etc. So that the basics were the same, but that the ultraprocessed had been ‘optimised’ with extra ingredients to make them more palatable, easier to swallow, more flavour enhanced, and to reach the ‘bliss point’ more reliably. Engineered to make you want to overeat.

 

[Robin]

I thought it was interesting (if I understood correctly) that the diets in that experiment were carefully matched for salt, sugar, fat etc. So that the basics were the same, but that the ultraprocessed had been ‘optimised’ with extra ingredients to make them more palatable, easier to swallow, more flavour enhanced, and to reach the ‘bliss point’ more reliably. Engineered to make you want to overeat.

Yes, that was very interesting, and alarming!

 

[Eddy Edson]

I thought it was interesting (if I understood correctly) that the diets in that experiment were carefully matched for salt, sugar, fat etc. So that the basics were the same, but that the ultraprocessed had been ‘optimised’ with extra ingredients to make them more palatable, easier to swallow, more flavour enhanced, and to reach the ‘bliss point’ more reliably. Engineered to make you want to overeat.

Actually, that's not quite right. In this experiment, the ultraprocessed and minimally processes diets were rated as equally palatable and tasty by the subjects. The only strong difference signal was eating speed, which Hall (at least in the commentary I've seen) doesn't yet have a strong explanation for.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Actually, that's not quite right. In this experiment, the ultraprocessed and minimally processes diets were rated as equally palatable and tasty by the subjects. The only strong difference signal was eating speed, which Hall (at least in the commentary I've seen) doesn't yet have a strong explanation for.

Ah that’s interesting. I was inferring from other information in the documentary, having not read the paper. The matching of macronutrients was interesting though I thought.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Ah that’s interesting. I was inferring from other information in the documentary. The matching of macronutrients was interesting though I thought.

Yes. So Hall's conclusion is that explanations having to do with salt, fat, fibre content don't work. There's something else going on, apparently not related to nutrient content in any obvious way.

If you're interested in this stuff, it's well worth looking at the conf presentation youtube I linked upthread somewhere.