Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
The book didn’t run out blow-your-mind facts, but I did run out of stickies!
“Bredon shuddered. ‘I think this is an awfully immoral job of ours. I do, really. Think how we spoil the digestions of the public.’
’Ah, yes—but think how earnestly we strive to put them right again. We undermine ’em with one hand and build ’em with the other. The vitamins we destroy in the canning, we restore in Revito, the roughage we remove from Peabody’s Piper Parritch we make up into a package and market as Bunbury’s Breakfast Bran; the stomachs we ruin with Pompayne, we re-line with Peplets to aid digestion. And by forcing the damn-fool public to pay twice over—once to have its food emasculated and once to have the vitality put back again, we keep the wheels of commerce turning and give employment to thousands—including you and me.’”
If you’ve been wondering what the furore is over UPF (ultra-processed food) then this is the book to help you decode it.
It’s amazing: very readable with plenty of ‘aha!’ and many more ‘what the F*$%!?’ moments.
Note the number of stickies in the photo. I only stopped because I ran out, and well, you can’t really stickie a whole book, can you?
I won’t really go into the contents as Chris has done loads of podcasts and TV shows based on his work, but if you want to read the source material and have access to the nearly 50 pages of references then BUY THE BOOK.
Chris is a scientist and explains that during his early career he read and analysed published papers on a weekly basis.
He and his colleagues considered the whole paper: the methodology, data, results, conclusions and abstracts. From this they then made a case for whether this counted as good research or not.
Could the experiment have been carried out better? Where were the biases? Were these accidental or were there financial or reputational incentives? Did they ask all the right questions? What would we have done in this situation? Etc etc
He's taken this approach, for which he is far better trained than most of us, certainly me, to peer reviewed papers on nutrition. And he sees what is, or isn’t there.
I not only have confidence that he can spot flaws and biases in scientific papers, I also know that he did his research.
He references Fred Provenza (#farminghero) quite extensively and he’s not someone you come across in general farming conversation, but he is amazing and knows his onions. If Chris got to Fred, he’s done the work.
(Apparently, Chris was so interested in ruminant nutrition that he wrote a whole chapter on it – but his editor made him take it out. Probably a wise decision, but I do hope he publishes that chapter somewhere sometime! Pretty please, Chris).
My main takeaway from this book? The thing that won’t leave me … is the FOOD COMPANIES ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS.
Things that food companies do not care about: Our health. (Duh!)
Things that they do care about? Profits, market share and share-holders. (Double duh!)
Also monetising by-products (waste) and they do this by adding flavouring and thickeners and turning it into something that can be marketed and consumed.
Obvious, huh?
But those healthful words, those green ticks, the little verdant hearts …
They can persuade you, if you are rushed, so busy, so tired, just want some quick food so you can put your feet up for 10 mins …
They spend a fortune on manipulation, sorry, advertising, to trick us into thinking that they have our back, and this manufactured food is something we should be (paying them for the privilege) of eating.
And it is of course the poorest, the most pressured, those amongst us who can least afford ill health, who consume the most UPF.
You can feed a family on UPF far more cheaply than on meat and 2 veg.
This is heart-breaking, scandalous and enraging and the reason why this is about the 10th time I’ve written this review. Slowly reducing the number of swear words in each edit.
Kids are hanging out in McDonalds because there are no more youth centres. Fast food joints are very happy to take their money.
Anyway, read it, it’s important. It will probably make you furious and very, very sad but it needs to be read.
Now, I haven’t given up UPF completely, and I don’t think we need to.
Well, … maybe in an ideal world.
BUT I make sure that when I do buy some its DAMN WELL because I want to and not because I’ve fallen for their manipulation, sorry, marketing.
No matter how much you plan or batch cook, some days you just need that emergency frozen pizza!
I do however make my own mayonnaise – takes minutes, 👉CLICK HERE👈 for the recipe– since I discovered what Xantham Gum actually is … 🤮
Hard to believe but there was a time before advertising and in a serendipitous twist I happened to read Dorothy L. Sayers’, Murder Must Advertise, straight after Ultra-Processed People and this (👈) quote made me laugh cry.
So, read the book but beware it may have consequences.
You can’t unread it.
And if your situation means you do have to eat more UPF than you’d like, don’t beat YOURSELF up, really, please don’t. The system is screwed.
Every human is doing the best they can, for themselves and their families.
Let’s get mad at the companies and the system that set us up to fail.
Imagine an NHS which didn’t have to pay the cost for cheap food and huge manipulation, sorry, advertising budgets …