How Ultra-Processed Foods Took Over America And Can Even Pass For Healthy | Business Insider

ultr processed foods make up more than half of the calories that Americans consume but they're actually quite dangerous for your health and potentially highly addictive and I'm not just talking about donuts and pizza here there are actually a lot of ultra processed foods that we mistake for healthy ones I'm Mia degraph I'm a health editor at Business Insider and I'm going to be showing you how to tell what's an ultra processed food from what isn't processed food is something that has been altered in some way before it lands in your grocery cart so that's canned tomatoes or cheese or dried pasta ultr processed food is something that looks very unlike anything you would have in your kitchen at home it's had different ingredients added to it to make it more shelf stable so those might be preservatives or sugar it's also gone through different processes like hydrogenation which also help it last longer that's things like soda or or candy bars or chips so the problem with ultr processed foods on a nutritional level is that the processes that they go through break down what's known as the food Matrix within the food so the nutrients that are in the original food have gone through so many things that mean that they've deteriorated so if I'm at home I slice up a potato and I fry it and turn it into chips the food Matrix within that Chip is going to be far more intact than if I buy a packet of chips those chips have gone through so many different processes and have different chemicals that make them more shelf stable make them last longer but as a result they're lacking in the nutrients inside one of the biggest issues with ultr processed food is the lack of fiber when you have a good amount of fiber in your body your body naturally produces this hormone called glp1 that is the hormone that weight loss drugs like o tried to mimic they are literally called glp1 Agonist so when you're eating a lot of ultr processed foods and you are lacking in that fiber that's going to disrupt your body's natural cycle of producing this hormone that keeps you Fuller for longer and makes you not want to snack as much that's why ultr processed foods are linked with diabetes and heart disease and obesity a study in 2019 by the National Institute of Health provided a bit of a watershed moment in terms of our understanding in of ultr processed foods so they had some people eating Whole Foods some people eating Ultra processed foods they matched it perfectly for carbohydrates fiber sugars everything and you could eat as much as you wanted at the end of the study they found that the people on the ultr processed food had eaten 500 calories more a day than the people eating Whole Foods that is I cannot emphasize enough a huge finding and it led the researchers to find that Ultra processed foods do seem to incentivize you to eat more other Studies have found that Ultra processed foods may be linked to anxiety and depression and sleep problems but the reality is you can't cut these Foods out if you speak to nutritionist they will tell you that they eat ultr processed foods too they're unavoidable but the key is thinking about eating them in moderation so here are some foods that we often mistake for healthy but they're actually Ultra processed so let's start with juice it has vitamin C antioxidants polyphenols these things which are all good for your heart and for your body but the problem with juice is that it is ultr processed and it's really lacking in fiber once you've Juiced say an orange you're losing all of those fibrous materials that would be fortifying your body and you're just extracting the sugars so you're getting a ton of glucose and a ton of sugar and then that can cause your blood sugar to spike if you're looking for a healthy alternative to juice fruit is really your best option that's where you're getting the original source of nutrients but above all just drink it in moderation next is granola bars granola bars are considered healthy because they're often made with oats and nuts and dried fruit and seeds these are all things which are really good for your heart and sometimes also good for your digestion the problem with granola bars is that they're often made with a ton of sugar if you look on the back of a granola bar label very often they'll contain more than 15 gram of sugar that's four teaspoons so if you're going to eat a granola bar what I would recommend is to look on the label and check that there is at least 3 G of fiber at least 5 g of protein and less than 10 g of sugar alternatively you could eat a handful of nuts which is going to keep you Fuller for longer and give you a burst of energy or you could try and make your granola bars at home another one is sports drinks like Gatorade the idea is that after a workout or if you're sick you're just thirsty for whatever reason that you would drink say a Gatorade and it contains so many electrolytes that it will replenish the sodium and the water that you've lost the reason there unfortunately not as healthy as we think is that these drinks often contain more sugar other sweeteners and food coloring than anything else in the bottle it also contains dextrose which is a sugar substitute which is linked to increased risk of diabetes and obesity if you're not an athlete or if you're not dripping with sweat after your workout you probably don't need these drinks so drinking water and eating a nutritious meal um is going to get you that same hydration moving on we have glutenfree Foods the issue with gluten-free food is is that again these are highly processed foods they often replace gluten with starchy ingredients like tapioca starch and rice flour and corn starch which can raise your blood sugar really fast if you don't have a gluten sensitivity or you don't have celiac disease there is no reason for you to avoid gluten if you're going to buy gluten-free foods just look at the label and make a decision about how you want to consume it look at how much sugar is in there what kinds of sugar what kinds of starch and then make a decision about what else you're going to eat with that gluten-free item that might help you to balance out the sugars and those types of starch that are in that ingredient Cold Cuts Like daily meats are also Ultra processed throw them in a sandwich that's a high dose of protein and zinc and iron but they are also very high in saturated fats and sodium in 15 the wh classified ultr processed meat as carcinogenic that includes cold cuts when you manufacture ultr processed meat they inject a chemical called nitrites or nitrates to make it last longer and be more stable in your body that converts into something called nooc and that can damage the DNA and and the cells in your bowel which can increase your risk of chaal cancer so another food that's ultr processed is plant-based meat Replacements one of the benefits is that they cut out a kind of chemical that's naturally occurring in something like red meat called hyim which can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease just because something is plant-based it can still be unhealthy sugar for example is plant-based the other thing is that with a lot of these Foods they inject a lot of sodium to replicate the flavor so often they're very high High ins salt so here's how to decide whether you should buy an ultr processed food or not read the label something that nutrition experts do is they follow the 520 rule so that's less than 5% of a bad thing more than 20% of a good thing you're looking for more fiber less sodium less added sugars try to look at if there are chemicals that you don't recognize and be wary of buzzwords for example something that says it's made with real fruit or made with real vegetables it might be majority sugars but with a dusting of fruit or vegetable on top also there is a difference between certified naturally grown which is a regulated term and naturally grown if something says it's naturally grown that doesn't mean anything the term organic there are many benefits to organic foods but just because something's organic doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy organic sugar in a candy bar bar doesn't make that candy bar healthy and then lastly just because something's natural that doesn't necessarily mean anything the terms natural and healthy they are not regulated these buzzwords are carefully designed they're part of a big marketing strategy for food companies food companies spend on average $7.5 billion doar a year advertising their products in the US that's $440 million every single month to put that in context that is like making Avatar the way of water which is the highest budget movie ever made once a month every month for the whole year so why are companies ultr processing products first of all it's cheaper you could replace butter with something like palm oil sugar with something like corn syrup the other reason is that government interventions have made it really easy to make Ultra processed foods and a little harder to scale up if you're a small business or a farm the government subsidizes corporations that produce Ultra processed food while private Farms have to be privately run there might be a change coming in terms of how we're eating Ultra processed foods in the US in 2025 the US government will be issuing new dietary guidance they do this every 5 years and ahead of that they are conducting a pretty wide ranging study right now looking at the chemicals used in ultr processed foods big companies are watching this study and they're pretty nervous about it depending on the findings it may impact what Americans are told to eat if Americans swapped one Ultra processed food item from their meals every single day food companies profits would drop by about 7% on average which is really significant if we just carried on doing that and started eating like Mediterraneans all the time these food companies would probably fold okay I know I'm doing gate trade and I actually want a sip of it right now I just saw it on my thing and I was like okay um Okay so

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 1,391,064

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, explainer, ultra-processed, processed food, health, health food, healthy food, grocery, groceries, health foods, secret, ingredients

Id: CECnIMoVxII

Length: 11min 20sec (680 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024