What happened when highly processed foods were compared for calories, sugar, fat, and fiber content in the first randomized controlled trial?
In the United States, “junk food” is often used to describe unhealthy foods, such as candy, ice cream, and chips, but there is no agreed-upon definition, so nutrition researchers have come up with the concept of it’s been heavily scrutinized.
The term “highly processed food”—if you want to call it that—describes the industrial composition that often appears in that long list of ingredients, which, apart from salt, sugar, and fat, cannot be found in any cookbook, such as various flavors, sweeteners, colors, emulsifiers, and other additives that are used. imitate real food or to hide the undesirable qualities of the final product. This is almost the same as my “red light food” idea in my robot system, where, ideally, we should increase the green light food, reduce the yellow light food, and avoid the red light food. Indeed, most of what people eat are red light foods: soda, ice cream, candy, cakes, most breads and breakfasts, ready-to-eat TV products, chicken nuggets, fish nuggets, sausages, burgers, and hot dogs. There has been a dramatic increase in highly processed foods. In fact, US food is dominated by them. More than 200,000 products were tested, and 71% were classified as ultra-processed.
And, of course, they’re not just in grocery stores. Sugary drinks and processed junk are ubiquitous even in non-food aisles, sending the usual cues to consume calorie-dense but junk food products. As a former Coca-Cola executive put it, soda should be kept “within arm’s reach.” Big Candy boasted, “We put them everywhere: grocery stores and supermarkets, gas stations and pain doctors’ offices, bowling alleys and grocery stores, we’ve already mentioned.
So, this is where we are today. What portion of the food consumed by US children and adolescents is classified as garbage? An incredible 56% to 70% of what our children and teenagers eat throughout the day is junk. But kids will be kids, right? In the United States, more than half of the calories consumed by the entire body are from waste. In fact, globally, highly processed foods still account for more than 50% of dietary calories in high-income countries. It’s no wonder that an unhealthy diet is humanity’s biggest killer, the leading cause of death worldwide, as you can see below and at 2:25 in my video. Highly Processed Junk Foods Examined.
What exactly are the health effects? The biological effects of modern diets have been studied using mice, showing that they benefit from obesity, inflammation, and cognitive and behavioral abnormalities. And just as highly processed foods took over, binge eating was recognized as a new eating disorder, and it grew to become the most common type of eating disorder. And it’s no surprise that junk food has been found to be 100% processed. That’s no surprise—these foods are engineered so you don’t have just one. People don’t usually indulge in broccoli.
About 9 out of 10 studies found that consumption of highly processed foods was associated with negative health outcomes—not just obesity, but cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, frailty, and overall death (meaning a shorter life span). A youth study adds asthma to the list and reports significant DNA damage. Not a single study has reported a link between highly processed foods and it is beneficial health effects.
In contrast, people who eat low meat, high fiber, and low processed foods have significantly fewer chronic diseases, enjoy lower rates of obesity, and live longer disease-free lives. But most of the findings were based on observational studies. You won’t know for sure if the ultra-processed food itself is the cause until you put it to the test.
In the first randomized controlled trial on highly processed foods, 20 people were confined to a hospital ward and received both highly processed and unprocessed foods for 14 days each. Here’s the first thing: The diet was designed to provide the same amount of calories, sugar, fiber, fat, and macronutrients. Why? In response to criticism, manufacturers are now proposing to reformulate their products, keeping them highly processed but modifying them by adding fiber, for example, or reducing sugar, fat, or salt. Therefore, researchers want to try to mimic the effect of high processing by giving study participants the same amount of calories, sugar, fat, fiber, carbs, and protein in each of the two meals. So, for example, for breakfast on busy weeks, participants would get Cheerios and a muffin, or an egg and cheese muffin with turkey bacon and orange juice. When it was time for a less processed breakfast, people would have, say, oatmeal and blueberries and almonds. The food had the same amount of sugar and fat, but the unprocessed option was presented more in the form of whole foods. For lunch, the more processed group might get a turkey sandwich with non-fat Greek yogurt, canned peaches, baked potato chips, and sugar-free Crystal Light Lemonade, compared to a Southwestern entrée salad with black beans, carrots, corn, avocado, and nuts, and grapes and apples on the menu. The same calories are given, with instructions to eat as much or as little as they want.
So, what happened? On highly processed foods, people eat about 500 more calories per day and, surprisingly, gain about two pounds on processed foods, or lose two pounds on less processed foods, as you can see below and at 5:31 in mine. video.
So, the problem wasn’t just the unbalanced nutrient profile of highly processed foods. Simply fixing them won’t make them healthy, but that’s what the industry would like to do. The reconstruction is called an “unparalleled strategy,” which offers “the hope of improving nutrition without changing the diet.” But what this study revealed is that it may be better to limit the consumption of highly processed foods altogether.
Why does the industry love them so much? They are made from relatively cheap ingredients, such as taxpayer-subsidized corn syrup, allowing for huge corporate profit margins. But what is the cost? The food industry rakes in over a trillion dollars every year, yet most of our health care dollars go to treating chronic diseases caused by these same foods, such as diabetes and heart disease. So, you can argue that “we lose three times what the food industry does.” The food industry says these days, it’s “absurd” to tell people to avoid highly processed foods, given the time constraints of society and the difficulty of preparing meals, but this may just be accepting the same propaganda and disinformation campaign the food industry has used to keep families together for decades. Those who think that eating healthy can’t be easy have never met an apple.
That was the answer to Dr. Lustig referred to processed foods as a failed experiment, when he said: “One-third of American mothers today do not even know what real food is and how to cook it, and they and their children are destined to remain captives of the processed food industry.” I don’t like to blame his mother, but I appreciate her doctor’s words: “There is only one resource—real food, with a lot of sugar and a lot of fiber.” We need to start thinking outside the box.
Doctor’s Note
It’s no wonder that processed foods are bad for our health. Read about The Role of Processed Foods in the Obesity Epidemic. Is there a solution? Yes. Cut Out Calorie-Rich-And-Processed Foods.
This is the third video in the junk food series. If you missed the first two, check it out Do Healthy Fast Food Options Lead to Healthy Choices? again How We Won the Battle to Ban Trans Fat.
I talked about my robot program for healthy food choices. Read all about it at Eating at a Traffic Light: Green for Going, Red for Stopping.
