It’s Not the Chemicals, It’s the Calories

People are missing the point about ultra-processed foods.

The word “ultra-processed” is doing a lot of heavy lifting when we talk about “ultra-processed food”. It conjures up images of huge factories, machines with vats and tubes, mixing and chopping and amalgamating. It evokes the idea of chemicals, additives, preservatives, colors, flavors. Fundamentally, whatever definition of “ultra-processed” you want to use, it suggests that the inputs to this mechanical behemoth are fundamentally different from the outputs. Food goes in… and something else comes out.

And ultra-processed food is undoubtedly bad for us. At least, we know that people who eat more ultra-processed food have worse health outcomes. And that feels right — it makes sense. Because ultra-processed food is unnatural, right?

When RFK Jr. was testifying before congress last week, he touched on the health impacts of ultra-processed food but buried the lede by focusing on those chemicals and additives, those colors and flavors.

He noted that our foods have more ingredients than similar products in Europe, that our FDA has a longer list of approved additives than similar agencies in other countries. The implication is that maybe the products would be ok, if we could just get rid of red dye number 40 or something.

This is not the problem with ultra-processed foods. Or, I should say, it is an extremely minor problem.

The main reason ultra-processed foods lead to poor health outcomes, is because we are very bad at not eating them.

These food products are designed, by very intelligent scientists, to be easy to eat, delicious, and shelf stable. We need to worry less about what effect red dye number 40 has on rats in a cage, and more on the effect it has on the visual appeal of the food product and how that overrides our usual ability to restrain ourselves.

The additives we need to worry about are the ones that make the stuff taste so good we can’t stop eating it. Sugar. Salt. Fat.

It’s really that simple.

In a game-changing 2019 study, 20 volunteers spent a month at the NIH. For two weeks, they ate a regular diet, then switched to one…