I ate a diet that's very normal for a

British person I gained so much weight

got in this vicious cycle of overeating

anxiety sleeplessness scanned my brain

and if I'd continued for a year I would

have Dr Chris Van toin doctor researcher

and a b award-winning broadcaster Chris

forensically examines the effects Ultra

processed food have on us all 75% of the

calories that are consumed globally come

from six companies a food mafia they are

controlling our food and what we eat

engineers to be consumed to excess

whether it's a burger from a fast food

chain or a supermarket bread everything

is adjusted so that Things become

irresistible and a pandemic of diet

related diseases has taken over the

world one in five people in this country

get 80% of their calories from ultral

processed food poor diet has overtaken

tobacco as the leading cause of early

death on planet Earth and for the age of

five kids in this country will be that

much shorter 9 cm compared to other

countries and it is all diet now you

can't stunt a body by 9 cm and not also

stunt them intellectually why don't we

just all make better choices I have

almost no interest in personal

responsibility this is about social

justice and people without money they're

forced to eat bad food if you got rid of

poverty you would get rid of around 60%

of the problem of diet related disease

what about the people that say this is

just about calories in calorie out there

are two very big problems with that and

this is very good robust science the

first is that and if people are

listening and they want to lose weight

the evidence

says

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[Music]

platform Dr Chris

vanel you wrote a book ultr processed

people I know from firsthand experience

that writing books is a painful

experience it takes a long long time to

do it and you have an extensive

experience across medicine um across

different sort of scientific

disciplines why does this book and this

subject matter matter to society and

maybe even more importantly why did it

matter enough to you it matters to all

of us because for a very long time we've

been incredibly confused about what to

eat and we've called the foods that

harmless junk food and processed food

and high fat salt sugar food and we've

we've not had a way of labeling Foods

even as a pandemic of diet related

disease has take taken over the world

really and this is particularly true now

in low-income countries and particularly

true with low-income people living in

the UK so poor diet which means a diet

high in ultra-processed food has

overtaken tobacco as the leading cause

of early death on planet Earth for

humans for the animals we farm and for

wild animals of course because ultr

processed food is produced by a food

system that is the leading cost of cause

of loss of biodiversity the second

leading cause of carbon emissions and

the leading cause of plastic pollution

so about 12 years ago the definition was

developed to

describe a western industrial American

diet and it was done by a team in Brazil

and much of the best work on this stuff

has been done by teams in Central and

South America because what they saw in

those countries whereas this is crept up

on in the UK in places like Mexico and

Colombia and Brazil obesity was

essentially unheard of and within a

decade it went to being the dominant

public health problem in towns in Mexico

you wouldn't know anyone who was living

with obesity and within a decade

everyone would know someone who'd had an

amputation for type 2

diabetes the only thing that had changed

was the influx of broadly an American

diet industrially processed foods so the

definition was

invented 2009 20 2010 and we've had a

decade of evidence now that is very

clear that it is ultr processed food

that is responsible not just for

pandemic weight gain and obesity but

also for a long list of other health

problems including early death why did

this matter so much to

you what is the personal reason here

I've I'm an identical twin I've got a a

brother who lived with obesity for a

very long time and I would my weight

would fluctuate I'm I'm insulated by by

privilege by my surroundings by

education but I'm always on the brink of

weight gain and I recognized in myself

uh that I lived with an addiction to

many ultr processed products and my

brother particularly did and so at the

core of the book

is it was this sort of moment of

understanding where I there are several

sort of fulcrums in the book I suppose

but but two of the key elements are

first of all for many of us ultr

processed food isn't just harmful it is

addictive and it makes all the criteria

for addiction and it has there's so much

evidence that for some people these

products are as addictive as tobacco

products drugs of abuse alcohol

gambling but that nagging people is

really really harmful so I'd had a very

toxic relationship with my brother and

in fact our the whole family we're very

close family but we had for the better

part of a decade been nagging him to

lose weight and I took him to see a

behavioral change expert who said to me

I don't need to speak to to sand I need

to speak to you I said no no he's the

fat one you got to speak to him he said

no you are the problem for your brother

to lose weight will be to lose an

argument that's been a decad long with

you you are the barrier and so because

I'd been nagging him I owned his problem

and he didn't own

it and so at the heart of the book is

this this idea that nagging people

generally pushes them toward doing

things that that are harmful it

generally makes them more likely to do

the thing you're you're naging them

about and I've tried to engage with

these products when we come to

individual Solutions I've tried to

engage with ultrapress food as an

addictive substance a substance that I

was addicted to what is the balance

there between personal responsibility

and being a victim of circumstance in

the in the sort of food landscape and

society that we live in because there's

a there's obviously been a huge debate

around obesity and and weight you know

there's one school of thought maybe over

on the more extreme side that says just

get out there and you know make better

choices in your life and go I don't know

go for a run or something and then

there's another school of thought that

says weight gain and obesity are a

byproduct of genetic the our genes and

the environment we live in what is the

truth in your view and in the case of

your brother I think we have really

really good

evidence that personal responsibility

that these arguments around will parent

personal responsibility are morally

scientifically and economically

redundant they they have no

value so when it comes to population

Health there are loads of different ways

we can argue this if we look at

willpower in so far as it's ever been

operationalized for research and there's

not a huge

amount the research and you will know

some of this the research is quite

nuanced but broadly it serves as a proxy

for poverty so the original marshmallow

experiment which I think you've talked

about where you you offer a child a

marshmallow and say you know we'll give

you another one if we come back in five

minutes and you haven't eaten this one

that experiment those children who were

unable to resist the

marshmallow went on to really suffer in

life they had much uh across all kinds

of different indicators their lives were

much more troubled they had lower

achievement economically and and

socially what it turned out is when you

adjusted for maternal education the

effect went away in other words the kids

who were taking the marshmallow were

from poor households and they were

making a sensible choice they were

taking an opportunity when it arose

because if you come from a situation of

uh deprivation or disadvantage often

things that are promised never

materialize so once you you controlled

for that in the studies broadly your

ability to resist a marshmallow age4

predicts the household you're from you

might be from a low education low income

household doesn't predict anything else

so that's one way of looking at willp

Power and there's lots of other evidence

the other thing is that if we look at

weight in the mid 1970s and this is um

you know American government data there

was a sudden inflection in weight gain

where that the Obesity pandemic took off

around 1975 and you look at a graph it's

bumbling along it's suddenly everyone

goes up when I say everyone black white

hispanic men women you know 5ye olds 50y

olds 90y olds everyone starts gaining

weight so unless you're going to propose

when it comes to weight gain that there

was some failure of moral responsibility

in young hispanic men and older black

women and middle-aged white

people you know that just doesn't Stack

Up what changed was the food environment

so my feeling is the only thing that is

interesting to talk about is the

structure of the society around us and

and we have really good evidence that

when when you simply give people money

we've done this this research has been

done by economists by doctors by social

scientists when you give people money

they make smart choices rich people

don't eat bad food because they don't

want to eat bad food and people without

money eat bad food because they're

forced to eat bad food and the the

cognitive dissonance that you and I were

talking about quite often we will find

people with low incomes making quite

cogent arguments about the food that

they eat appearing to side with the

companies that are predating on them

because otherwise how could you live

with this dissonance in your life

otherwise you're just a powerless victim

of of transnational food corporations so

I I have almost no interest in personal

responsibility I think you if you give

people technical knowledge and you give

people income and opportunity most

people want to be healthy and live good

lives 1970 the food environment

changes can you tell me exactly how the

food environment changed that caused

multiple demographics

to to to gain weight there are two

answers to that one the the sort of

approximate reason is the invention of

ultra-processed food so the

industrialization of of food supply you

can you can talk about why that happened

in a lot of different ways part of it

was to you know a a booming population

post-war uh and these products were

extremely convenient they allowed women

to continue to be in the workplace of

course women had entered the war entered

the workplace in the war so there were a

lot of things that were immediately

appealing about these products TV

dinners Swanson TV dinners appear in the

in the 50s and by the time of the s

these products had become very

widespread so in the same thing we were

a decade behind in the UK but this this

stuff is now our national

diet why exactly it took over is the

subject of a lot of the research I'm

doing at the moment so now I work much

more with economists the nutritionists

and what we see is the

financialization of the food industry so

the primary uh determinance of almost

every action that happens in almost

every food company that supplies say 90%

of our calories all the indicators are

Financial they're not to do with public

health and so we can use Financial

indicators we can use Financial research

to to show that the food industry does

these things like buy cheap debt use

that to do uh share BuyBacks rather than

generating value we can show that they

vote down uh activist investors will

vote institutional investors we'll vote

down Public Health proposals at uh

shareholder meetings and so part of it

is the Takeover of the food system from

being a system where people would grow a

lot of their own food make food at home

they buy ingredients from local shops to

a small number of companies supplying

food so now uh 75% of the calories that

are consumed globally come from six

companies there are about 15 to 20

companies that make most of the food we

eat in the UK that that primary that

process the food so we've got a very

small number of Agri business produc

juers that make more or less 12 things

that you know we eat broadly pigs cows

and chickens those are our Meats we

don't really eat other meat maybe a bit

of lamb maybe goat maybe Goose not

really duck perhaps so we eat really

three meats and then our main sources of

calories come from four or five crops

corn rice wheat soy Palm bit of

sunflower so the human diet which should

Encompass thousands perhaps tens tens of

thousands of different species of thing

has now because of the pressures of of

commercial efficiency become reduced to

a very small number of companies with

enormous power um producing making a

very small number of food products and

needing to generate intellectual

property it's kind of like sounds like a

mafia of sorts like a food

Mafia I'm going to let you say that yeah

well [ __ ] no don't let me say it don't

want them coming for me

um I think it's I don't mean it to sound

malevolent so the argument I've just

made can sound a bit neo- Marxist or

anti-growth or antic capitalist and I I

really don't mean it to sound like that

but it is important to understand the

incentives within the system and if the

incentives are Financial you'll end up

with ultra processed food so the logic

of the food is the cheapest possible

ingredients with the longest possible

shelf life and maximum intellectual

property what is ultr processed food

so broadly there are three types of food

there's unprocessed a whole food which

might be like an apple or an oyster or

you can drink milk out of a cow you

shouldn't because you get brucelosis but

you can do it that's whole unprocessed

food then there's processed food so

there's uh butter so we can take whole

milk we can process it into butter or

cheese now we've been doing that so

North African pastoralists started doing

this in the Sahara region maybe 7 8,000

years ago started making Dairy

and if you can make butter you get all

the vitam fat soluble vitamins uh from

milk you get very high calorie and it

almost never goes off it's really long

shelf life similarly cheese add a bit

ferment it add some salt you get a long

shelf life very nutritional product so

those are processed foods and we've been

eating processed foods for over a

million years I mean humans are the only

animals that have to process their Foods

we it you know food processing has

shaped our Jaws our teeth our guts so

compared to any animal of similar size

we have tiny little teeth minuscule

fragile Jaws very short guts because

we've extended our digestive tracts out

of our bodies and into our kitchens we

chop food rather than chewing it we cook

it rather than uh digesting it so our

food is is pre-digested so processed

food is good tinning canning

concentrating fermenting salting smoking

all these projects techniques were

invented really by women over hundreds

of thousands of years working in cave

and huts and shelters and then kitchens

they produced modern food and diets from

the high Arctic to you know sea mamal

diets from the high Arctic pescatarian

diets in East Asia vegan diets of South

Asia any traditional diet you point to

is basically associated with good health

all of them they've all evolved in

different ways same is true of French

cuisine rich in butter and red wine the

only diet that we've studied that really

seems to bring Health harms is an ult

ultr processed diet so that is the

American financialized industrial diet

so ultr

processing is about using these

commodity ingredients that I just listed

you know commodity ingredients like soy

corn rice and a bit of meat reducing

them into powder form basically so if

you grow corn the market I mean you

understand all this much better than me

you you get money in finance the market

for cobs of corn spread with butter and

salt is pretty limited if you grow cobs

of corn you can sell a few of them but

if you can turn the rest of them into

corn starch which you can modify and

turn it so it's like you can create any

chemical property that starch you want

you can turn it into corn oil and you

can turn it into high fructose corn

syrup suddenly you have the ingredients

for every single food product on the

planet so the logic is to take your corn

break it into pastes and powders with an

infinite shelf life then recombine them

with additives texturize them flavor

them put aown brand on it and then you

can add just enormous value and a lot of

the ingredients we see in ultr processed

food are waste products from old food

processing so whey what the Whey

proteins we see in our nutritional

powders I mean this was a waste product

from dairying you know we used to be

spread on fields or fed to cows but now

the value you add instead of it being

used for fertilizer the value you add

when you turn it into a nutritional

supplement is a thousandfold probably

more than a thousandfold um Citrus fiber

you'll see Citrus fiber is an ingredient

in a lot of bars sounds healthy doesn't

it like it's um you know citrus fruit

fiber what could be and it probably is

reasonably healthy it's left over from

the juice the juicing and tinning

Industries where you have to get the

peel off fruit and if you put it through

a set of chemical processes you can

extract the fiber add it to the human

food chain and create enormous value so

the logic of ultr processed food really

is about creating products with

intellectual property that use the

cheapest ingredients you can that will

last for a long time and from what I

understood there the that last process s

step three so you had Whole Foods then

you had processed foods then you had

Ultra processed foods and in the ultra

processed foods category what they're

doing is taking the good stuff out and

putting some bad stuff in is that a

simple way to think about it I would

think I think that is a very simple way

that's a straightforward way of thinking

about it the additives are not really

the problem so the problem I would say

some of the additives we think are

harmful we've got some quite good

research around some of the artificial

sweeteners some of the modified starches

uh zanam gum um the emulsifiers and some

of the colorings and textur and then we

have some research that says the fact

the food is is mechanically processed so

hard it's generally very soft so think

of any ultr processed food you can

whether it's a a burger from a fast food

chain or a bref bref cereal or

Supermarket bread um uh generally these

calories are soft and and they're energy

dense because they're dry and so dry

frood is important for shelf life the

softness and the energy density means

you consume them very quickly and so you

essentially consume them before you

become full and so that's one of the

ways they drive over cons excess eating

so so if if you like the laundry list of

the ways in which the food harms us is

softness energy density some direct

harms from the additives a lack of

phytonutrients so it doesn't contain

much real food and real food real plants

and animals should have a great variety

of molecules and chemicals that we don't

understand very well but vitamins from a

plant seem to interact with you very

differently from than vitamins in an

extract but the main thing is the way

the foods are developed so I spoke to so

many people in the food industry who

were all Wonderful by the way you know I

I I've really enjoyed most of all

talking to them but the food scientists

all said the same thing that the

products are generally put through um a

focus group so you start with your box

of cereal that you've been making for

for decades and you have formulation a

and then you make a new formulation

formulation B you put it through the

focus group if the focus group eats box

B quicker than box a box B is the one

that goes on the Shelf because if they

eat it 5% quicker you'll sell the boxes

5% faster and that's that's the

financial indicator and so it's not any

one aspect of the food that's harmful so

much as when the intention is to create

products that people will use as much as

possible then you end up with addictive

food interesting it Evol the food is put

through if you like a almost a darwinian

evolutionary process where every single

thing every dial is tweaked on every

product every few months everything is

adjusted from the sweet salt sugar

ratios to the texture in the mouth to

the color of the packet and everything

is DED up to 11 so that Things become

irresistible and you maybe you don't

live with this but people who many

people listening will recognize in

themselves that there are products that

they cannot stop eating they fantasize

about them they think about them and

once they start eating them they will

consume five adult portions and my I've

got a six-year-old and a three-year-old

and my six-year-old can eat five adult

portions of any sugary breakfast cereal

in about 20 minutes I brought some food

along with me today I'm looking at it

cuz I wanted to get

distracting I wanted to get your opinion

on it so I brought um a group of food

products on the left here now these are

things that I I think growing up I

thought were good yeah

so you're very bold with these Brands I

mean you're really limiting sponsorship

opportunities well you

know you know I do think about that

sometimes but I also they don't really

care I I think like I'm in The Pursuit

Of Truth here so much of why I do this

is to educate myself and I I think if I

educate myself then I'll help educate

other people that's why I'm also okay

being a total idiot on this subject

matter because that is the truth so here

I've got four products that

are typically seen as being quite

healthy breakfast cereal Cheerios I grew

up thinking good for me um actal good

for me Diet

Coke great cuz there's no sugar in there

and then this

is whole grain whole grain bread 50% of

your daily whole grain in just two

slices great

perfect so for a start I have a slight

une EAS I am going to talk about these

products I have a slight une talking

about any one product the evidence

applies to the category of food and this

kind of stuff in a sense I think you're

ABS these are such brilliant

choices because this is the foundation

of our diet and one of the things that's

happening at the moment is is the food

industry exploring painting me as a

snob because I'm I'm critiquing these

sort of core things you know tins of

beans with flavoring or Supermarket

bread fish

fingers I think this stuff is at the

shallow end of the pool in a way it's

not by any means the worst stuff but in

a way it presents the biggest moral

hazard because we think it's so healthy

can I have the diet coke y so Diet Coke

is my is my favorite example because

this is the Ultimate Health Food

according to the way we label food at

the moment it has four where's the

camera it's all green on the um it's

four green traffic lights right what

what does what do they call that that

traffic light system on the so this is

the way we describe healthy whether a

food is healthy or not in this country

at the moment and this system is quite

influenced by the food industry and it

breaks all foods down into fat sat

saturated fat sugars and salt and says

that you know if those are the bad

things and if a food is behind them

it'll it'll have oranges and greens so

if you look at the Cheerios they're most

they're mostly on the front it's on the

front it's optional by the way so it's

not always on every packet but the

Cheerios are oranges and greens yeah now

part there is a baked in confusion for

this because what do you do at a traffic

light that's orange and green or red

orange and green do you go do you stop

is it on the ACL is it is it on it's not

on there no I couldn't see it on there

it maybe on the

bottom

it's optional so who knows if you know

we we don't we don't have any way in

this country of describing either

healthy food or unhealthy food other

than these traffic lights anyway this is

a healthy food now if we look at the

ingredients on the diet coke carbonated

water fine now there's a color called

caramel e150d caramel makes you think of

you traditional it's it's a French 19th

century invention burned sugar Creme

Brule it's like it's a bit naughty but

it's fine caramel e150d has nothing to

do with caramel it is um carbohydrate

treated with a mixture of acids and and

uh and heat to produce uh things that

contain ammonium and sulfite so it's

it's it's a food additive color um with

no no benefits nothing to do with

caramel um artificial sweeteners

aspartame and asame K now sweeteners are

tricky because we know sugar is harmful

because it rots teeth and it promotes

weight gain because it makes you eat

more the weird thing about sweetness is

they don't seem to help with weight loss

at all they may some of them seem to be

more metabolically harmful than sugar

itself humans are quite good at eating

sugar when we eat lollipops continuous

continuously as kids or have sugary

drinks it's not good for us but human

societies have for Millennia existed

with a huge amount of honey and refined

carbs so sugar we can handle although we

should reduce our intake sweeteners are

quite weird because they're a

nutritional lie you put sweet taste on

the tongue which says to your body sugar

is coming so maybe put up some insulin

maybe um start preparing in other ways

physiologically to receive refined

carbohydrate and when that refined

carbohydrate when the sugar never

arrives it seems to be physiologically

confusing so the World Health

Organization now says sweeteners aren't

better than sugar when it comes to

weight loss and there is there is an

anxiety about aspartam and cancer that

I'm I'm personally not not in a big

sweat about there's some there's some

evidence but not not at normal dosage

then we've got natural flavorings we've

got caffeine flavoring an addictive drug

and phosphoric acid and citric acid

natural it said natural flavorings I

mean you know that's good well

flavorings are flavorings flavorings

should signal nutritional content when

you eat a tomato it has flavor not for

fun it has flavor because it signals the

nutritional content of the Tomato when

you put flavorings out of context e even

if you extract them from the tomato or

the strawberry or the peach it's very

confusing for you phys biologically

you've you have a very sophisticated

internal system to link flavor molecules

which are broadly smell and taste

molecules salt Sweet Bitter sour and

some Savory ones you you your body has a

way of linking all that information with

nutritional information that you get

from your gut subconsciously when you

muddle it all up in a product like this

it's very confusing the phosphoric acid

will dissolve the minerals out of your

bones as well as dissolving your teeth

so what we have here is a solution of

flavorings an addictive drug an acid

that will Lee stuff out of your bones

and sweeteners that seem to be

metabolically confusing and certainly

aren't better than sugar and yet we

think of this as a health product so

that for me is the archetypal confused

way of thinking about food I um and what

we also know is that when it comes to

kids the age of my youngest so the age

of three they are drinking on average

one can of artificially sweetened drinks

every single day so we've we've taxed

sugar sugar has come out of our diet

we've seen no weight loss no indication

that it's helping health and what we are

doing is consuming huge numbers now of

these artificial sweetness which we also

know affect our microbiome what is a a

better alternative that's popular on on

the market than because it appears to me

that all of the drinks in the bloody

Supermarket have artificial sweeteners

and flavorings and they do because of

the sugar tax so it's almost impossible

now to buy fizzy tax without sweeten to

to buy fizzy

without sweetness um bet so for kids I

try and not give any advice to anyone

ever but my

kids um my kids eat a lot of UPF but

they don't have fizzy drinks I think I

think fizzy drinks are really quite

harmful across the board so so kids

should just drink milk and water milk if

they can have it and

grown-ups um can do pretty well on milk

and water if you drink milk what about

breakfast cereals and Cheerios and

things like that so breakfast cereals

are really convenient I mean let me see

the Cheerios so I think

these uh so these these probably do meet

the def yeah these do meet the

definition oh they are yeah so we've got

things like um uh palm oil caramelized

sugar syrup uh colors and Aton noxin and

an antioxidant and so this is ultr

processed it'll have some Fiber you'll

have it with whole milk I don't want to

demonize breakfast cereals my kids eat

eat uh breakfast cereals for breakfast

but it's not like eating porridge which

is just whole grains or real bread this

is this is and what you will find is if

you give this to a kid um compared to

porridges they will be able to eat much

much more of this and there is there's a

lot of marketing that this is a really

really healthy product and I would say

the evidence says that this falls into a

cat category of foods that we actually

know are associated with negative Health

outcomes it says on the side there

doesn't it the list of all the health

benefits a really good way of telling if

a food is ultr processed is if there is

any health claim on the packet it's

almost certainly ultr processed and part

of that is to do with this intellectual

property thing that the only food you

can make lots of money out of is is a

branded product so there's no money in

broccoli milk steak eggs um supermarkets

quite often make losses on all those

things there's no heal claim on broccoli

or on plums or on milk there's no Health

claim on on steak it's only the ultra

process things that you get marketed to

you in this way because there's enough

money to do it the acl's interesting as

well the immune support well it says

immune support and it says vitamin D and

B6 so that rich in Vitamin D immune

support that is definitely

healthy I mean this is this is a

this is where we need we we we should

have done the maths and shown how much

sugar there was in each pot these are

very high calor shots of sugary liquid

that will harm teeth and I don't know

why you'd have this if you could just

have real yogurt and or

milk and the reason they back add the

vitamins is to be able to make Health

claims so generally foods with added

vitamins um real food doesn't need added

vitamins and we're again we're pretty

sure

that and I'm I'm conscious who I'm

talking to here I've got to I'm I'm uh

uh uh I probably have to tread a bit

carefully supplementing vitamins into

food doesn't seem to have many health

benefits for healthy people so we've got

quite a lot of very big data on this um

and there are lots of studies that show

benefits that are funded by people who

make vitamins but broadly the

independent evidence shows that um when

you get vitamins and minerals in the

context of food they're really good for

you and when you take them in pill or

supplement form they don't seem to have

many benefits if you are healthy and

this food here this bottle of coke I've

got can of Pringles and uh cocoa pops

Kellogg cereal this is the stuff that I

typically think of as like bad processed

Ultra processed stay away from you would

but give me the cocoa pops so the cocoa

pops we look at these traffic lights

okay green green orange orange pretty

healthy I mean there is a there is a

monkey on the pack selling it to my to

my kids yeah it says high in vitamin

high in fiber vitamin D iron yeah iron

supporting your family's health right s

goodness I mean everything about this

tells you that this is a product not

just safe for kids but intended for kids

and we all know you like you can't sell

things if they're not healthy there must

be some regulat dealing with that and

this is the thing that my six-year-old

will eat five adult portions of so when

you eat five adult portions the the the

traffic lights only apply to a 30 G

serving for you now a 30 G serving is is

a handful like that it's it's one big

spoonful okay so this is the product

that I I recognize addictive behavior in

my kids and frankly myself I mean I

could eat you know 300 grams but and the

other thing that I I went and got from

the supermarket because I was thinking

about what I typically think is ultra

processed and good for me I went and got

this

frozen pizza here and then I went and

got a Tesco finer so this is high-end

you know much more expensive not frozen

pizza and I thought surely this pizza

here is better for a lot better for me

than this one

here so again that there's a complexity

talking about is one better than the

other because we've we've never done a

trial testing them against each other

they're both Ultra processed I know

because I looked at the ingredients they

both contain ingredients that you don't

have in a domestic kitchen like um Palm

fat or dextrose um and they're both made

really in a sense by the same company so

both of they're both made by plc's who

will be owned by institutional investors

with requirements for growth so they

come from the same food system with the

same incentives about production and my

bet is that you or I would be able to

eat the entire pizza at a single sitting

um and we'd be still licking the pack of

both of them so this is food that in

essens is is engineered to be consumed

to

excess you did an experiment didn't you

quite a famous experiment now where you

put yourself on an ultr processed food

diet can you tell me about that

experiment and the symptoms that you saw

when you did lived off Ultra processed

food pretty much

exclusively so I I ate a diet that's

very normal for a British teenager I ate

80% of my calories from Ultra processed

food so for for a teenager in in you

know the my kid school for example that

this would be a completely normal thing

to do one in five people in this country

get 80% of their calories from UPF so I

wasn't really putting my body on the

line um I was switching from 20% to 80%

um kind of two really big things

happened there was some health effects

so um in terms of the physical effects

on my body I gained so much weight and I

wasn't it wasn't supersizing me I wasn't

forcing it in this was done as part of a

um a scientific experiment for a big

study that I'm now running at at

University College London where I where

I work as an

academic I gained so much weight that in

if I'd continued for a year I would have

doubled my body

weight we scanned my brain before and

after I work with colleagues at the

National Hospital for neurology and

Neuroscience so neurology and

neurosurgery so this these were scans

done very expertly and while I'm only

one patient you can you can subtract the

noise you can be very sure that what you

see is real we saw enormous in increases

in connectivity be between the the

automatic Behavior habit bits the back

of the brain and those reward addiction

bits right in the middle of the brain so

we can't exactly say what's happening

but certainly behaviors and rewards are

getting much much more connected most

significantly I think we saw a change in

my hormonal response to a meal so when

you eat real

food whilst you're eating you're chewing

all kinds of hormonal and neurological

changes happen in your body that will

come to a point they'll say look you've

had enough Stephen you're fine you can

stop eating now and that's called

satiety and we've evolved this mechanism

since living things first started eating

food hundreds of millions of years ago

and uh all animals have it and humans

have it too what we saw is that the at

the end of a standard meal at the end of

this month my hunger hormones remained

Skyhigh so this is food that is

interfering with our body's evolved

mechanisms to say I am done it's time to

stop eating but there was there was this

other thing that happened kind of the

most important thing and it's at the

core of the book is that Midway through

this diet which I was quite enjoying you

know if you're if you're a sort of

middle-aged man trying to you know the

quest is always to lose lose weight and

I could go back to eating the foods of

my childhood and I was eating hot wings

and all this stuff that I hadn't eaten

for years I was really enjoying it but I

was also doing all this research partly

for the book and I'm you know as a

scientist I study nutrition and uh I was

talking to a colleague in Brazil called

Fernanda rbert and she just kept saying

this isn't food Chris it's an

industrially produced edible substance

and I sat down that evening to meet eat

a a meal of of takeaway fried chicken

and I I could hardly finish it and she

had flicked this switch in my brain

where all of this ultrapress food had

become disgusting but I then had to keep

eating it for another fortnite and so it

was a bit like the very famous book the

easy way to quit smoking where you smoke

all the way through reading the book

while you learn about smoking and by the

end of the diet I I I mean I now don't

want to eat any ultr processed products

so the the gift I'm trying to give the

reader is if you're living with

addiction my invitation at the beginning

is eat along eat while you read don't

forbid this stuff to yourself let

yourself wallow in it immerse it taste

it and you'll start to and read the

ingredients lists while you eat and

you'll realize that all the food is has

the same flavor profile it's all equally

salty and sugary and sweet it's all

acidic um and you will gradually become

disgusted and that's not a promise that

seems to be what's happening to a lot of

people and that is a very well-evidenced

technique when it comes to living with

addiction so the World Health

Organization who I work with recommends

the easy way to quit smoking for

quitting smoking uh as as being as

useful as patches or any other technique

so I'm For The Individual treating it as

an addictive substance may be really

useful for some people what was the

impact on your sort of mental health and

how you felt from a sort of psychology

perspective because I you know we've

seen this huge rise in sort of mental

health diagnosis across the board

especially in younger younger people but

it seems to be pretty consistent

throughout different ages and

demographics and I wondered if there's a

link between ultra-processed foods and

Mental Health crisis that we're living

through we've got really good

epidemiological data so we now have

hundreds of perspective studies which

are the best the kind of studies we use

to link smoking to to cancer that it is

not just associated with physical ill

health metabolic disease inflammatory

disease cardiovascular disease cancers

early death it's all also associated

with anxiety depression and also

dementia and um my experience of being

on the diet was that

um there was a there was a there was a

thing that I think the research doesn't

capture which is because it's salty I

was getting up to pee more at night and

I was I don't know if I can say this I

was getting really constipated and

uncomfortable because it's quite low in

fiber and so I got in this vicious cycle

of sleeplessness and I'd often find

myself where at the fridge in the kind

of small hour at the morning and the

food felt like the solution to the

problem so I got in this spiral of

sleeplessness anxiety overeating and we

know that stress and elevated cortisol

also generally increases your desire for

for low quality food and makes people

overeat so in a way that kind of

middle-aged stress anxiety the sort of

mild mental health symptoms that so many

people live with often it is just driven

by by the food I read this um stat in

your book according to the world's

obesity Federation 51% of the world or

more than 4 billion people will be obese

or overweight within the next 12 years

so I like to say they will live with

obesity um rather than the rather than

use obese as an adjective because I

think the biggest problem for people who

live with obesity is stigma it's that

being obese is your identity and what we

actually know is that the the world OBC

Federation are doing some really good

work work identifying this as the major

public health problem the ticklishness

talking about this is it's really hard

to say that obesity is a problem without

also saying that people who live with it

are the problem and if you're not

careful a war on Obesity becomes a war

on people who live with it and I think

the evidence is very clear it's just

about the food environment so yes you

can make these very powerful economic

arguments that we simply cannot afford

to have a food system that's driving

this rate of disease

um I think the moral arguments are much

more powerful that this is stuff that

causes human suffering so I I would not

actually tax Ultra processed food and I

certainly wouldn't ban it I think all my

arguments are about increasing Freedom

increasing Choice increasing opportunity

and that's quite conscious I mean you

you know this as a as a skillful

Communicator you talk about kind of

doing exactly this in your book where

I'm trying to make an argument that will

appeal to the political right that are

much more on the side of of uh you know

free market low regulation and in fact

we can have regulations completely

compatible with huge economic growth and

what I'm asking for is a food system

where people with low incomes have

access to healthy affordable

food because a lot of people would say

and this is sort of part two of your

book that okay so the solution here is

really just for people to make better

choices when they're I don't know in

their fridges or when they're walking

through a supermarket why don't we just

all make better choices I mean you you

will you may have a much more profound I

I think you're asking this question in a

provocative way I think you will

understand it much better than me I've

always had choice and so when I choose

to buy things I that are unhealthy it is

with a degree of choice I do my my

patients um I run a clinic at the

hospital for tropical disease where I

work and most of my patients have no

addresses they're very disadvantaged

they're migrants Asylum Seekers um they

come from very low-income families

because those are the people who get

infections now when I say to them go and

eat some healthy food they all know what

healthy food is they've often got very

they very diverse community' got very

rich traditions of healthy food from the

the communities of the cultures they've

come from they are completely unable to

buy it in the case of the Asylum Seekers

they're on 8 pound a day and they can't

work you can't you can't say to someone

on spend your eight pound a day on

apples and broccoli and me they haven't

got knives to cut it with now we know a

million households in this country don't

have fridges freezers stove top cookers

so there are a huge number of families

that only have a microwave to cook and

fresh food while there is always a

politician willing to advance this

argument like you can buy a bag of

lentils if you go to the cash and

carryer you can buy rice or lentils for

you know a couple of quid for 10 kilos

it costs money to heat it it cost time

time is the most expensive thing for for

people with low incomes they need pots

pans cutting boards knives Tupperware if

you're going to batch cook which is the

only way to make home cooking economical

you got a deep freezer to store it in so

saying to people with low incomes you

know make healthier choices it is it is

nonsense it's just it's it's and so I

feel very strongly it the world does not

need another person like me saying that

and in fact no one I mean we all people

hate being told what to do there was a

study done on toddlers in 1920 that you

write about which is quite Illuminating

where they got to choose their own food

from a selection of un unprocessed foods

and the children instinctively chose

their own diet which met their

nutritional needs and Cal calorie

intake what was that experiment and what

does that indicate to us about the

nature of this argument what as it

relates to just being able to control

what we and choose what we

want if we look at the animal kingdom

even if you look at something you might

think has quite a simple diet like a

like a big herbivore living in you know

any of the big herbivores living on any

of the big PLS of the world and you

think well they just eat grass they

don't we've done loads of experiments

where you put sounds a bit unkind but

you put a hole in the neck of the animal

and you put a bag on the hole and you

collect the plants they're eating and

you can do this in a way that's

relatively Humane and what we discover

is if we study goats or cows they're

eating 50 or 60 different plants a day

calories are abundant and what those

animals are doing is balancing all their

nutrition needs from all those different

plants and selecting them and learning

them about the flavor profile and the

mineral content they're moving to avoid

predators in the rains to different

soils so animals are incredibly

sophisticated at at perfectly balancing

their nutritional needs from their

environment and obesity is uh

non-existent in the wild animal kingdom

in urban animals actually that start to

scavenge from humans there is some

evidence of obesity but in wild animals

there is there is no obesity humans

turns out obviously have the same

ability and so a scientist called uh

claraa Davis who's amazing woman she was

she was a a gay woman uh one of the

first medical graduates in in North

America and she did this experiment

where she was she was taking abandoned

kids in ENT she was functioned almost

like an orphanage and each child got

access to 34 different Whole Foods every

single day and it was things like there

was raw bone marrow and cooked rice and

yogurt and milk and they had a little

bowl of salt they could have as much or

as little salt as they wanted and her

question was could the kids balance

their nutritional needs and the best

example was a kid called Earl who she uh

took in a few months old and he came in

with Ricket so he had very bad vitamin D

deficiency had bendy bones and they did

some X-rays and you could see the

rickets on the x-rays and every single

day he would glug an entire cup of cod

liver oil which at the time was one of

the only really the only source of

vitamin D and he drink this every single

day enthus I asically he always wanted

his codli Roy and on the day his rickets

were healed and you couldn't see them

anymore on the x-rays he stopped

drinking the cod liver oil never asked

for it again and none of the kids

without vitamin D deficiency would drink

would touch the cod liver oil so

something in Earl's body was saying I

will when I need this stuff I'll have it

once I don't need it anymore I won't

have any more of it and all the kids

that she studied over many many years

with access to a full range of foods

perfectly matched all their nutritional

leads they all grew really well they

were intellectually welldeveloped they

extremely healthy and they didn't have

any of the sort of food refusal problems

that that parents have nowadays so and

she knew very well that the point was

the kids only had access to good food

she wasn't giving them access to um

industrially processed junk foods which

were still slightly available in in the

20s it was a really cool experiment for

me I take away from that that our bodies

can kind of self regulate what we need

if they're in an environment where the

options are good so if I'm a parent and

I'm sure I'll be a parent in the next

couple of years I hope so um if I just

make sure in my house all the food

options are good for my kids Whole Foods

all the good stuff you've described

presumably then I can just unlock the

cupboards and let them run free I love

talking

to um people who might become parents

about what they think I mean like wow

you just I mean yeah good good luck to

you let's can we have this conversation

again in about six years can you tell me

why I'm you're not wrong you're

completely right it will be impossible

for you to limit the influx of ultra

processed food into your house so

clearly I've written a book on this I

study this I would love to do that I

want my kids to be normal being normal

is really important as a kid and food

isn't just stuff we put in to build our

bodies food binds us to the people

around us food is part of our community

and our culture in the UK our food

culture is ultr processed food and if

you don't eat and drink Ultra processed

food you become a slightly odd person

and so I still eat it when I go to

friends houses because otherwise I look

like some you know uh fanatical food

snob so and it's the same with my kids

so so uh grandparents friends relatives

all bring it round you don't control

what they eat at school um you know my

youngest ones a really nice Nursery but

still ultrapress food food from uh from

the minute she gets there to to when she

leaves so um very good luck to you but

this is why I argue I I nod to if an

individual wants to read my book I think

they will come away with technical

knowledge that they will be able to use

and and I wish them well with that the

big argument of the book is about this

this is about social justice you know it

is it is really appalling that even for

people with with a lot of means real

food is incredibly affordable and

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about the people that say this is just

about calories in calorie out the you

know Fitness Community lot of the weight

loss Community just say what you've got

to do and I've actually got a friend

that said this to me quite passionately

he says what I do is I just measure the

amount of calories I'm taking in measure

the calories that are coming out and I

make sure that there's a calorie deficit

and if you have a calorie deficit he

actually said to me one day he goes you

can eat whatever you want and you'll be

fine mathematically he's he's not

entirely

wrong that there are there are some very

very there are two very very big

problems with that the first is that

while some people can just eat to

instructions many of us have genes that

uh lead us to engage with food in a more

interesting way you know I care about

food I love food I'm driven to it so you

your friend should come around my house

in the morning with a box of cocoa pops

and try and get my daughter to eat one

adult portion and good luck to him I

mean they'll be screaming and crying and

she'll be grabbing the bo

so the food it's a bit like saying to

smokers all you have to do is just smoke

one cigarette don't smoke the whole pack

just have like one to be social or

people who live with addiction to

alcohol well just have one drink and

that won't do you any harm the the food

really is addictive for many people but

there is this other bit of the equation

which is really fascinating which is

that when we do more activity of the

kind that most of us do it doesn't seem

to have an enormous impact on the

calories that we burn and this is very

very good robust sence going back to the

going back to the '90s

um the the most if I tell this as a

story which I think it's the way you'd

do it um there was a scientist called

Herman poner and he wanted to know how

many more calories he'd burn if he went

and lived as a hunter gatherer with the

hadza tribe in Tanzania so he went and

studied them and he put He used a thing

called double labeled water where you

can measure very accurately calorie

expenditure and he put them in metabolic

hoods and he studied them for months and

months and he came back and he looked

looked at his data and he thought he'

got it all wrong because the data showed

that for um essentially if you or I went

and lived in Tanzania and we walked 15

kilometers a day hunting Antelope and

digging tubers out of the ground we

wouldn't burn any more calories per day

and he just could not make sense of this

so then he went back and looked at all

the data available in the literature

we've studied animals we've studied

different human populations there are um

we've studied subsistence Farmers

compared to secretarial workers in the

states we've looked at miners the same

thing is true in all the studies when

you do sustained activity over a long

period it doesn't massively impact your

calories now some exceptions if you do

polar expiration if you cycle in the tur

France if you go to the gym for an hour

and a half every day six days a week you

probably do burn a few more calories but

activity of the kind we all do doesn't

seem to and that explains why exercise

is good for us because if you don't do

exercise I burn 3,000 calories a day

rough let's say we slightly different

body compositions but roughly you and I

burn 3,000 calories a day if you do your

hour and a half of exercise every day

you're stealing energy from your other

budgets you're taking it away from

inflammation away from hormones and away

from anxiety and that's why exercise

seems to be good for us because I'm

sitting here and I'm ready to live said

said and TR with my two kids I don't go

to the gym for an hour a day so I spend

my calories but they're spent on

inflammation and anxiety and relatively

High hormone levels and is this what we

call the fixed energy model I read that

in your book that term yeah so that's

that's um that's that's the model and

there are lots of exceptions um but what

that model tells us along with all the

other available data is that when we are

talking about populations who live with

obesity increasing activity will be

really good for them but it will not

have a significant effect on body weight

so when we're talking about the pandemic

of obesity um activity isn't hugely

important and if people are listening

and they want to lose weight many people

have the experience that

um putting a healthy diet in the context

of lots of other healthy things is often

really a good way of bringing about

behavioral change you'll feel good in

other ways but the activity in the

exercise if you think that putting in

your slog at the gym every most of us

can manage 40 minutes every other day

tops and I I get nowhere near that it's

not going to have an impact on your

weekly calories e even if even if we

accepted that the even if we did think

that it increased the number of calories

you burn there's other evidence that

says you you either eat more because

your your body isn't just the

mathematical uh machine that your your

friend proposes um but also it's if you

add up the calories and you go to the

gym for half an hour four times a week

it's just not very many calories in

terms of your weekly calories unless

even if you're cycling as hard as you

can for the whole thing I can I can

definitely relate I I work out every day

because just because I if I didn't you

do it every day you set you seven days a

week I have PT every single day and the

reason I do that is purely because I am

best disciplined when I have a clear

routine so knowing that it's part of my

habit and that it's actually today it's

in my calendar yesterday it was in my

calendar even I even have lunch in my

calendar now because I'm just trying to

make sure that I have some kind of

routine um with my with my eating or

else I just won't eat I remember on

Friday I my first meal was at 600 p.m.

because I was podcasting had some stuff

with the BBC and I don't want to do I

don't want to eat before I do anything

because my I'll slump my point here

though is with my personal trainer every

day if I don't change my diet very

little happens with my body I actually I

end up growing a bit more muscles I end

up getting a bit stronger but in terms

of weight loss the fast it just sits

there yeah interestingly though from a

psychology perspective I've spoken to a

lot of scientists and doctors who have

said your body will basically

overcompensate for what you've just

burned if you went go for a five or 10

mile run your body wants to defend its

weight because that's defending its

survival chances for me one of the

things that happens is if I go out go

and work out in the gym because it was

so painful I'll then come home and look

at the flapjack or the cookie whatever

and I'll think that's two steps

backwards that's interesting whereas

some people will come home look at the

flapjack and go I've earned that but to

counteract my own point that also

happens sometimes I go well I can have

it because I just ran or whatever um

what I what I might do is I might avoid

the flapjack the obviously bad thing but

then I might eat more of something that

I think isn't bad you see what I'm

saying you'll have a sort of nutritional

bar or something that is sold to you as

being part of that kind of accer yeah

and I'll eat four of those and when you

speak to one of the really interesting

things is when you speak to

nutritionists and I've spoken to a

couple who work with really Elite Sports

Teams um those athletes generally eat

food so they that they have chefs that

make and they might make quite an

elaborate Flapjack but it will be a

flapjack made with the ingredients you

would have in your kitchen and they will

often drink milk while they're cycling

or running and they'll eat pieces of

chicken rather than other things this

topic of willpower again we kind of

started with it I love because willpower

comes up a lot in your stuff and it's

been so interesting listening to your

your stuff about it yeah I have to be

honest I have evolved in my thinking

about it because I've listened to both

sides of the argument around will power

and it does appear to me that there is

probably something else going going on

but with all these studies on Willpower

it's hard to establish causation because

there are other factors that are quite

clearly could confound the variables in

play so it's something that I've gone

back and forward on you talk about twin

studies in the context of willp power

and what that can teach us why did why

did you talk about twin studies in

chapter nine part of it was done by a

colleague called CL lellan and um what

CLA was looking at was the her this it's

a bit convoluted let me see if I can do

this the heritability of obesity genes

so there's a weird thing we see this

with with um it's bit easy to understand

with IQ but it's it's true of IQ genes

and obesity genes that in some places if

your parents have genes for obesity you

will have a 90% chance of inheriting the

Obesity but in other families it's more

like 10% same is true with with IQ so um

what CLA lellan showed was that if you

came from a situation of deprivation if

you came from a low-income household

your genes for obesity are much more

likely to be expressed so you would

inherit those you'd inherit those genes

and you would develop obesity now the

the social importance of this was

because IQ studies originally showed

that intelligence was hereditary and

this caused huge problems because um it

was done in the states and uh minority

groups were measured as having lower in

elligence and this provided that kind of

core argument of saying well some people

are genetically less intelligent and

there's a woman called Sandra Scar and

she did the first intelligence first

studies and it was twin studies that

showed it were that um whilst

intelligence is heritable in some

communities it isn't in others and

basically it works like this if you come

from a well-off household all your genes

whether they're for a healthy body shape

or for intelligence they're all maxed

out and so you all the variability is

genetic in the population if you come

from a low-income household you might

have genes for height that never get

expressed you might have genes for

intelligence that because you have been

poorly nourished you haven't been as

educated as well those genes for

intelligence never get expressed so you

have a really complicated picture where

genes can be inherited but not expressed

in different communities according to

how those populations are treated and so

that's one of the crucial things in

Psychology is when only study white

middleclass populations when we only

study psychology students we get very

very different answers to when we go and

look at populations who live with

disadvantage or low income so

essentially what one of the big findings

from clell's work is if you got rid of

poverty uh you would get rid of around

60% of the problem of diet related

disease and you and your brother because

you are

twins are quite a good example of this I

guess because you reference how he went

and lived in Boston and was having a

stressful time and gained weight I mean

every time I go to America we we travel

out there to record the podcast it's

just absolutely [ __ ] wild like we I

just feel terrible um I I always gain

weight um I un avoid if you're doing

work like you do in the states and

you're you're at hotels and you're on

the move and you're traveling you you

cannot eat good food that mini bar in

the bloody hotel which they just keep

topping up I remember I was saying to

the team I was like I put the cookies in

the [ __ ] bin and then I came back the

next day and they' put two bags there

like yeah they think you've eaten the

cookie yeah they thought I enjoyed them

I mean the marketing that's a form of

marketing and if you think that you are

struggling I'll come back to Boston but

if you think that someone like you

struggles in a hotel room when they've

put cookies and all this junk there and

you have to sort of put it out of sight

for a British teenager this is true for

teenagers in States Canada Australia

they are saturated in marketing in a way

that you would be completely invisible

to you and I it's I mean you you may

remember this from childhood it's on

your bus tickets when you buy stationary

at the shop it'll be on your receip it's

on your music apps because we pay for

our music apps but kids don't it's on

their social media um the companies get

their phone numbers directly uh from

they enter competitions and then they

send them meal deals and messages ping

ping ping to their phones so they it's

360 247 immersion in marketing of

addicted products and so it's it's not

that confusing why 25% of British kids

live with obesity not just overweight

anyway so Boston yeah my twin my twin

moved to Boston it was a situation of

some stress he'd had a a kid um uh a son

Julian uh with someone in a way that

that wasn't planned I suppose Julian

knows this uh I mean Julian's the whole

it's all part of a very dear family now

um but it was very stressful he went

there to do a master's degree he lived

above a burger shop and he he kind of

ate his problems and he he gained 30

kilos and that that is an example of we

both have a genetic vulnerability but my

life in the UK was very stable and I was

in a different food environment in the

UK you move my genes my clone

genetically we're identical you move my

clone to the states stress him out a bit

he gains 30 kilos I mean it's it's

nothing and oh has our willpower changed

has our personal responsibility changed

you know a set of um accidents and and

uh uh coincidences and the food

environment are what determine his

weight has nothing to do with willpower

at all whenever I feel like I'm in a

situation where I don't have autonomy

and control I'm like G and when I hear

about this sort of food environment

we're living in and the the big food

Mafia and the marketing and pinging me

left right and center and all the

products that are in some of these ultr

processed foods that are making me feel

addicted to them that I just it's just

triggering my my brain in a in a way

that I can't seem to control either I go

I want to be able to do something about

it on an individual level I want to be

able to take back control without having

to wait for bloody Downing Street or the

White House to change things I love that

and what what I try and propose in the

book is that you need to make that

Journey probably when you start reading

the book you're you're in this sort of

unconscious stage if you don't think of

yourself as either a victim or anything

you're just eating your food and then

Midway through the B book I think I do

propose to you that you are a victim and

that's a hard thing for any of us to

listen to most of us don't want to be

victims and I think you have to make the

journey from victim to activist pretty

quickly and you can be an activist in

your own life for yourself and you can

if you have resources and money and

skills you you can get rid of ultra

processed food lots of people actually

can't I just I just got to be really

blunt here like there is there is an

anxiety I had write in this book that um

for the core audience of readers who can

afford books most of them will be able

to buy sourdough from a fancy Bakery

rather than you know the Loa of PR we

just looked at but for the people who

are most affected by the problem that it

simply won't be a choice for someone

like you yes you you need to take that

kind of emotional reaction and turn it

into um direct that rage rather than

than directing it inwards it's directing

it out to a food system that controls

you I mean one of the one of the

political narratives we hear is is is

that any kind of Regulation is Nanny

statism it's about government overreach

at the moment we live in a nanny State

the nannying is done by transnational

food corporations they don't pay any

particular tax in this country they're

you know they do employ some people but

these these are not companies that are

part of our sort of culture and yet they

are controlling our our food and what we

eat and I think we need to rest a little

bit of control back off those of th of

those companies but that group of people

that maybe weren't the majority of

people you were speaking to with your

book that

don't have the privilege that me and you

have to make better choices as it

relates to food or to um buy the pots

and pans and chopping boards or get a

chef to cook it for us whatever what you

say to them what do they do I mean this

is why I don't give advice because there

is there we are at this moment where we

do have to politically treat the

companies like the tobacco companies now

at the moment for many people trying to

quit ultr processed food will be like

trying to quit smoking in the 1960s is

it really addictive so the do you want

me to do a bit on the the evidence for

addiction so the the the the definition

of adct because people food addiction

has been really scientifically complex

for a long time because baked into the

notion of addiction is that the only

strategy that ever works is abstinence

you cannot be adct abstinent from food

and so food can't be addictive so for a

long time we said well food is a

behavioral addiction where it is the the

food Behavior not the food itself the

definition of Ultra processed food

allows you to describe the category of

substances that are addictive and when

we go and speak to people who say I live

with addiction to food and you say what

do what do you feel addicted to It's

Always ultra processed product it'll be

very different some people it's going to

be the diet colors some people it's

Biscuits some people it's pizzas but

it's always UPF um the definition of

addiction is continued use of a

substance despite knowledge of harms

physical or psychological and despite

repeated attempts to quit and you and I

will both know people in our own lives

who continue to uh eat this food I mean

I was definitely one of these people uh

despite knowing it was harming me and

wanting to stop eating it so that's why

I think I have two groups of readers

some people are just going to want to

cut down you you might be someone who's

maybe eating a little bit more than you

want and you just want to go I'm going

to maximize my health and I'm just going

to I'm going to have it as a treat on a

Friday night and that's fine it's like

it can be like booze or or the

occasional

cigarette for some people that one

cigarette that one glass of wine for for

many probably 40% of people I don't know

about your audience but across the

country 40% of people will have a

troubled relationship with it and for

those people abstinence may be a an

easier strategy so yeah I think it's

addictive when we look at scans it's

addictive when we do surveys it's

addictive when we um look at the profile

of genes and the other um surrounding

factors that lead to addiction it's

caused by the same things and there's

lots of basic science about um the the

speed of consumption and addiction so

addictive things are normally very

quickly consumed shots crystal meth um

tobacco products if you chew tobacco if

you have slow release methylphenidate

it's a treatment for ADHD it's not

addictive um if you have weak session

beer it's not addictive like tequila

shots are so the speed of hit seems to

be important and that may be partly to

do with the softness of UPF you get a

you get a very quick hit of your

nutrition is there a link between ultr

processed foods and

neurodiversity you know

ADHD those kinds of things because

there's some emerging evidence about

ADHD I'm speaking to um there's a

working group at the Royal College of

psychiatrists who are really interested

in the links between uh binge eating

disorders and other eating disorders and

um and ultr processed food um I think we

we are only at the very beginning of

discovering the health effects but

remember from from very early on in

childhood a huge number of kids in this

country are on a diet of ultra almost

pure Ultra processed food but that's

often in a situation where there is also

other sources of um trauma of um

there'll be other health factors

there'll be poor housing um it will go

hand inand with lots of other things so

as an adjunct to other other problems I

would think there will be a link but

teasing it all out is going to be

complicated a high UPF diet is linked to

More Death glob than tobacco high blood

pressure or any other health risk 22% of

all deaths that's a stat I got from your

book and also increased consumption of

UPF Ultra processed foods is linked to

the following diseases all cause

mortality cardiovascular disease cancers

high blood presses fatty liver disease

in inflammatory bowel disease depression

worse blood fat profile irritable bowel

syndrome dementia and I can't even say

that other one F Frailty Frailty just

fertility being weak and

old CH part five of your book is what am

I supposed to do about it and I've kind

of answered it I want to make sure I'm

really clear of my own life here I can

because I have the privilege of doing so

I can make better food choices the first

part of it is awareness knowing what

Ultra processed foods are and I believe

I've got that definition from you step

two is I really need to do an audit of

the things that I'm consuming frequently

to make sure that I'm at least

intentional about my consumption of

ultra processed foods and then I can

make better choices to bring in more

Whole Foods into my into my diet um

because you're right there's so many

things that I'm consuming that I thought

were good for me I mean I I drank bloody