Written by my friend, Kristie. This is an area I’m bullish on re Kennedy and HHS.
- This isn’t a broken system — it’s a system working exactly as designed. And it is insane. We Americans have been completely bamboozled and betrayed.
Cooking at home with base ingredients seems like a requirement if you want to avoid processed food. Being interested in your food, not just in eating helps keep cooking at home engaging. We cook at home at least 5 nights a week. I make breakfast on the weekends, week day breakfast is simple, a few pieces of toast or some yogurt with something in it. I did make one of those fake meat burgers tonight, which has to be ultra processed. I buy my bread from a husband and wife baker, my bacon from a butcher shop that makes the bacon. I eat a few servings of fruit everyday. There are some UPF that I really like but I've never eaten less of it.
I can appreciate this article... but the only "How We Fix It" I saw was: buy organic, be thoughtful about ingredients, and good luck. Nowhere did I see how to get involved, where/how to politically organize. Is it that hopeless? is it really me vs. Big Food? That's a tough battle to fight my friend...
The book Ultra Processed People by Chris Tulleken, which I just finished and has to be the source of this article's knowledge at least indirectly, goes much more into detail as to what the problem is. It concludes with the fairly straightforward solution to personally just avoid ingredients you don't have in your pantry. It's worth the try to cut UPFs mostly, but not entirerly for a month (e.g. 80%) and see what it does to you. That's what I am doing now. As for more structural solutions it points to industry-independent government regulations. As long as the food industry is dictated only/largely by maximizing shareholder profit, this problem isn't going to go away. We need to regulate food more like we regulate tobacco and pharma. Anything else done by the for-profit food industry is window dressing - there is a long history of the food industry simply replacing whatever bad ingredient we now hate with another we haven't studied enough yet to hate.
Paul Roberts points out in The End of Food that the American school lunch program was under the purvey of the Department of Defense until Nixon - parts of it still are. The War Department had noticed through their metrics that the fighting weight of soldiers was dependent on the nutrition available to them and that the Great Depression had not been great for American military might. More than that, one of the reasons Americans won the Revolutionary War was due to the height/weight imbalance between the colonies and the British Empire - a diet of jam and bread had driven the average height of a British soldier fully six inches under the average height of a colonist. It's easy to take control of your nutrition if you're wealthy (or if your government wants you to win in an arm-wrestle). It's tougher when you let capitalism run unfettered. Our local grocer up here, Fred Meyer, used to be a quirky outfit like Target but with hella more groceries. They had a substantial natural foods selection, lots of bulk bins, plenty of natural ingredients. Then Kroger took over and now they're Walmart. Me? I can wander down to Whole Foods and overpay for whatever I want but Kroger is also transforming QFC from a chain that prided itself on fresh ingredients into a Fred Meyer without clothes or housewares.
You’re totally right—that was actually part of the point of the article. We need to wake up to how we got here before we can change. But you’re also right that we need more actionable steps we can control. First, education is power—once you start seeing through food marketing, you’ll never look at ads or labels the same way. And second, consumer demand does matter—food companies have super-thin margins, and when we stop buying toxic “foods,” they will start to listen. Some other steps to take today: -- Take 5 minutes to scan your pantry—set aside anything with seed oils, added sugar, or ingredients you can’t pronounce. -- At the grocery store, spend 5 extra minutes reading labels and comparing alternatives. -- Educate yourself on how Food is Medicine, literally. -- Check out ewg.org for food safety rankings and advocacy efforts. -- Cook one extra meal at home this week instead of eating out. -- Stock up on less processed snacks like beef jerky, organic popcorn, or simple whole foods. -- For policy change -- Support organizations pushing for better food regulations (like Nutrition Coalition), and contact your reps about banning harmful additives and improving school lunches. Change starts small, but it snowballs. Curious - what else do you think would make a big impact?
That's an unnecessary, unhelpful extreme. Why I know that? Because you'll say the same about my argument. First, pronouncing something like 'pyrimidinecarboxylic acid' just means your reading age is around 15. Second, that's one of the B vitamins, so congrats on eliminating that one there. Snappy shouldn't outweigh useful or thoughtful when it comes to writing health advice. It seems like you're just milking people for article ideas, but hey, whatever, just give me attribution. -Make (more) soups from basic ingredients instead of buying ready-made ones. Or stock of all things. Why soups specifically? Because they're more filling than solid foods; that's why they're starters in many countries or during austerity. -Set a hard weekly limit on the number of foods in plastic packages. At worst, you keep buying the same things in larger containers, so it's less plastic waste. -Get yourself an insulated food jar or thermos for homemade lunches. //I try not to edit after posting, but this one was embarrassing.or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
Curious - what else do you think would make a big impact?
I don’t think it’s horribly wrong, though I think if the median American would look at that ingredient and not know what it is or does, it’s probably not good for you. I tend to avoid it, but I’m personally realistic enough to say that if it’s 3/4 of the way down the ingredients list, it’s probably not horrible for your health. I will say that this lidt ignores added sugars. High Fructose Corn Syrup is simply a diabetes inducer. Unless it’s a fairly rare dessert, you don’t need added sugars.
You're right. I agree, especially on HFCS. But neither of us is volunteering to educate people on health or nutrition, let alone as an athlete-turned-entrepreneur. I’m no expert--just a redneck chipping away at MCAT prereqs. A literal sophomore. But I understand the need to not assume common sense on part of an average American. On health or nutrition or even basic hygiene.
Well, yeah, I think we’d mostly agree on that. But I think what I’m getting at is that if you need a background in chemistry to recognize an ingredient, it’s not a good thing. Now im realist enough not not expect a housewife in Mississippi to be able to go without storebought breads, pastas, and so on.
Thank you for taking the time to visit our small community it’s awesome when content creators engage. As you know, I’m an ally in this crusade. I have taken great steps toward a healthy lifestyle. I started with meditation (practice TM) then brought in weight training. Then I incorporated tennis (biggest impact overall), then I quit drinking back in May. This has been an eye opener. Wow. Long time Hubski users will recall what a large role alcohol played in my life! Finally, I have begun to focus on diet and sleep. I’m nowhere near perfect yet, but I’m a whole lot closer. It helps to have a spouse that has been focused on eating whole, organic foods and cooking from scratch since before we met 20+ years ago. Keep up the strong work. It’s important stuff. Oh, and welcome to Hubski! Onward!
I hear ya. More concrete steps should be shared. Aside: I was watching advertisements from the Super Bowl last night. One really caught my eye and got me excited. It was all about how our food system and medical system are failing us. It highlighted ultra processed foods and a lack of exercise and then at the end it was, of course, for a pill you can take. They had the problem diagnosed but attempted to tell us that the solution is more of the same. Truth is there is no such thing as a free lunch (pun intended). Proper diet, sleep and exercise. Throw in a sense of purpose and community and BAM! Yous gonna be one healthy mofo.