Why do we eat something that isn’t food and can’t stop? How can we recognize and avoid ultra-processed foods that are bad for our health? Chris Van Tulleken answers these and other questions in his book, Ultra-processed foods. How to recognize and avoid the unsuspected enemies of our healthpublished in Italy by Vallardi, which is already a best seller
In this book, already an international bestseller, the English doctor and scientist, who works at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, as well as award-winning BBC journalist, Chris Van Tulleken it explains to us why our body is evolutionarily incapable of sustaining ultra-processed food and how this implies serious risks for our health (and for the world we live in). We asked the author to explain to us the importance of being informed about what we eat and how harmful ultra-processed foods really are for our body and our planet.
Why a book on ultra-processed foods?
I am an infectious disease specialist and I have worked in various poor countries around the world, in central Africa and southern Africa, and I have seen many children die of infections that they contracted because their parents were given powdered milk with which they fed them and often did not they had clean water to prepare it and by ingesting the contaminated liquid they became ill. The companies that produced that milk are the same ones that produce ultra-processed food today.
What are the most popular ultra-processed foods? And how can we recognize them?
Some ultra-processed foods are quite easy to recognize. They are all those from the fast food chains, the packaged desserts, the spreadable creams. But there are also other ultra-processed foods that are more difficult to identify and which are often part of our daily diet, such as the cereals we eat for breakfast, fruit yogurt, the bread we buy at the supermarket, frozen foods. Let’s say that the rule for recognizing them is this. If on the package we find something like this written: ‘it is healthy, good for your health, low in fat, high in protein’, this is most likely an ultra-processed food.
What are the main risks to our health if we habitually consume ultra-processed foods?
The greatest risk is certainly obesity. And this is precisely the objective of the companies that produce ultra-processed foods, because they want to induce us to consume as much of it as possible to make the most of this activity. But not only that, the high quantity of additives, fats, sugars and preservatives present in these foods can cause various pathologies such as dementia, cognitive degradation, anxiety, depression, inflammation of the intestinal system, cardiovascular and metabolic problems.
Is it true that these foods are also bad for the environment?
The processing of these ultra-processed foods is the first cause of loss of biodiversity on our planet and the second cause of CO2 risk. Man has around 5,000 to 10,000 species of plants and animals at his disposal for nourishment. But the industries that produce ultra-processed foods only use around ten plant species, for example. And these foods make up half of our calorie intake. Substantially all the substances used by the ultra-processed food industries are reduced to three species of cereals: wheat, rice and corn, to which palm oil and soy must be added. As far as animal fats are concerned, let’s think about the spread of pig and chicken farming. If we think that most of the calories we introduce daily come from these products which use a maximum of ten animal and vegetable varieties, mixed with additives, emulsifiers, preservatives, sweeteners, sweeteners, flavourings, etc., it is clear that these companies promote intensive cultivation with massive use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. Naturally, all this has a significant impact on the environment. We know perfectly well the effects of this type of agriculture and we could intervene to limit the damage but this is not done.
