How Ultra-Processed Foods Took Over The World - Comments & Case Study | Ep 29

Ask the average American what the most important type of food is, and you'll get a wide range of answers. It's vegetables, meat, fruit, whole grains. Even among those who should be experts on the subject, the answer isn't clear. But study what the average American actually eats, how they actually vote with their dollars, what they believe to be the most important food based on their behavior. And the answer? It's obvious. The number one most important food in America, the food that has slowly come to dominate the world, is ultra-processed foods. Ultra processed foods now make up 55% of the total calories consumed by the average American. Forget what people say and study what they do. And what we do, more than anything, is choose ultra-processed foods. It is the most important food group by far. And if I'm being fair, for good reason. Ultra processed foods have a lot of benefits. They're relatively cheap, they last a long time, and they're reasonably tasty and incredibly convenient. At a time of rising food prices, few homes with a stay-at-home parent, the persistent erosion of free time characterized by the modern age, for many families, the cost and convenience of ultra-processed foods are a much appreciated lifeline. But at the same time that we as a society have moved away from home cooking, from whole and minimally processed foods as the foundation of our diet, we are witnessing a catastrophic erosion in the health and vitality of the population that has no historical precedent. I mean, think about how weird this is. That we are living in a time in which obesity, which some would characterize as an excess of calories, an overconsumption of food, is strongly associated with people of low income. Why would that be? Up until like a minute ago in the timeline of human history, low income would have been associated with a lack of calories and weight loss, not an excess calories and weight gain. What has changed? And with 40% of the adult American population as obese, with deaths from obesity and diet-related diseases now estimated at up to 600,000 Americans every single year, a number that's larger than the city of Boston, the entire state of Wyoming wiped out every single year, by something that we're told is largely preventable. The implications of this topic are massive. Is it possible that the movement towards ultra-processed foods, the effective outsourcing of our most basic human need to global multinational corporations, has come with a hidden trade-off? That what we've gained in terms of time and novelty and taste and convenience, that we're paying for with our health and the health of our children. And the conventional wisdom here is no, or at least not in the way that you might think. That despite the fact that the obesity rate in adult Americans has 3X' in the last 50 years, and despite the fact that any place on the planet that adopts the modern Western ultra-processed diet sees rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, move sharply in an upward direction, that it's not a fundamental issue with the food itself. But the issue is you just eat too much of it. In other words, it's your fault. If you could just consume these foods in moderation, you know, all would be well. But you don't, right? You lack control, you lack willpower, and you lack discipline. Oh, and you're lazy. Your life, your day-to-day are sedentary, and therefore you need to do something that's unprecedented, as a required minimum standard for metabolic health. You have to work out. You've got to go to the gym, something that almost no one did say before 1970. But for some people, the explanation for our metabolic crisis is simple. Eat less, move more. Calories in, calories out. The law of thermodynamics and all that. This has been the standard advice, the conventional wisdom for anyone who's tried to lose weight over the last 50 years as waistlines have continued to expand. And it's important to say that this is not a judgment. Weight gain, weight loss, it's just not a moral issue. You're not a good person if you're a normal weight, and you're not a bad person if you're overweight, and vice versa. Now, I say this because it's true, and it's something that doesn't get said enough, but also from personal experience. There was a time not that long ago that I was nearly 50 pounds heavier, officially obese based on BMI. And trying to reach my ideal body weight and composition was elusive, let's say. And for a long time, even after I got in shape, after I became lean and became ripped, I never really questioned the standard narrative around obesity and metabolic dysfunction. That weight gain or fat gain is simply a function of overconsumption of calories relative to caloric burn. But there were a few things that stood out to me as odd in this conventional story of obesity. Like, why all of a sudden? Go back 40, 50 years, and obesity was incredibly rare. And yeah, I know, rise in office work and people don't work on farms anymore and all that. And yeah, people are lazy. Sure, all true. But what about kids? Kids didn't work out in the past, not in large numbers anyway. You know, they played sports and they played outside, sure. But the average kid of, say, 50 years ago certainly never thought much about calories or diets or willpower. Are adults lazy? Sure, many are. But kids? I don't know. To me, that's a much tougher sell. But the obesity rate in kids has quietly forexed in the last 50 years, from 5% to up over 20%. And what about animals? Did the dogs and cats within our care also suffer the exact same simultaneous collapse in willpower and the rise in seditary life as their owners? What explains the rising rates of obesity and metabolic dysfunction in the animals that we care for? And why don't we see the same in wild animals that have, say, access abundant to food and lacking in natural predators, like invasive species? All right, now I agree, these are odd thoughts, sure, but these were the kinds of questions that I wasn't finding good answers for, unless the answer had been staring us in the face this entire time. That the common thread between all of the groups experiencing this simultaneous rise in obesity and metabolic dysfunction wasn't in the quantity of the food they were eating, but in the processing of it. With that, I'd like to welcome you back to another episode of Unconditional with Norby Shickle. Now, if you've been with me before, it is great to have you back. We've got an awesome episode today. Because of the topic for sure, but also because we are officially live with video. So if you've been happy listening to the sound of my voice on your way to work, as you get your cardio in or you do the dishes, if you're not, the audio podcasts will continue to be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the website, wherever you like listening to podcasts. But if video is your thing, and if you would rather watch the show, I'm glad to be able to make that happen as well. The show is officially live on YouTube. The channel is unconditional with Norby Shickle. So if you like YouTube and if you want to watch my pretty face as we nerd out on all things related to health, fitness, real food, and building an unconditional life, check out the channel on YouTube as well. Now, if you're new to the show, welcome to you too. My name is Norby Shickle. I started this show because something is off in the world of human health and fitness. I don't believe that humans are built broken or are destined for decline. My aim is to explore and discuss the forces that have been quietly robbing us of the health and vitality that we were destined for, and to uncover what can be done to reclaim the radical health and fitness that is our birthright. Now, if any of this sounds like what you're after, make sure to subscribe, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, now YouTube, so that you never miss another episode. Now, as many of you already know, I am a massive, massive stakes in context kind of a guy. I am constantly amazed by the number of baits, discussions, conversations, in which, like the entire debate could have been wrapped up simply with a better understanding of the context. I believe it is absolutely essential for the sake of honesty, of fairness, but also to aid in finding the truth, right, which is the ultimate goal here, to represent as much of the reasons behind things as possible, at least to the best of our ability. And that is especially important in this discussion today. Okay, now I am coming to this conversation with a bias at this point. And I think you know that I am a real foods, whole foods, natural foods kind of a guy. Okay, I have a bias as unprocessed and as clean and quality as you can afford. And this bias is sure, it's based on my own study of books, podcasts, some research papers, sure. But like so many people, my awakening on this subject was also based on my own personal health transformation, and I will say, accepted with some reluctance. Now, a few weeks ago, I released an episode on how I managed to raise my testosterone to 950 at age 42, all naturally, no TRT, no crazy supplements. And I'll confess something today. I never set out to increase my testosterone specifically, that this was something that happened as sort of a byproduct of other changes that I made for the sake of my health and my fitness. But my testosterone, my hormones, my energy gradually responded with an over 200-point jump from where they were 10 years ago. And the biggest change that I made after studying the work of people like Dr. Weston A. Price was to significantly reduce my consumption of ultra-processed foods. I'm not perfect in this, but this includes many foods that have been marketed as healthy, like protein bars and seed oils and anything with natural flavors. Okay, we did another episode on what's been described as the most important study in nutrition since the discovery of vitamins, a randomized control study performed by Kevin Hall, in which participants were divided into two groups. One was fed a diet high in ultra-processed foods, another high in unprocessed and minimally processed foods, matched for calories, macros, protein fiber, and a bunch of other nutrients. And those on the ultra-processed diet gained about one pound per week, while those on the unprocessed diet lost about one pound per week. Okay, incredible results. But not a slam dunk either. Because here's the thing. Although the diets were matched for calories presented, they were not matched for calories consumed. Participants could eat what they wanted. And when the researchers studied what was actually eaten, they found that those on the ultra-processed diet ate an average of 500 additional calories per day while they were on this diet. But in part because of the limitations from the Kevin Hall study, a group in Europe performed a similar randomized control study in which ultra-processed diets and unprocessed diets were matched for calories, macros, nutrients actually consumed. And what they found was that even when the diets were matched with the same macros and micros, those on the ultra-processed diet still gained about a pound a week. But that's not all. They also saw a decline in testosterone and other markers of male fertility for those based on the ultra-processed diet, with an over 10% drop in total T while on a diet high in ultra-processed foods within a three-week period. Now I have episodes on each of these studies, and I'll link to them in the description if you're interested. And this is just a glimpse, right? We haven't even touched on Ozempik and GOP1s and the excellent work by Johan Hari and his book Magic Bill. Also highly recommend grabbing a copy of the book and giving that episode a listen if you haven't done so. But in the short history of this show, there's been a long list of signs, studies, and pieces of evidence that the more that I looked into it, the more I realized that the pieces of the puzzle were all there, waiting to be put together. It's ultra-processed foods. And I know there will be people who disagree. A calorie is a calorie, law of thermodynamics and all that. And we'll table that full discussion for a future episode, I promise. But here's the thing. Even if you agree with me, there is a basic question that we need to grapple with. If ultra-processed foods are so bad, why did people make a switch in the first place? Now, obviously, part of the reason seeing the truth is so difficult on this is that ultra-processed foods are so ubiquitous. They become an ingrained part of how we eat. It's actually difficult to imagine life without them. And almost none of us alive today lived at a time when Americans didn't rely heavily on ultra-processed foods. So looking at a before and after, it's difficult. But still, why didn't the first generation raise on ultra-processed foods? Look at what their parents had been eating, and note the terrible health outcomes and switch back immediately. And to me, the reasons for this are ones that we can all relate to. And go back to those benefits of ultra-processed foods, which are often under-emphasized by critics of ultra-processed foods. Taste, convenience, cost, shelf stability, incredible advantages for ultra-processed foods. Now let's go back to the work of Dr. Weston A Price and his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, a book that I believe is the most important work ever written on the subject of human health and nutrition. Full stop. It is a multi-year study in which Dr. Price and his wife traveled the world in the 1930s to discover and document groups of people with the same or similar genetic stock, but who were following two very divergent diets. Those following their traditional diets and those following the modern processed diets of the 1930s. Often these are people who lived near port cities. So some members of the tribe traded with Westerners and some didn't. And the results of Price's work are staggering. Everywhere Price went, he found the exact same story play out. Those following their traditional diet, made up of real, unprocessed, natural foods, enjoyed incredible health and vitality. Wide dental arches, excellent teeth, and were nose breathers by and large. Those on the modern processed diets, the exact opposite. Poor health, confirmation, narrowing of the dental arches, poor bone structure, teeth, by and large were mouth breathers. Unfortunately, we don't have to take Price's word for it. We can judge for ourselves. Dr. Price and his wife took some 15,000 photos of the people on his travels. Truly an invaluable resource, a treasure trove for humanity, a study that will never be replicated. A must-read, in my view, for anyone interested in the subject of human health and fitness. Now I've done a few audio podcasts at this point on the work and impact of Dr. Weston A. Price, so check those out if you're interested. But part of the reason that his work is so profound is because of the unique time in history in which his work was performed. The emergence of the portable camera and commercial air travel created a unique opportunity, previously unimaginable by researchers in the past. At the same time, the forces of globalization and the spread of modern Western processed diets served as sort of a ticking time bomb on the continued existence of traditional diets, set to close the window on such a study in the future, maybe forever. Now we still have a few groups who follow traditional diets, the Hadza, the Maasai, and the Catavans, to name a few, but those numbers are massively reduced. And as incredible as the work of Dr. Weston A. Price is, it's almost 100 years ago, and we've learned a lot since then. And modern processed diets have gotten a lot better. I don't think there's any denying that. I should also point out that Dr. Price doesn't say much regarding the why people made the shift towards the modern processed diets of the 1930s. Now, maybe the change was gradual and therefore hard to notice. Price did ask these questions, or he had his own opinions, he didn't share them. And it seems reasonable to me that in the case where the move towards ultra-processed food was more gradual, it would be hard to tie a decline in health and vitality to ultra-processed foods directly. But one group did notice, because in their case the change was fairly rapid, going from a life of little to no processed foods to a diet rich in ultra-processed foods. And these weren't bad people, they weren't especially low in willpower. They made the change for the same reasons the rest of the world did. Cost, convenience, taste, marketing. But when they did, they began to suffer all of the same health issues that we face in the United States today. Rising obesity, type 2 diabetes, and more. Brazil is a country of over 200 million people, the seventh largest in the world by population, with a growing economy and purchasing power to go with it. A fact not unnoticed by large corporations looking to expand their consumer base, including the makers of ultra-processed foods. And as the move towards ultra-processed foods began to take hold in Brazil, something unique happened. A group of researchers attempted to do something unprecedented. They attempted to categorize and explain why these foods were different than the foods that had sustained humanity and Brazilians for thousands of years. Which leads us to an important question which is often missed in conversations about ultra-processed foods. What exactly are ultra-processed foods? Now, for most of us, we know that ultra-processed foods are foods that we don't think of as healthy junk food, sodas, candy, maybe. But if pushed for an actual definition, most of us really don't have a precise answer. And what's shocking to me is that the first group to attempt to actually define the term ultra-processed foods was a team in Brazil, led by a guy named Carlos Montero in 2010, what's known as the Nova classification framework. It's only 16 years ago. And to me, this is absolutely mind-blowing. Not only that, the Kevin Hall study on ultra-processed foods, the first and arguably the most important randomized control study to link ultra-processed foods and weight gain, the study that's been described as possibly the most important study in nutrition since the discovery of vitamins, Kevin Hall has personally acknowledged that his study was inspired in part because when he first heard of the work coming out of Brazil, he thought that it was, quote, nonsense. Okay, now I just have to read some of this. Incredible history. A few lines pulled from the excellent book, Ultra Processed People, by Dr. Chris Van Tolliken. Now, I've said this before, but if you haven't read this book, remedy that. Okay, just don't be that guy or girl who's left out of the loop, okay? You really want to get a copy, two copies of this book. Okay, and then just get to get. All right. Read that book. Incredible. But here's how Van Tollikan describes a conversation that he had with Kevin Hall. Quote, he told me that he was at a conference sitting next to a Pepsi executive when he first heard about ultra-processed foods. This was back in 2017, when a few papers on ultra-processed foods were starting to appear. The Pepsi executive said that there was this new way of thinking about foods, and they were concerned about it, and they had wanted to get my opinion on it. My initial response was, how could anyone take that seriously? End quote. Just incredible, right? Absolutely incredible. This tiny little paragraph says so, so much. Okay, Kevin Hall is our top nutrition researcher at the NIH at this time. It's only nine years ago. And when he hears that there might be some concern with ultra-processed foods, what is his first reaction? His first reaction is, how could anyone take this seriously? That's unbelievable. And who brings it to his attention? Is it a doctor, personal trainer, nutritionist? No. It's an executive from Pepsi, one of the largest producers of ultra-processed foods. And the executive is understandably concerned. I mean, this whole history is just incredible. It's amazing. And it happened like yesterday. And I say this not as a knock on Kevin Hall, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the study that we know him for, the gold standard study on ultra-processed food and weight gain, was actually undertaken with an assumption that it would debunk the concern over ultra-processed foods coming from Brazil, not to back them. And the fact that Kevin Hall and his team publish these results anyway, we should certainly tip our hats. And if you want more on the Kevin Hall ultra-process study, I have a full-length audio podcast on that as well. So give that a listen if you want even more. I'll add the link in the description. Some very interesting findings with respect to hormones that I actually believe is the most powerful, important aspect of the study that almost no one ever talks about. But let's get back to the definition of ultra-processed foods and the team from Brazil. Now, as you might imagine, defining what makes a food ultra-processed is a contentious subject. And even its advocates would acknowledge that this framework is not perfect. But the team from Brazil came up with a classification that they call the NOVA framework that lumps foods into one of four different categories. And for the first three, I'm going to quote Van Tollikan directly, where he says, quote, the first is unprocessed or minimally processed foods, foods found in nature, like meat, fruit, vegetables, but also things like flour and pasta. Group two is processed culinary ingredients, including oils, lard, butter, sugar, salt, vinegar, honey, starches, traditional foods that might well be prepared using industrial technologies. Group three is processed food, ready made mixtures of groups number one and number two. Processed mainly for preservation. Think tins of beans, salted nuts, smoked meat, canned fish, chunks of fruit and syrup, and proper freshly made bread. End quote. Okay, so these first three are fairly straightforward. I imagine most of us might not think of a can of tuna as a processed food, but as a working definition, this is pretty good. And finally, group four. And here I have to summarize because it's a long definition. Ultra processed foods are industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances that are derived from foods, plus additives designed to make them hyperpalatable, right? Extra tasty, convenient, and long-lasting. They often contain little to no whole food and are engineered more for profit and convenience than nutrition. So the point here is that processed foods are not composed of ingredients in the way that we think of them, not the kinds of ingredients you would go and grab, say, out of your kitchen or your pantry, but by using advanced technology to break foods into component parts and reassemble them into formulations whose primary purpose is to drive purchasing behavior and profitability. In the words of Fernanda Rauba, a member of Carlos Montero's team in Brazil, quote, most ultra-processed food is not food. It's an industrially produced edible substance. End quote. Okay, so that is incredible. Okay, it's not the NIH, it's not a team from the UK or Switzerland or any of the other countries that we think of as leading the world in health and nutrition research. The definition of ultra-processed foods comes from Brazil. And there's something else we can learn from Brazil's experience with ultra-processed foods, and that is how far the makers of ultra-processed foods are willing to go in order to ensure that their products spread to the most remote corners of the globe. Let's imagine that you're in the marketing department of a massive food company and you're presented with this problem. Now, let's add some corporate spin on it. You have a challenge and an opportunity. The opportunity is that there is a largely untapped market for your ultra-processed foods in Brazil. And that's good news because consumers in the developed world, the United States, Canada, the UK, they've started to question the health, and they've started to question the health implications of ultra-processed foods. Paleo, Mediterranean diets, the whole food, plant-based, carnivore, all a shift away from ultra-processed foods. But Brazil is a new, potentially massive market. But there's a challenge. In many places in Brazil, there aren't supermarkets in the sense that we think of them in the United States. Distribution channels are in their infancy, especially in places like, say, the Amazon River. How will the 800,000 potential consumers of the Amazon River ever get to experience the ultra-processed foods which have now become so common in the rest of the world? And if you can't bring people to the supermarket for your product, you bring the supermarket to the people. And that's exactly what Nestle did. Vantolikan describes this as a quote, spectacular marketing effort announced by Nestle in 2010, which involved the acquisition and conversion of a massive barge into a floating, traveling supermarket to cover the hundreds of miles of the Amazon River, stopping at towns all along the way, fully stocked with all of the ultra-processed foods that had yet to reach the 800,000 people living in the region. And as perhaps could be anticipated, the floating supermarket was a big hit among the people of the Amazon River. It was novel, it was exciting, and gave them access to foods that were new, tasty, convenient, and relatively cheap. People got to taste chips, soda, Kit Kats for the very first time. And predictably, people began to make the switch. Not because they lacked willpower, not because they were bad people. They made the switch for the same reasons that everyone else did. Convenience, taste, cost, and novelty. Not only that, the experience of the floating supermarket was undeniably cool. It became a hangout spot, an experience that people will look forward to. The eleven staff members who operated the vessel look back on the experience with some understandable pride. Something we can all relate to. Let's forget food for just a second and think about the novelty and the incredible benefits provided by smartphones and social media. Instant global communication, GPS, incredible photo and video. This is all before AI. I mean smartphones and social media are amazing. But at the same time, it's undeniable that these technologies have fundamentally altered human interaction, attention spans, and mental health. Certainly not all for the better. Most of us even know that, yet we have a very hard time imagining going back to a world without smartphones and social media. Are ultra-processed foods really that different? And from a health perspective, according to Van Tolliken, in Brazil, the results have been predictably devastating. Obesity and diet-related diseases, they're all too familiar in the West, began to emerge in Brazil for the first time. He says, quote, I have not found any evidence that there were children with diet-related diabetes in these parts of Brazil until enterprises like the Nestle boat. End quote. Now, to be fair to Nestle, the floating supermarket did stock more than sweet sodas and junk food. Okay, they provided fresh fruits, vegetables, along with healthier snack options. But what they stocked and what people picked, sometimes that's a different thing. We know from Mentolikan that mostly what people favored was Kit Kats. But this also brings up another issue that should be highlighted. That ultra-processed foods have a way of crowding out local producers and local foods. The products on the Nestle boat were cheaper than the local market. So people started to buy more of their food from the boat. Understandable. Most of us would do the same. And as consumers developed a taste for these ultra-processed foods, they began to demand them. In a way, they became the willing marketing arm for Nestle. Ventolikan says, quote, I went to a small supermarket which had a huge quantities of traditional foods, rice, beans, yams, papayas, tomatoes, onions, but an array of ultra-processed foods too. The shopkeeper said that he hadn't heard of Nestle products until the boat came. Now he feels obliged to stock the products because consumers began to demand them. End quote. And once that happened, Nestle no longer needed to keep operating the floating supermarket, so they shut it down. Now, we've all seen this, right? We've all been a part of this. This is something that we can all relate to. Thirty years ago, the debate was all about Walmart running all the mom and pop stores out of business. Then the debate was about Amazon. And the cycle continues and will continue. This is the process of quote creative destruction that economists describe as part and parcel of economic growth. The newer, faster, better, cheaper displaces what came before. And while few industries suffer, the entire society gains because of better efficiency, higher standard of living, etc. But is this all? Do we simply shrug it off with a eh, that's just how it is, or wait for a new law or regulation to correct an imbalance? I'm not convinced that we do, because it's fundamentally about what we demand, what we're willing to pay for and what we're not willing to pay for. And this isn't about judgment. It's not about shame and it's not about demonizing food choices. Okay, I've been there. I still am there. These foods are ingrained in our society at the moment. A lot of things would have to change in order to even imagine a world free from ultra-processed foods. But so was smoking. In 1965, 43% of the adult American population were current smokers, 52% of men. And that number sits at less than 10% today. And it wasn't that long ago that the idea of a radical shift would have seemed impossible. When I was in college, you could still smoke in a bar. When I was a kid, there was a smoking section and a non-smoking section in a restaurant on an airplane. Okay, yeah, like one row is going to make a huge difference, right? Total insanity from the perspective of today. Now, are ultra-processed foods as bad as smoking? No, I don't think so. And I'm not advocating for an out and out ban on ultra-processed foods. That is not my point. My point is that just like with cigarettes, imagining a world without them seems impossible until it's inevitable. And the change is faster than you think. And individual choice is always the driver. It always comes before any sort of regulation or change in the law. By the time that smoking indoors was effectively banned by all states in the United States in 2010, the percentage of adult American smokers had already been cut more than in half from the 1960s. Never underestimate the power of individual choice. Okay, that's going to be it for me today. Thank you for the watch and thank you for the listen. If you have enjoyed this episode and you're on YouTube, I need you to go crush ity crush on the like button, subscribe to the channel and all that. And if you want to engage with me directly, add a comment. Am I right about ultra processed foods taking over the world? Did I miss something? Where are we going? Let me know in the comments. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.