Processing the ultraprocessed food phobia

For much of the world, simply getting enough calories to sustain life is a daily challenge. Among the relatively affluent citizens in the west, wave after wave of dietary fashions encourage us to medicalize food. A recent example is the demonization of “processed” and “ultraprocessed” foods. This has been validated by the Trump nominee for HHS secretary*. While we can stipulate that a diet of exclusively unprocessed foods won’t be harmful**, what’s the evidence that processed food is harmful? 

Dietician Jessica Wilson decided to do an unblinded, non-placebo-controlled experiment. Designing the experiment was challenged by the lack of a rigorous definition of “processed” and “ultraprocessed” foods.

“For the month, 80 percent of my diet came from ultraprocessed foods, as best I could define them. But while van Tulleken purposefully swapped snacks like nuts for chips, I didn’t make any nutritional compromises with my diet. I ate that cashew yogurt, as well as Aidells Chicken and Apple sausage, soyrizo (a vegetarian dupe of chorizo), protein shakes, gluten-free bread, and countless Trader Joe’s and Costco snacks and premade meals.”

And the result?

“At the end of my experiment, I actually felt better than I had before. I went from skipping lunch during the week, because Sunday Jessica had had no interest in meal prep, to having meals and snacks full of veggies and protein at the ready. I didn’t have decision fatigue over what to cook, because everything took five minutes or less to get onto my plate. What’s more, it all tasted good. It was easy to grab an ultraprocessed main course and add some fruit and vegetables on the side. I didn’t need afternoon naps anymore, and overall, my anxiety was lower. Most important to me, my spouse noticed that I was more pleasant in the evenings.”

OK, before you reach for your keyboard:

• yes, I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data;
• yes, I know how you feel falls a bit short of quantitative data.

My (and her) point isn’t to validate a Trumpian diet of hamberders and pizza. My (and her) point is that we need to stop medicalizing food and fetishizing the number of ingredients. Be glad you can afford choices in your calories and use good judgement in balancing diet with lifestyle. 

*unless you grill your meat (which creates carcinogens), eat rice (which often contains significant levels of arsenic) and consume baked goods (which contain the neurotoxin and carcinogen acrylamide).
**RFK Jr, who is also an anti-vaxxer.
https://slate.com/life/2025/01/ultraprocessed-foods-healthy-energy-fear-trader-joes.html?via=rss_socialflow_facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3FElal7mkQMzk5jVo32NJRTiDwAl3vY_JANTFYYCnBTVS9JMyTffmnQJg_aem_ZpR-FMAoc-G4N_lWDA8HnA#b9ayrtv9vzwva2sgyltubqbrop7676z2