This study was so beautifully designed by Dr. Hall and the other NIH researchers. Go and read it. It has implications for the way that we feed our kids, the US food system, and the health of all the residents of our country. I can’t thank the researchers enough. The impact of this study is immense.
4
This article is from a few years ago, but I'd be interested to know if the effect was primarily due to the much higher amount of sugar and artificial sweeteners in the processed diet? Not to discount salt and other chemical or fillers, which are also bad for you, but for some reason I suspect that if they replicated the study and isolated the sugar and artificial sugar effect it might tell the story...per Judy's comment...I was glad to read this and I'm now inspired to soak/cook dry beans more often! I thought that my diet was pretty healthy but I mainly used canned beans, although I do look for low-sodium.
Maybe the main reason the processed diet Resulted in weight gain was the Large amount of artificially sweetened Crystal Light. The experiment should be repeated with the processed diet eliminating all that Crystal Light and substituting water.
Artificial sweeteners stimulate appetite and cause weight gain because they affect gut bacteria.
6
If the real issue tested was processing, why not study store bought oatmeal cookies against offered homemade cookies without preservatives, or store bought chips against home made chips,etc?
1
The body in its infinite wisdom, knows the difference between real and ersatz food. "Look alike" food that floods our supermarkets today can barely fill the tummy let alone satisfy this intricate machine that has been miraculously designed by nature. The simple fact is that "make believe food" will never give the body (and mind) what it needs to flourish. It will always be hungry and looking for more and more. It will be insatiable. I suggest you listen to the body and see what it says when you begin to fill it with unadulterated, natural food. Keep it simple and start with whole grains, beans and veggies. Be your own judge. You won't need me or any certified nutritionist for further advice. The food will speak for itself.
What many fat people don't understand is that eating junky, sugar laden processed food, rather than sating their desire to eat, actually makes them hungrier. Understanding which foods really do satisfy hunger is key to making good food decisions.
2
These meals are either 100% processed or 100% "whole". I don't think it would be surprising for example for someone to put fresh fruit in their Cheerios or whatever cereal they might eat. Or have lowfat milk with their cereal. This seems to look only at the extremes, and I'm not sure how representative that is of the way people actually eat.
10
Would Applegate organic, certified humane Turkey be considered processed?
In this article, each day's diet, whether processed or unprocessed, consists of a lot of food. Who needs to eat this much? There's also so much red meat. Now that I've retired, I prefer a large unprocessed breakfast, a small snack (usually fruit) during the day and a light dinner. When I worked, I had a large breakfast, medium-size lunch and very light dinner.
3
Hi @penny, "the participants were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired." So the pictures do not illustrate the amount they ate, but rather what they were served.
I'm glad you have such a healthy diet!
5
@penny
If you have a physically demanding job, you need more food. I did warehouse jobs for nearly a decade, it was like doing crossfit for 50 to 70 hours a week. I was eating 6000 calories a day but still had a BMI of about 19 (I am female). Now I do office jobs, but I still need about 2800 calories a day, as I exercise for more than 2 hours a half every day (walking and sometimes part of the day to work, and going to the gym to do weight training). Also, I have a condition called hyperthyroidism, which makes me burn fat really easily.
From the pictures, the big difference between the processed and the unprocessed diet is the sheer volume of food, especially plants. I cook from scratch, and eat about 9 US cups of vegetables (mostly brassica) and fruit each day. My colleagues eat processed stuff and always remark 'This is a lot of food!' I think eating plants in such huge amounts helps with gut function: I definitely don't need laxatives to 'go', nor do I have issues with bloating, and I have a completely flat 'stomach' (which is helped by doing Pilates and planks at the gym). My colleagues who eat so little (like one tin of soup and one small bag of crisps at lunch, then a yoghurt in the afternoon) compared to me all have bulging waistlines and struggle to 'go' once or twice a week. Some of them cannot 'go' without taking a laxative. Not helped by the fact that 25% of them are long term users of antidepressants, and 50% of them pop codeine... like it were smarties.
4
Since my spouse and I started controlling portion size rigorously, he has been slowly losing weight. I have never had a weight problem but with larger portions of fruits and vegetables I am feeling more energetic.
We were quite interested in this article but are confused by the lack of consideration of genetics. In old photos of my family across four generations the vast majority are tall and thin.
In his family about half the people across the generations are shorter and rounder.
He has trouble losing weight, I could eat just about anything and never gain. Were genetics taken into account here?
I look at the processed diet described here which up until recently was my diet, and on which my husband was growing bigger and bigger, and yet over 60 years I never was even a pound over recommended height/weight.
It would be more useful to those who try and try to lose if more consideration were given to the bodies they were born with.
4
Hi @wolfie, it does not appear that genetics were taken into account in this study. However, each participant was compared to his or her own baseline, so the cross-group comparisons are less important. Each individual gained or loss weight.
Congratulations on your reasonable portion sizes!
3
I just started drinking the Pure brand of Crystal Light. Does anyone know if this natural stevia brand (vs the cheaper Crystal Light brand that contains a different artificial sweetener) is still considered a processed food? The last thing I need is something that increases my appetite....
2
@Lydia S
Do you suffer from hypoglycemia? Have you considered fresh-squeezed lemon juice with water and maple syrup? Or lime juice with a little honey? If you don't suffer from low blood sugar, you might want to omit the sugar unless this is your pre-workout energy drink. In my book, anything in a package, like Pure Crystal Light, is a processed food.
2
@Mushroom thanks - I don’t have hypoglycemia but I do suffer from kidney stones and I need to get my citrates up. I do add fresh lemon but Crystal Light is a great source of citrates... I buy the natural stevia kind which I figure is the lesser of two evils- vs. the aspartame kind.
@Lydia S Read the ingredients. If your great-grandma wouldn't recognize it, then it's processed. It does contain sugar, which great-grandma knows, but sugar is refined.
Home made with actual lemon juice (not bottled) and honey is non-processed. Maple syrup is also considered not processed, because the only alteration to the sap is that it is boiled and concentrated.
1
How does steak become a processed food?
Good question, @Rich Murphy. While the steak is not as highly processed as some canned meats, it still contains sugar, canola oil, maltodextrin, yeast extract and other preservatives and tenderizers. You can google Tyson Steak (the brand they used) to see the full list of ingredients.
5
That's a lot of beef on the whole food side. It was served on five of the seven days. Beef consumption has a bad impact on the environment.
4
A lot of people commenting are up in arms about these food choices, but this (and much worse) is reality for many, many people in this country. These foods are designed specifically by food scientists to appeal to your brain’s pleasure centers, to keep you wanting more and more food. They’re also designed to be produced as cheaply as possible to keep corporate profits high and appeal to your wallet so you start eating these things in the first place. These companies have succeeded at taking advantage of unknowing consumers for decades and have only bolstered their success by adding labels like “healthy” and “natural” on the same garbage.
We need to start talking about systemic causes of obesity and stop blaming individuals for their poor choices. Government policy must be developed to encourage appropriate pricing of nutritious foods (i.e., sugary drink taxes, subsidized produce) and these corporations must be held accountable for the public health price we are paying to sustain their profits.
14
i try very hard to not eat processed foods. gave up Cheerios a long time ago, rarely eat luncheon meats (i miss them though), no chips, no margarine (yuck), no soda... however, i have a problem with some of the food set out here as healthy... not that they're not healthy (i am glad that portions were left up to the eater, they are enormous) but there are so many foods i just cannot bring myself to eat: beans of any kind, oatmeal is another, plain yogurt... and many of the condiments or spices used to give the healthy meals some sort of zip or flavor like chili of any kind, balsamic vinegar.. also, even though most of these whole meals look wonderful and i could probably do a work around the things i don't like -- you have to be able to eat at home for each meal, which is just impractical when you leave the house early in the morning and don't get home until late at night. salads wither, meat gets cold (and i believe that microwaving to reheat your meals is also unhealthy)... and a lot of the processed/whole meals are not really equivalent to each other in taste or texture. good to fair for an outline or a starting point though.
1
@bronxbee
Eating healthy with foods you prepare at home from work is easy - I worked as a teacher/principal at an elementary school and ate ginormous salads with homemade dressing - I'm not sure if dijon mustard is considered a processed food, but other than that - dressing was made with garlic, walnut oil, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, dried organic oregano and a dash of maple syrup, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper - my salad would be arugula, a whole sweet red pepper cut up, about 12 grape tomatoes, scallions, pea pods/pea shoots, celery, cucumber and for protein, I would add 100-125 grams of quality protein - fish, grass-fed beef, organic chicken/turkey, clams, mussels, scallops ,etc. I have an extremely low metabolism and love to eat, so the more veggies, the better! And yes ,there is a lot of chewing involved!
1
@bronxbee Make a big pot of homemade soup, and eat it all week. Whatever fruits and vegetables you do like, eat those, except corn, which is actually a grain. If you hate asparagus, don't bother with it. Cook a pot of vegetables, eat them all week. Tear up a bunch of lettuces, keep in a big bowl, eat it all week. Find a recipe for a salad dressing you do like. Pack your lunches.
5
Another important step forward, I think, in nutrition, which is long been plagued by vague and unhelpful descriptions such as “healthy”, “unhealthy, “natural” and the like without rigorous definitions or evidence. “Ultraprocessed” isn’t a precise term either, but it is, I think, a step forward.
Not to criticize the study, which rightly focused on nutrition alone, but it would have been interesting to compare preparation time and cost for the two diets. As the authors note, ultraprocessed foods tend to be cheaper, and a large part of their purpose and appeal is to reduce preparation time. These are often cited as barriers to dietary improvement. Any actual intervention to improve dietary habits and products will need to address these important needs to be effective.
15
Hi @Thomas R Jackson, cost information was in the study: "The weekly cost for ingredients to prepare 2,000 kcal/day of ultra-processed meals was estimated to be $106 versus $151 for the unprocessed meals as calculated using the cost of ingredients obtained from a local branch of a large supermarket chain." Of course, preparation is more difficult to measure, but you have the right idea.
3
@Thomas R Jackson
I can list two of the major whole food items I buy that serve as the base for my meals. The first are the whole grains, some of which were featured in the recipes- stuff like bulgur, lentils, and oatmeal. I use Bob's Red Mill products. They're as cheap as can be imagined- about $4 for a bag that would last a family two weeks. I get them right at my local grocer but if you're in a food desert, you can get them through Jet.com.
Secondly, are the veg. I use frozen veg in the "steamable" pouches. Cost is $1 for a bag of 4 servings. Also, canned veg, like beans. House brand stuff is as cheap as dirt- two cans for a buck.
My prep for both food groups consists of microwaving them- the grains with water in a pyrex bowl and the veg in the bags they come in. I'm not much of a cook but the stuff is pretty foolproof. I used to cook for my mother this way.
3
This article and others on processed foods fail to define exactly what is a processed food and what isn’t. If it’s cooked at home, is that processed? If it’s processed but has a single ingredient such as oatmeal does that make it not a processed food?
3
@Susan Hibbard that is a problem in many reports and studies. The authors of this study do rely on NOVA definitions, which they note are not as precise as we would like. The term NOVA uses is “ultaprocessed”, which they say was coined in 2009 in San Poalo. They describe it as
“Ultra-processed foods, such as soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, reconstituted meat products and pre-prepared frozen dishes, are not modified foods but formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods and additives, with little if any intact Group 1 food.” (Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed foods).
2
@Susan Hibbard. If it comes out of a box or a bag, it’s processed. If it comes in it’s natural container, it’s good for you.
What does processed food have to do with it? If I were a meat lover and ate a diet heavy on bacon and sausage comprising 500 more calories a day than the control group, wouldn't I gain weight too?
2
@Greg what it has to do with it is that the processing does appear to effect appetite and consumption, leading to the overconsumption. That was the finding of this study. Both groups were free to eat as much as they liked. The ultraprocessed group at a lot more and gained weight.
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@Greg
If you ate a diet heavy on unprocessed meat, you wouldn't be hungry for an extra 500 calories per day.
Bacon and sausage are kind of a "gray area," there are many varieties with various ingredients and degrees of processing, many have added sugars, etc.
1
@Greg
Yes and no.
Meat is going to be a problem because it has no fiber, and thus packs way more calories into a pound of meat than does any veggie (circa 1,000 cal/lb of meat vs. circa 150 for a vegetable). So you can gain weight by eating more meat and fewer veggies.
But the processing also plays a role -- just look at the study. The Whole Food group in the study repeatedly ate meat, and still ended up better than the Processed Food group.
(Crackers are 1,000 cal/lb, and chips 2,100 cal/lb, again, with no fiber, as with meat).
For best health, ditch meat and processed foods. (Both of which lack the tens of thousands of phytochemicals in plant foods).
2
Please publish all the menus. I was surprised at the processed foods I thought were Whole Foods. I want to replicate the diet on my own
5
Hi @Mary Ostlund you can find the full menus in the study, please click the at the beginning of the article.
What a great story! And such mouth-watering photos of the non-processed meals. That is the way WE eat now, and honestly the way we ate before the 1970s. The people who still believe a platter of pastries is a treat - I view as unenlightened. But I also grieve for the people in poverty who are trapped with ONLY processed foods to "choose." We need healthy grocery stores and reasonable food prices for everyone...sigh.
8
What is Tyson's beef tender roast? It is mentioned several times but I can't tell if it is a precooked product or not?
4
Processed food has been a huge technology advance in the last century. It helped sanitize our food supply, and provide cheap calories to those in need.
Now we are advancing again. Do not bash processed food, as it was a huge advance in technology. We are now seeing the downfalls and need to ensure we have newer technology to replace cheap and safe food.
Also, this study is not conclusive, but does give some insight to correlation.
3
@JB
If I were stuck in another country, especially a developing one, I'd feel a lot safer eating American processed food with preservatives and FDA inspections than I would with the local whole foods. In fact, in some parts of this country I might say the same.
I definitely don't think all processed foods are bad. Just like everything else, there's some good, some bad. What's good is that all the nutritional facts are spelled out on the label. With whole foods, one doesn't know. For instance, I wonder how many people would know that an apple has 24g of sugar? Same as a cup of red grapes. That's 6 teaspoons. And, you may want to think twice about eating raw coconut meat, even though it's natural. Half a coconut will cost you 60g in saturated fat. That's the USDA consumption limit for 3 days!
2
Yet another nail in the coffin of the "calories in, calories out" approach to obesity.
Nutritional quality of the food was the _cause_, which led to changes in appetite and subsequent calorie intake.
3
I don’t think you understood the piece correctly. The punchline was the 500 extra calories per day consumed when eating processed food for the same number of meals. That’s definitively in support of calories in calories out.
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@Max Cabral
I don't think you understand how hunger and satiety work. Both groups were told to eat to satiation. The group eating processed foods spontaneously and unconsciously ate more calories to achieve satiation.
In other words, nutritional quality was the cause, and changes in "calories" were the effect.
Decades of dietary advice has told us to ignore hunger/satiety while consciously counting calories in order to maintain a healthy weight. What this study (and many others) tell us is that consciously counting calories is missing the bigger picture of cause-and-effect.
9
@The Pooch. Wouldn't anyone, given a diet of food they like better, eat more of it? Why does it have to be processed? Why can't it be butter, cream, and bacon?
2
I have to think that extra 500 calories a day from the processed foods group would come from snacks. When I go to the super Walmart, there's two complete aisles just for chips and pretzels. That's not even considering crackers, cookies, candies, donuts, ice cream. We have to be the snacks capitol of the world!
4
@Ron A
The study doesn't say that the extra calories come from snacks, that's just your assumption.
I wonder if smoking cigarettes is bad for you too. Maybe they should study that next.
15
@Bob M amen, rehashing, rehashing....!
Dry roasted peanuts are considered processed food?
8
@Katisha Dart
This is what's in a jar of Planter's Dry Roasted peanuts:
Peanuts, Contains 2% or Less of: Sea Salt, Spices (Contains Celery), Dried Onion, Dried Garlic, Paprika, Natural Flavor, Sugar, Cornstarch, Gelatin, Torula Yeast, Maltodextrin, Dried Corn Syrup.
2
I also found that odd. Cooking and seasoning a food makes it a processed food?
@Julie
Simple herbs and spices from a kitchen pantry would fall into the 'minimally processed' foods group. The food additives added by Planter's (Natural Flavor, Sugar, Cornstarch, Gelatin, Torula Yeast, Maltodextrin, Dried Corn Syrup) are all added to enhance the food product. I like to call this 'designer food product' -- designed to look good, smell good, taste good and make you want more. Stick with simply roasted peanuts.
9
Eating processed foods makes you fat. And sick.
5
@Diane
and DEAD
2
Just the way the food looks in the photos tells you everything you need to know. American processed food is soylent green.
2
This study is a bit silly. The meals are matched in terms of total calories so, obviously, the "unprocessed" ones are going to contain more fruits and veggies and will therefore have to be much larger in terms of volume. For most people, including me, (6'1" and about 200 lbs) it's simply not possible to eat that much food so I'd stop eating sooner and consume fewer calories. It's a no-brainer and the same reason we are told to eat 9 helpings of fruits and veggies daily: the medical community knows the public is generally overweight or obese and is trying to get people to lose weight.
I love processed foods and typically will splurge every week or two at Burger King with a whopper (1 beef patty and only one, cheese, bacon, slathered in mayo and anything else they've got), chocolate milkshake, onion rings or fries. But I only do that once a week. The way to approach "processed foods", or any type of foods, is eat in moderation, track your weight, exercise, and improve your strength, increase distance traveled if biking or running, and increase your speed over time.
And above all else, realize that as strength and fitness increases you'll slowly gain weight, just don't let it be fat. And you'll end up with low triglycerides, lots of good cholesterol, low HR, low blood pressure, and low inflammatory load (CRP.) Processed foods are not what's making us fat, it's us!
8
@Paul B
The study is not silly, but needed, because this is a colossal problem facing our nation and being struggled with by millions. You're right: the fresh fruits and veggies are less calorie dense, and that's why eating more of them will bring on weight loss -- but that's something that people can't seem to wrap their brains around, and so this message is desperately needed. You may be eating 1 cheeseburger each two weeks, but ultra-processed foods are over half of the diet of America, according to the study.
I think the focus on "strength" is misplaced. What about longevity? An American has the lifespan of a Jordanian, and it's been shrinking for three years! We can do much better, and this study points the way!
4
@Aaron Sullivan
By "strength" I'm talking about doing basic exercises like dead lifts, squats and others to maintain bone health and the ability to move one's body despite the ravages of old age - i.e. avoiding "frailty" or the inability to get up from a seated position. Without strengthening, the aging body will naturally thin out, with bones, muscles, tendons, joints, etc., degrading.
I'm not talking about "3-hours a day in the gym" doing bodybuilding for the sake of seeing how big you can get -- that's a prescription for overtraining and hurting yourself. (Google "Starting Strength" for Youtube videos to see many examples of normal people, including folks with arthritis, who have immeasurably improved their lives with strength training.)
As you say, longevity is very important too and that's why I cited Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and inflammatory load - those can be addressed with cardio training.
I'm always puzzled by the negative reactions people have towards "strength training." Perhaps that's because there are plenty of examples of people who become fixated on bigger biceps and pecs. That's not a terribly useful way to approach life but neither is spending the last 10-15 years of your life in pain, and using a walker, because you never thought about maintaining or enhancing your strength.
2
@Paul B
The Blue Zones tracks the communities on earth with the longest lived people. Roughly all of them garden, but none are weight lifters. Where is the community of long-lived weight lifters? Why does such a group not exist? The typical message from weight lifters is that we all need huge muscles which have no real work to do, fueled by protein powder. You might well be right, there may be a role for "strength training". But the bulk of the messages from that community are self-destructive.
Most "Greek" yoghurt has added sugar. It should not be in the whole foods diet. My Greek-immigrant friend holds it in contempt.
The cheapest and probably healthiest food is dry beans, simmered for a couple of hours (only 30 minutes for lentils). Uncooked, the beans keep forever, longer than processed junk food. If poor people don't make this the basis of their diets, it is their fault. Every Mexican peasant wife knows this.
10
This high carb trash will give you diabetes. Sadly, Mexican peasants are finding out the hard way. By losing toes.
1
Plain Greek yogurt has no added sugar; that's why it's called plain.
11
@Stefani what? I don’t think people are getting diabetes because of lentils...
11
From the comments I’ve read, it seems like people in some states eat like this all the time, but honestly, were these portions designed for athletes training for the Olympics? Look at the plates described as having “a sandwich”. That’s not “a” sandwich, that’s 2 sandwiches, each cut in half on the diagonal. Who eats 2 sandwiches for lunch, plus all the other stuff laid out on the photo for lunch? That much food at one seating would make me sick.
The whole food portions likewise seem unusually large. I’d like to know the calories count of all these meals. Calories in/calories out is as much of a factor in weight gain/loss as the quality of the food you consume. You could theoretically lose weight eating M&M’s, you just wouldn’t be healthy.
6
@Ann. but here people on either diet could eat as much or as little as they wanted. People eating the ultra processed meals WANTED to eat more.
I checked the original article and the diets were presented to the study participants in a matched way. Here from their summary: "Meals were designed to be matched for presented calories, energy density, macronutrients, sugar, sodium, and fiber." So if there were similarly caloric and large portions, both diets were prompting people to overeat equally.
Also the research was conducted using a cross-over design. Meaning that the 20 people were split in half. 10 people started with ultra processed for 2 weeks and then switched to the whole food for 2 weeks. The other 10 people started with the whole food diet and switched to ultra processed. These are the SAME people on the two diets, first one then the other. Those SAME people WANTED to eat (an average of) 508 calories more per day when on the ultra-processed diet. Wow!
Most people do not want to count ever calorie, every day. People want to just eat food and it is a question of why some people want to eat more or "too much". Rather than trying to get people to not eat when they want to eat, it would be much better to help people not want to eat too much. Seems like an interesting and important study to me.
17
Several writers have commented on processed vs. "whole". What stands out to me on the processed category are dessert like items such as chocolate pudding, blueberry muffins, pancakes, French toast, and either juices or sugar-free lemonade or other drink with a sweet flavor. A few processed meals are a lot like a whole meal, except for presence of items like this. For example, the processed Mexican meal of black beans, flour tortilla with cheese, salsa is very closed to a "whole" Mexican meal, except it might have more salad and raw fruit, instead of a dessert or sweet (even artificially) drink. One has to wonder if just the drink itself could induce the impact.
3
@Debra
I think that one thing missing from the menus is all of the ingredients in the processed foods. It says "Beef Ravioli" by Chef Boyardee -- okay, what are the 40 ingredients in that? There may be some really bad things in it, like known carcinogens like Red #40, or EDTA, or TBHQ. I'll wager it's a laundry list of bad actors. So yeah, black beans and salsa might be great -- but when you read the labels, ... "the devil's in the details".
Hmm. Some of those ‘whole’ meals featured processed foods, like white pasta.
8
A shorthand way to describe processed food: bags and boxes.
11
@Julie
Yes, processed food are all too often packed in boxes, bags and way too much plastic.
I also bring my own cloth or paper bags as I buy the fresh veggies and fruits.
Is there a middle ground grade between "whole" and "ultra processed"? Like "super processed", "mondo processed" or just regular ol' "processed"? Like a Doritos vs sun chips kinda deal. I wanna be healthy but not that healthy.
2
Great article, but am confused on one point - why are roasted peanuts processed good?
5
... seems like a lot of Tyson beef in the right column.
6
I love articles like this that state the obvious, like walking is good for you, being in nature improves your mental health, and now—a real shocker—that junk food is bad for you.
6
@M. Grove
Thing is, that's not what this study is about at all. In fact, the author went out of his way to say that processed food (or 'junk food,' if you prefer) has a viable place in modern society. The reason people gained weight eating it was because it was so tasty it encouraged them to want more.
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@M. Grove
I think that the number "500 calories per day" was a real shocker. Gaining "one pound per week"? That gives specific detail that "bad for you" lacks.
3
@M. Grove
But not all processed foods (as described in this article) can be classified as junk food. And I think that there are degrees of harm. A can of beans with no additives other than a little salt is hardly the same as a spam sandwich with American cheese! I agree with the comment above that not all processed foods as defined by this article are “equal."
1
There is a whole lot of wrong in our food industry which is why diabetes is so high in the US, money space and time have given way to “I’m just to tired to care anymore” which is why we have a drug problem. A whole swath of people just marking their calendar and waiting to die. This America dream has turned into a nightmare. Thank you for showing us delicious looking meals
WOW! Why do Americans eat so much food at each meal? I eat some fruit with zero fat greek yogurt for breakfast..a nice salad for lunch or an egg-white sandwich for lunch and maybe some turkey breast, salmon or chicken breast with mashed potatoes for dinner or another vegetable for dinner...
Also, the Quaker Oats mentioned in the article contain 10 TIMES the amount of glysophate (Round Up by Monsanto/Bayer) that is recommended by WHO..World Health Organization. The co-opted, toothless FDA still approves all glysophate (Agent Orange) in all General Mills products...yes Cheerios too...
4
@Paul
Agent Orange was toxic because of contaminants, not glyphosate (which, by itself, is harmless to mammals).
Credibility requires getting your facts straight.
It also requires plausibility: it is implausible that an adult man could survive long on less than 1500 calories a day. You're not telling the full truth about your diet.
7
I’m curious about what happened to those who spent the first two weeks eating the processed diet and then switched to the unprocessed diet for the last two weeks. Did they lose any weight?
6
@Deb Yes, on average those who ate the whole foods diet lost about the same amount of weight (2lbs) whether that was before or after the processed food diet.
I know many people who eat like this and would think it was'healthy.' Most of the drinks for the processed meals are Crystal Light or juices. That, also, is what a lot of people consume when they are trying to eat "healthy." We need to be reeducated, but I am sure the lobbyists would have something to say about this. :-) This is an excellent article.
8
I cook from scratch most of the time and bake all my own breakfast goods, cakes and cookies, the latter of which I enjoy in moderation. I find that if I start eating the shop-bought cookies, doughnuts, etc. bought in by office colleagues I'll start putting on weight.
Home bakes don't contain sucrose/fructose/corn syrups, various gums and all the other ingredients that make these products addictive and encourage weight gain, and are found in a huge array of processed foods, not just sweet items.
As has been mentioned in other comments, cooking and baking your own food is time consuming but with planning and organisation can be fitted into the daily-weekly routine. You can really notice how overly salty, sweet or just plain artificial a lot of processed foods are.
6
@katy890
Home bakes contain cane sugar, a mixture of sucrose and fructose.
Many schools require that food brought for parties be store-bought, forbidding home-made because of specious arguments about "food safety". The greater problem is the party-every-week school culture, and the idea that a party involves eating cake (like the idea that a college party involves alcohol to excess, or at all).
Part of the problem is the social custom of bringing food (always junk food) to work. Jars of candy are offered on receptionists' desks. This is new, and contributes to the idea that one must be eating all the time.
7
The amount of food pictured for the sample meal options for either processed or whole food seems larger than needed. I know that the breakfast and lunch portions are at least double what I eat. I do lean toward fresh whole food diet. My BMI is 20 at age 59. When I do use processed foods I look for ones with fewest ingredients and no added sugars including corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.
8
I started Weight Watchers about a year ago...the plan counts whole foods such as grilled chicken, vegetables, fruits, beans, nonfat plain yogurt as “free”. While I thought I ate fairly well prior to the plan, I was able to lose 30 lbs following it. And I’m usually less hungry now than when I ate more processed food.
8
In Japan, where I live, it’s still common for upper-working class and above families to eat predominantly whole foods, and school lunches are fresh-made and nutritious. The obesity rate is in the single digits. ‘Nough said.
19
Did anyone else feel as though the processed foods were just the absolute worst of the worst? Canned Ravioli? Peaches in heavy syrup? White bread galore...
I consume a lot of pre-packaged items out of convenience, but I’m much more conscientious about which foods I eat. I wouldn’t give most of the foods offered in this study a second glance.
12
@Karen Fiery
I felt the same as you. Having said that, the processed meals were spot on the choices my 78 year old father had when he was hospitalized for a stroke! Seems the link between nutrition and health needs much more attention.
5
@Karen Fiery, totally agree. White bread? Why not 12 grain bread, with no additives or preservatives? I buy it at the grocery store and just grab it off the shelf. So it’s very easy and fast and I don’t have to make it myself. In my mind, that means “processed”, but it’s way better than plain sliced white bread.
Maybe the researchers really were thinking about “ultra-processed” food as the worst possible choices you could make. Canned peaches in syrup is another perfect example. You can buy canned fruit without syrup. It’s a simple choice. And as others have noted, there’s no mention of what the whole food group was drinking during this study. Water??
3
@Karen Fiery
I didn't feel that way. Yes, they gave them some "worst of worst" types, like the hot dogs or American cheese -- but also marinara sauce, NutriSource fiber, beans and rice, and fruits and salads. It was a mixture. But a lot of Americans eat that way, so we needed to see the comparison.
The amount of time to prepare these meals is significantly different. Even and extra 5-10m per meal adds up to enough time that the cost for someone with an hourly job and kids would be making a significant investment to prep the more healthy meals. An investment that they may not be able to make.
10
@J c
We need to plan to incorporate that time into our routines like they did before 1970. We can cook with our kids. We can watch less tv. And we can eat the almonds and fruit while we cook, to stave off hunger for a bit. When you look at the diabetes rate, it's looking like do-or-die -- we have to find the time. Easier the richer you are though, yes.
Uh, both diets have way too much food. I didn’t even eat that much when I was cycling 150 miles per week.
9
Great observation @Djt! However, participants "were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired." So the pictures of the food do not correspond with how much they ate. You can refer to the calories consumed in the study.
Congratulations on your active cycling!
Two thoughts. First, who eats this much food each day?? Even the servings in the whole food photos is enough to make be want to upchuck just looking at them. It would literally hurt to try and consume that much food. Second, why is it so hard for people eating processed food to just read the nutrition facts on the box, count the calories (clearly labelled, sometimes in large print), and just serve themselves a reasonable amount of calories. Personally, I aim for 1200-1500 calories per day and eat a lot of packaged foods. One bowl Kashi Original cereal with almond milk 200 calories for breakfast. Amy’s Kitchen vegetable lasagna 350 calories for lunch, with two squares dark chocolate for dessert, 140 calories. Dinner, two slices 12 grain bread with thin slices of brie cheese, 400 calories. Dessert 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, no sugar, 75 calories. Zero calories in all drinks (water, iced tea, black coffee, no sugar). No snacks. Daily total is 1,165 calories.
Reading the box labels tells me exactly how much fat, sugars, sodium, fiber, etc, I am consuming. Makes it very easy to control the daily intake. What I eat makes me full and happy. Several times a week at a local cafe I have a large salad with a 6 oz salmon filet on top and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Salad has dark green lettuce, avocado, cucumber, carrots, onion, tomatos. With a couple of wheat crackers, 600 calories. Those nights it’s only one slice of multi-grain toast and brie cheese. It’s easy.
9
You’re right about labels but most people don’t have the ability to restrict their diet to 1200-1500 calories a day. 1200 is the minimum amount of calories before your body goes into starvation mode. And 1500, without any filling Whole Foods, such a nuts, oatmeal, etc., would leave most people feeling hungry all of the time. It’s unsustainable for more than a month or so for he majority of people.
8
@Ann, If you spend time in Michigan, as I did this last year, it looks as if EVERYONE eats this much food (and more). I was shocked at the percentage of folks there are not merely overweight, but really overweight. There's something wrong with what and the way people eat in the U.S.. It's all brought to you by the food-science industry.
7
@Ann
I know it's a rhetorical question but I could answer you that I do eat this much- even more. I just finished my dinner, while I was reading through this interesting column, and it was a typical big meal. It filled a 2-gallon bowl, not counting dessert. And, I'm not overweight but I do exercise quite a lot.
1
One thing doesn't add up: why is there no bread in the "whole" diet? There are certainly breads that are not processed, but the subjects in the "whole" category were not allowed to eat them -- even with eggs! Wouldn't a truer comparison have included processed bread in one category, and fresh-baked, whole grain bread in the other? The same might be said for the study in general -- why not find equivalent foods? That would provide the key to whether the it's the variable "processed" that makes the subjects gain weight, or whether it's a different variable entirely.
27
@ ariellabudick
Most store-bought breads taste terrible, including whole-grain ones that are too either too soft or dry to taste good. I prefer buying loaves from good bakeries, which are delicious since they lack preservatives. Home-made-style bread goes stale fast. I wish more bread bakeries go into business. A few excellent ones in Los Angeles are The Bread Lounge and Clark Street Bread. We need more locations!
@ariella budick
Bread isn't a whole food -- wheat berries are. To take wheat berries and grind them up into flour, and then bake them, that's what processing is. It drastically changes the original, natural product. Yes, it's a more basic kind of processing than what Nestle or General Mills is now capable of, but it's still quite processed. You can eat bread if you like, and you can say that it's less processed than an Oreo, but it has more in common with processed foods than it does with whole foods. If you want a whole food, you'll go with the wheat berries.
Also, the argument that "everyone has to eat bread" -- that's nonsense. Talk about a failure of creativity.
1
@Aaron Sullivan
But your cherry-picked Blue Zones also eat bread.
1
The designation of what is processed vs. un processed seems subjective. So, frozen corn is fresh, but canned is processed? White flour pasta is fresh, but white bread is processed? Not sure the distinction between whole and skim milk - which is processed? Plain yougurt is fresh, but fruit yogurt is processed? Frozen strawberries are okay but jam made from strawberries and sugar are not? Does this mean no sandwiches ever? I think I see white rice in the fresh meals or is it just a poor description of what the meals consist of? Should the description say brown pilaf rice? I appreciate the photos, but a more concise description of the meal contents would be useful. Really? Barilla pasta is unprocessed?
It would be useful if the scientists who do these studies, and the writers who publish commentary on them, would get together and reach consensus on what is processed or not. Create a list for consumers. I suspect they would not be able to agree.
It would lend credibility to their findings.
14
Canned foods have a higher salt content than frozen - which have nothing added to them at all. Frozen fruit is also much healthier than a jam or jelly because it is simply a flash frozen whole food. The jams and jellies have added sugars and other unhealthy ingredients.
2
@LesliePlus4. Brown rice also has an arsenic problem, so sometimes processing is good.
2
@Marcine Linder. There are no salt added canned beans and tomatoes.
4
The problem here is the broad and somewhat arbitrary definition of ultra-processed. How about a study comparing a diet of orange versus non-orange foods? The orange category might include Cheetos, Goldfish, peanut butter-cheese crackers, and tangerines. Such a study would lead us to avoid eating tangerines. I guess my point it that I don't believe my beloved Cheerios are going to kill me.
10
@peterak You may be a vision of health; how would I know? But IMO, one's belief in what one knows is the sort of thing that needs to be countered. People who believe they are doing the right things are the ones least willing to change. Why should they; they're right!
Given the dodgy health profile of a vast minority of Americans, beliefs held certain probably need to be reconsidered.
5
And how much money was spent on a study that confirmed, for the umpteenth time, what we already knew? What a waste. And a waste of column space, too. Please find some science/nutrition topics that we can't get by watching the Today show.
11
Just by reading the headline it’s like saying the earth is round.
15
@Andrew Holstein
It's called an Axiom.
The photos are presenting the meals as if they are for one person! As someone who lost 40 pounds over the past 10 years, I can guarantee that these portions are outrageous, even the "whole" product meals. Come on. If you are still eating this amount of food at any age over 20, you are going to be obese. Look at the pasta plate on day 5!!
11
@lynn. The vat of chili, also on day 5, is even more startling.
1
My initial reaction to this article was, well, duh. A little over a year ago I lost a large amount of weight caused by stressful circumstances in my life. My doctor advised me to try and gain weight (how often does a medical professional say that?).
Despite my best efforts I have for the most part not put on any weight. Why? I eat plenty. But I have tried to eliminate, or cut back on, sugar, simple carbohydrates, and processed foods. Is it any wonder I don't gain weight even though I eat three full meals a day, plus snacks?
The only times I seem to gain a little weight is when I eat the sugary, simple carbohydrate-filled, processed snacks that the kind ladies at my Buddhist temple give me left over from the donations provided to the monks (and which the monks themselves are wise to shun). It makes perfect sense!
10
@concerned citizen, OMG, me too!! My whole life, whenever I am stressed out, I just cannot eat anything. Exact same symptoms: knots in my stomach and what I call a “tight throat” where I can barely swallow. If I do try to eat, I just get a violent stomach ache and really regret it. I was super skinny for a very long time. Being happily married (and having 3 children) has since caused me to gain weight. But just let a family/work crisis hit and the pounds just fall right off. Effective, but not a recommended weight loss plan, as I imagine my cortisol levels must be pretty high and sustained, which can’t be good. Wish someone would epxlain why this happens.
2
Looking closely at the meals in the photos, I'm finding it hard to believe that the two options had the same numbers of macronutrients. But I'll trust the researchers.
However, one big difference between the two kinds of meals really jumps out:
The processed meals relied on highly-refined grains - white breads and pasta - compared to the whole foods diet, which has no or almost no bread of any kind. Interesting.
9
the main visual takeawy I got from the excellent pictures was: wow! who eats that much at a time? were the 31 year old subjects all lumberjacks and ironworkers?
9
Questions: Why are the food manufacturers mentioned? Like the salt & pepper? Is this study funded by certain food manufacturers? Does anyone else feel like they would lose the will to live eating grain pilafs with salad & apple slices every day?
16
@AAlexander--answer to your 3rd question--nope
6
@AAlexander Yes, I felt like it was an ad, not a "study."
2
@AAlexander
I thought the brands were mentioned so that the diets would be more transparent--there wouldn't be any arguments about what was or wasn't included in any food item.
I don't believe there's any "might" about it.
3
But not eating food will make you thin.
7
This seems like old news. But I'm wondering why dry roasted peanuts are prominently shown in the picture. These are minimally processed, and nuts are supposed to be good for you. Is removing the peanuts from their shells too much processing? Or roasting them without oil?
12
@David
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Roasted peanuts are a perfectly healthy snack, and I don't consider them "processed"...just like I wouldn't consider peanut butter without sugar as "processed food". Roasted peanuts are vastly different (and better) than Keebler cheese and peanut butter crackers...that seems like a clear difference.
8
Unsalted dry roasted peanuts are usually just peanuts; there's sugar, corn syrup, maltodextron, cornstarch, yeast, dried spices, and other ingredients in the package in the photo.
4
Peanuts are a good source of protein, but even without salt and flavor enhancers an oz. of peanuts has 170 calories. That’s pretty dense in calories, two ounces of peanuts has as many calories as most adults consume for breakfast.
2
And why is it that the American diet is so riddled with the high-glycemic carbohydrates?
Perhaps because the U.S. Treasury pours money into production of corn syrup, sugar, and white flour by farm states that are proportionally overrepresented in Congress, especially in the Senate?
America is the only country in the world with socialized diabetes. But I guess that some socialisms are more equal than others.
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@Padonna I think white rice is pretty popular in many areas outside the United States.
3
Hunger is what motivates animals to eat, what we eat is a choice. Nobody “makes us eat” processed food, it’s a choice, albeit a poor one, but a choice nonetheless.
Want to be healthy: eat right. Want to save on medical costs eat right. Not everything good in life originates with eating right....
but it’s a good start.
6
Eating processed foods “might” make you fat? It does, because processed foods are designed to make you crave more. And deep down, everyone knows it. End of story.
20
Just one more thought - watch My 600 Pound Life on TV. Think lots of people don't eat the way the test was set up? They eat far WORSE! I live in southern New Mexico which might serve as a sample for the way average Americans eat. If I go to Walmart I see the worst of it. HUGE people loading up their shopping carts to the brim with nothing but junk food and packaged food. They are usually really obese and their children, even toddlers, are as well. And it's not cheap either. If they ate traditional meals by shopping in the fresh food aisles, they'd spend less and be far healthier. I'm not saying all Americans eat this way but given the statistics on obesity, the facts speak for themselves, and the food companies just sell more and more. I believe they are as greedy as the drug companies. And as an aside - think about school lunches, food available in hospital cafeterias, prisons, etc. Menus based on the most addictive, un-nutritious and unnatural ingredients. Calories to stuff people with that only serve to feed the addictions. And with the addictions come despair, lethargy, dull-mindedness and a population so indifferent that we end up with the problems we have today in our teetering 'democracy'.
27
Carbs white foods and sugars eaten with fat will make you fat.
Cut carbs, eat healthy fats Keto diet you will lose weight.
Fat is not the demon but high carbs in the form of flour, rice, sugar are.
Most processed foods use high amounts of sugar, corn syrup, and also grain products.
Grains are a cheap and empty food source, which is why food manufacturers love them
Add salt, sugar and flavorings they created addictive foods.
Deadly combination!
2
@Genie
Sardinians are eating 48% of their diet as whole grains, and living longer than anyone but the Okinawans. Okinawans were eating carb-rich sweet potatoes as about 75% of their diet -- and were the longest lived people on earth. Good carbs, like those above, play a very positive role, including when they are a huge proportion of one's diet. The 5 communities in The Blue Zones effectively ran decades-long experiments, and their populations showed that good carbs increase life span and health. Bad carbs, like Smarties and white bread -- that's a different story, of course.
I just don’t think eating applesauce is akin to eating a Goldfish cracker.
11
@Raindrop That's because Big Food has spent billions building health halos over applesauce, fruit juices, and many other substances.
It is reasonable to place applesauce to the healthier side of Goldfish on a food-product continuum, but they'd both place to the unhealthier side of the full range. If a grocery carries, say, 8 types of applesauce, 7 will have refined sugar as the second ingredient, and some will have a different form of refined sugar in third or fourth. Even though apples are already very sweet.
Partly that's because with refined sugar added to two of every three consumer food products sold in America (actual stat! see research of Barry Popkin, cited in this article), even sweet substances need added sweeteners to seem sweet.
4
@Michael Prager - I make my own applesauce with apples and a small amount of water, then thru a Foley mill.... feeling that should be on the healthy side! Also, peanut and almond butter, fresh ground (Publix & Food coop) can be healthy. And what do the healthy folks drink? Only water and the rare skim milk, vs Diet lemonade every meal for the artificial eaters? What about fresh-squeezed or frozen lemonade every once in a while for a snack on a hot day! And why are canned beans unhealthy, if you rinse them off before using? Unless you cook a big batch of black beans, pinto or garbanzos in a pressure cooker and freeze the leftovers, not very practical for every day food prep, unless you have a very large freezer... BTW, I am a vegetarian and most of my meals fall fully in the unprocessed side, but reading the labels, cheerios, shredded wheat and some of the other dry cereals are unsugared or with minimal sugar, and in small quantities, if eaten with a handful of berries, cut up peach, banana and pear, raisins, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and milk, can be part of a healthy breakfast!
Also, felt the two sides could have been made more comparable, ie not a PB&J on white bread for DINNER with snack foods as sides?? and no sandwiches at all on the natural side, no whole grain bread including lunch or toast for BF? Bread and wheat are the staff of life and development of agriculture instead of hunting and gathering let humanity settle down and develop further culture.
2
@Raindrop
Agreed. Same with those peanuts!
These foods are actually scientifically designed, not yum-yum natural, to make a person more hungry for them rather than get satiated by them. It is insidious.
16
Plain peanuts are not a processed food, c’mon.
8
Processed food=bad
Real food=good
Haven’t we known this for years?
13
Where have you people been? The professor may have needed to do his research for academic advancement although it is appalling that even the good meals were full of food company processed products and the result could have been foretold as obvious except to the ignorant the
What struck me most about the research experiment, the article in its shocking naïveté, and in the comments
2
Do the photographs show the portion sizes? Those look like gigantic portions.
4
@BW You could eat as much or as little as you liked. From the NIH study: "Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired."
The key takeaway is that people eating the processed food meals averaged eating 508 calories a day more than when they ate the unprocessed foods, with all the extra cals coming from carbs and fat. They actually ate slightly less protein. Hmmm ...
3
many studies have demonstrated portion size is a determination of how much is eaten. people tend to eat what is put in front of them. some are also unable to stop eating,,whether the portion as presented or even more. there is a psychological aspect as well: my observation is that in a restaurant catering to lower income/value oriented
customers, the portions are big, and the quality low, while in more upscale restaurants catering to food secure, well-to-clients, portions (and diners) tend to be smaller. the aspect of how much can I get for my money v how good is the food makes a lot of difference. see the comment above about obese Walmart shoppers filling their carts to the brim with cheap, fattening junk or the popularity of all-you-can eat joints. seems to me it belies subconscious fear, panic, and desparation about starvation, so telling fat people to eat less is a superficial remedy often doomed to fail. last thought: the processed food menus require far less preparation effort (including shopping and cleanup) than the whole food examples.
My son is 25. As I go around my town looking at kids his age, classmates, fellow Scouts, I see a generation of obesity, fed by we Baby Boomer's desire for profit, money, riches, and ease in our old age. We are literally killing the next generation creating this nutritional abomination and forcing down children's throats with advertising.
11
Sounds wonderful! Who’s cooking all this?
9
@Joan In California We all get to choose our priorities. Our actions reveal what we value.
2
Eating processed foods "might" make you fat? There's no 'might' about it. Eating processed foods 'will' make you fat. Period!
1
@Mark Alexander
The USA has been running one huge experiment on that question since 1960 or so, right? And with increasing intensity. Increases in obesity, diabetes, intestinal cancer, heart disease... these changes don't seem unrelated.
It is not surprising the processed foods led to greater calorie consumption--the food corporations spend millions of dollars designing and testing food products with the purpose of promoting greater consumption--the goal is for the customer to eat 10 chips at a sitting instead of 8, for example, and to come back tomorrow and the next day and the next, and do the same thing. Convenience and reduced preparation time, low prices and shelf stability also lead consumers toward these products. With Science and Know-how, we are Making America Greater(and Fatter) Again
I did not see any data on the cost of each diet over the 2 week period. In the real world, the unprocessed foods will usually take much more prep time and be more likely to spoil if not used promptly--going several times a week to purchase fresh produce is not practical, or even possible , for many.
Well, I gotta go and fix a salad and stir fry with the local lettuce, baby swiss chard and bok choy I bought from Yang's farm stand at our local farmer's market this morning--YUM!!
4
You don’t need to read a newspaper article to know that eating processed food is bad for your health. All you need is read the label. If I takes more than 3 seconds to read the list of ingredients or you can’t pronounce some of them, you know you shouldn’t eat.
5
maybe the participants on the unprocessed diet were tired of eating Tyson roast beef and salad with vinaigrette... I agree with other commenters that the same menu with one prepared from scratch and one from processed foods might have been more illuminating.
15
I suspect the more processed diet was simply not satiating. Yes, it looked like a lot of food. (Three bagels at breakfast?) However, the food was not as nutrient-dense as the "whole foods" diet. Maybe the body is signaled to consume more food in order meet a certain threshold of nutrients?
It is more difficult than it should be to source fresh, unprocessed ingredients in most of the U.S. Try buying cottage cheese without "modified corn starch" or naturally-leavened bread without preservatives or almost anything shelf-stable without some form of vegetable oil. I try my best to eat fresh and nutrient-dense food while avoiding unnecessary fillers, sugar, oil, and junk, but I end up going to several grocery stores each week because there will often be only one that sells less-processed food in each category. Do I have orthorexia, or do our food production and distribution systems almost guarantee that even people trying to avoid processed food will end up consuming many undesirable ingredients?
I was raised on a diet very similar to the "unprocessed" one, and I honestly feel I would be starving if I tried to eat the processed one for a week or two. Cheetos, vending machine crackers, super-sugary yogurt, starchy cereal, fake sweeteners, margarine, boxed mashed potatoes, fake peanut butter, plastic cheese. Come on, that food is gross. For two weeks, anyway, I'd rather eat the bare minimum and be hungry.
13
Dr. Hall's statement about not demonizing ultra processed foods because they're 40% cheaper than whole foods and have a longer shelf life is the reason the US fails at health 101. Let's keep eating things that kill us because well, it's just what's convenient right now. Instead, let's ask the important questions:
1. Why is processed food cheaper?
2. Are there subsidies? (Corn for example)
3. How do we make whole foods more accessible (why do food deserts exist)?
4. How do we increase education and affordability in low-income communities?
NYtimes let's see an investigation into these questions. And let's demand changes from our lawmakers. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
27
"He said that the new findings, along with previous studies, raise questions about whether food manufacturers can create healthier processed foods that do not induce people to overeat."
Of course they can. Thing is....the more we eat, the more they sell. So for manufacturers there is no intrinsic incentive to not induce overeating.
8
The subjects were in the facility for 4 weeks but their diets were for 2 weeks. What was going on the other 2 weeks, or did I miss something?
A few comments—1) On both sides, this seemed like a lot of food! As an active post-menopausal woman, I could never consume that much food without gaining weight. 2) The dinner still seems to be the biggest meal. This is how I eat as well, out of force of habit I guess, and because it’s the one meal my husband and I eat together, but I wish I didn’t. Do I need that many calories in the evening? Seems like we should eat like I did when I was an au pair in France a million years ago, which was a big meal at lunch (very often a home-roasted chicken and potatoes, and the ubiquitous garlic, oil, vinegar butter leaf salad that I got to make), and something much lighter for dinner. 3) The left “bad side” isn’t all that different from what I was brought up on, in that things like berries (unless seasonal) and yogurt were rather exotic in the 50’s and 60’s midwest. Meat main courses and potatoes, or “starch,” were always home-cooked, but we we were usually limited to milk as a beverage, and anything snacky like chips or crackers were considered special—but certainly lots of canned or frozen vegetables, cereal, and white bread! And yet no one in my family is over-weight. Is the difference how much food companies try to sell us now? And don’t we already know this?
3
@Kally the participants had 2 weeks of one diet and 2 weeks of the other, in random order. And they could eat as much as they wanted of the food presented to them in both conditions (ie they were not required to eat all the food). What this study shows is that, when they were on the ultraprocessed diet, they ate more (by about 500 kcal) than on the unprocessed diet. That's why the subjects gained weight.
7
"The research - found that people ate significantly more calories and gained more weight when they were fed a diet that was high in ultra-processed foods like breakfast cereals, muffins, white bread, sugary yogurts, low-fat potato chips, canned foods, processed meats, fruit juices and diet beverages."
One aspect not addressed is access.Whole foods are not as accessible...maybe the better word is available, then whole, fresh foods. Nearly every office, break room, or cafeteria area has vending machines. Sometimes they are in the office areas. Convenience stores, gas stations all sell ultra-processed foods. And that's where we spend a lot of time.
I watch the people around me, at work mostly, who are obese, or unhealthy, and they are always in front of the vending machines looking for a snack.
I barely see the machines, as I pack all my meals, and have long not eaten such foods. Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a small bag of potato chips, every once in awhile, but Im not attracted to the foods. And vending machines have never been a thing I visit. Nothing I want to eat has ever been in a vending machine, never.
Take those vending machines out of the work place, and I think many more people would not be so addicted to those foods. I think...
5
@Boregard [S] yes - take those machines out - you will be branded a ‘socialist’ and never get elected to office.
4
excellent article.. and the pictures add much more value. what I find most interesting isn't the insight on the role of prepared foods; it is the fact that an NIH team is taking the subject seriously!!
foods can be packaged to achieve maximum desirability or so I suspect. this isn't mentioned in the article or paper but it is a theory that should be investigated. salt/sugar/fat is a potent combo; what if it can be manipulated to increase the hunger hormone or suppress the fullness hormone thus doubling down on the power to get people to eat more of the food? that gets to intent and intent may not be in our best interest.
4
The pictures are a pleasing visual addition however the portion sizes are extremely excessive in both the whole and processed examples.
I’d like to see the photos juxtaposed next to the appropriate serving sizes to meet the recommended daily servings for adults and children. That visual would go quite far in demonstrating to readers (particularly skimmers) what a good diet looks like on the plate.
15
My wife had to start eating only unprocessed food due to a profound health issue. The result was significant and unwanted weight loss (35 pounds in 6 months off an already thin frame). It was a powerful illustration of the weight implications of eating even moderate levels of processed foods ( we have always tended toward fresh food in our diet). She is getting better and has regained some weight as a result of being able to eat a few more things. But anyone out there looked to achieve a healthier weight just needs to shop almost exclusively in the produce and fresh meat section of the grocery store and avoid most of the products found in the middle aisles.
15
I have several friends that eat mostly vegan, and eat no processed foods, meaning they make their own milk, eat organic, and fresh foods. Everything from scratch. They have dropped excessive weight, gotten off meds, lowered their cholesterol.
I am presently adopting this lifestyle and dropping 1-2 lbs a week which from what is written a healthy way to lose weight. I designate a day to create a meal plan and prep foods. It is a challenge.
Our corporations are all about profit, not health. They find ways to market their goods, fooling the American people. Our food industry deliberately complicate the data to market to the public. We buy it and then complain about healthcare, side effects from meds. We take a pill for everything.
As a retired person, I have been given a free fit bit and can earn up to $120 a year to be active- to walk, meeting certain goals placed upon me. It works, challenges me and along with my new diet, am slowly making a positive change. I ignored my weight gain and now struggling.
Statistics lie. Americans are fooled with addictive foods. Americans are not educated about their choices enough to defend obesity. Nor do they seem to care, especially southerners.
Thanks for this article which is a step in that direction. Thanks to people like Michelle Obama that attempted to educate young people about better choices regarding food.
17
I have an affinity for all the right-side meal pictures, for the simple fact that there's MORE FOOD TO EAT. This is coming from someone who bikes 200+ km/week.
You've got to fuel your body and mind with high quality gas.
7
How about drinking water? Why either crystal-whatever or milk? Often hunger is actually a sign of dehydration and so perhaps drinking more water would also make people realize they’re not hungry.
45
The more I think about this study, the more I'm convinced that it is "junk science". There are far too many variables that weren't tested for any conclusion to be reached.
The study designers already knew what their results would be (within reason) before they ever started their research.
One wonders what a diet of fruits and vegetables and quinoa would have caused if the vegetables were smothered in home made cheese sauce.
When you get down to real basics, human beings did not evolve to live in a world without physical labor. When we read the food menus from the past--meals with twenty courses, for example,--one expects to see the upper classes dying like flies from the same diseases that afflict all classes of our society. They may have suffered from gout and heart disease and bad medical care and infectious disease, but they didn't end up obese.
6
@vineyridge
They didn't live to old age either. The women often died in childbirth and there was insufficient sanitation--this was before pasteurization and before Lister. So if you developed any kind of infection, you probably didn't' survive it.
4
I am amazed that anyone would fork over money to fund a study of the blindingly obvious... highly processed, high sugar, high salt foods are addictive and deadly: designed to be addictive, deadly by happenstance. What we badly need is a study to determine how, when we all have abandoned the exurbs to live in cities, we and can afford to eat kale and quinoa when all food is manufactured by PepsiCo, Monsanto and others of their ilk. When farmers have been forced into bankruptcy and the land has been abandoned to corporations, we will eat and pay outrageous prices for what they give us. Oh, and a note to the environmentalists, by that time most of the topsoil will have been contaminated by chemicals and washed into the estuaries.
16
@DEH So many of these ‘studies’ are to keep the researchers employed!! To do a statistically valid study would require a larger group of people at various age, under-normal- overweight, ethnicities, active-inactive, socioeconomic levels, AND a longer duration. Junk science - just like many/most studies.
3
I cook dinner at home from scratch nearly every night and I use salt. I love salt: table salt, kosher salt, pink salt and flaky salt to garnish. Salt is great.
But what I notice when we eat in restaurants is that almost everything is far too salty (In-N-Out burgers are sodium bombs), too rich or sweet enough to make my teeth itch.
Step away from processed junk and your palate will quickly adjust to enjoying healthy whole foods.
17
@Randy
I don't cook with salt unless it's absolutely necessary for a recipe. I, too, note that restaurant food is overly salty, even in "fine dining" places. I have a salt shaker for those rare occasions when I need to add salt or when I have guests who want it.
2
Im overweight by the doctor's standards. I hear it every time I go. I'm 68 yrs old, cholsterol is great, no diabetes, no high blood pressure. I still get around just fine, go to the gym, get out and walk. My trim friends are the ones with the diabetes and aggressive cancer.
Yes, I did change my eating habits quite awhile ago. I limited my red meat to once a week. I eat mostly chicken, not fried, and turkey for protein. Sometimes tuna. I gave up processed lunch meats. i don't drink soda or coffee, switched to whole grain pasta, about 1x a week. Never drank or smoked. I eat nuts and fresh fruits every day. The foods I avoid at the supermarket; frozen meals, ice cream, snacks like chips, etc.boxed cereal. If I don't buy it, it's not in the house and I don't have to worry about eating it.
But I do crave sweets. The sugary yogurt is my treat. If I do want a cookie; I go to McDonald's and buy just one. When it's gone, it's gone.
All of us are not going to be lean and trim. Metabolism is different. If weight were the be all for determining health then all thin people would be alive and healthy and the heavier ones dead. My Mom was tiny, I could pick her up. But my Dad was short and heavy and my body is like his.
I've reached a point in my life if I want to have something in moderation, I'm going to have it. I enjoy eating, make no apologies for it. I wish the medical community would recognize that weight isn't the only measurement of health.
26
@Ann
I understand that craving for McDonalds, sweets etc and one has to wonder if that craving could actually be addiction. Is there something in the foods that is addictive? There have been books about this.
Even cat treats have resulted in my cats craving certain "treats" and I have had to wean them from it. The treats are unbelievably expensive which contributes to the corporate profits through manipulation. There are numerous discussions and a concensus about these "addictive" cat treats so got to be something to it. Would not surprise me.
2
@Ann
There are new studies (I haven't researched in detail), that when one eats a healthy diet and stays active, that one's health is almost as good as a thin person on a good diet, and better than a thin person with poor eating habits. So it sounds as though you are doing fine. That said, there are a lot of benefits to being thinner: more energy, less knee and back pain, etc. So consider using a structured diet to drop a few pounds: Weight watchers, calorie counts, etc. Even 10 pounds will make you feel better.
4
@Ann
Exactly. Couldn't agree more with you.
When I crave chocolate, I buy just three hand made Belgian chocolates ("praline artisanal"). Who cares that they are super expensive. Three little chocolates actually don't cost more than three brand-name candy bars. But they have way less calories and are way more pleasure to eat.
8
I have noticed that here in Orange County, CA , I and suppose in various other locales, some food banks now have a mobile service to reach consumers. Side panels are opened and people select what they need.
It would be great if a motivated nonprofit could secure a grant to sell from a brightly painted and colorful truck, farm fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds, and grab-and-go salads, to people who live in our city’s food deserts.
11
@Oceanviewer - I have not seen anything like that here in town but foodbanks are all over town and just a short bus hop or walking distance. And there are farmer's markets in many neighborhoods every weekend.
And on top of that the city passed a law a while back that if a food stamp recipient shops at one of these local farmer's markets they get 2-for-1 dollars shopping.
@Oceanviewer, Charleston, SC, has something very similar- the Lowcountry Street Grocery.
Suppose I make chili con carne from scratch, with some added cheese, served with brown rice. Say I find that more appetizing than the stir-fry dishes or quinoa salads on the right-hand side here. Or say I make macaroni and cheese from scratch. That is more comforting than a quinoa salad. Am I going to be inclined to eat more of it than of the "whole" meals, thus putting on weight? My question would be whether what appears here as a difference between processed and unprocessed stems more from other variables.
12
@Mark - lol, the last time I ate quinoa, I chipped a front tooth. Won't ever go near that stuff again:)
I am a retired single woman with no car who spends $400 a month eating "healthy foods". I often buy a head of cauliflower which costs about $3.00 per head and feeds me for two meals. Without a car I take a bus to the supermarket with a cart that I need to lug on and off the bus. It takes me a whole half day to make the journey. Of course I could shop at the health food store just across the street where one apple is at least $1.50 Even Michelle Obama's focus on growing your own garden is not possible for those of us living in an apartment. It is not as easy as some of the commentators would have it to eat "healthy".
27
@dorothy slater You are right of course, but hopefully we all try to "eat healthier" in ways that are resources allow even if we likely fall short of the ideal. I lack space for a real garden, but do grow some vegetables in containers on an apartment balcony, as well as have a small plot in a community garden space on the grounds of my apt. building.
3
@dorothy slater- - I live in an apartment and talked the landlady into letting me grow a "couple of rose bushes and a few sunflowers" on the one strip of ground we have.
Well, she heard a couple of rose bushes and some sunflowers but as a gay man that meant I was going to add some raised garden beds, some sitting areas, maybe a koi pond and even an eventual bamboo maze. My neighbors love all of the herbs, tomatoes, peppers, bok choi, and lettuce along with beans that I have going. Plus the flowers:)
But my real garden is inside my closets with LED growlights and auto watering systems and ventilation. Last winter, I had two pepper bushes growing next to the medical marijuana in one closet and all kinds of greens in another. Soon, I will add the indoor strawberries. The maintenance man got a real giggle when he saw the living room garden and asked, "is that a succulent?". It was in between the carrots and the spring onions.
I'm retired, single, and no longer drive.
3
I'm a physician and I do A LOT of dietary histories: usually I ask people to tell me everything they ate in the last 24 hours. If they did not have breakfast or lunch, they tell me the previous day's food. People tell me, "I don't eat anything" or "I don't eat salt". 24 hour history uncovers the problem- the source of salt, cholesterol, and/or calories. Here is what I have found: some people have not had a single fruit or vegetable (including ketchup) in 24 hours. Everyone who lives on processed food is overweight and has high blood pressure if over 50 or so. I can't remember an exception. Sweet drinks are bad, obviously, but Gatorade seems to be a particular problem. The nutrition on that label does not seem to be that bad, but I cannot control BP unless people stop drinking it. I cook for myself and don't use a lot of processed foods, but people don't know how to do this. Here's what would help, if anyone has time: try to get healthier alternatives at fast food: not just awful salads: high protein, low fat, inexpensive, with lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Vegetable soup/low salt/ (ck out the salt in Chik Fillet soup!); educate people how to cook for one or more on a budget and nutritiously and quickly. Reach out to the food producers and fast food owners to change the menus. HCP do 24 hr surveys. What's going on in your area? Nutritionists please stop giving people expensive impractical meals. It won't happen. My observations ARE NOT scientific-research is needed.
53
Regarding people not knowing how to prepare food: When I was young (and I suspect when many other readers were young), we had Home Ec classes. We learned how to prepare a grocery list and how to cook. That’s because we used to invest in teachers and schools. My middle school had teaching kitchens! Also, one adult used to earn enough to support a whole family so one parent (if there were two parents) could stay home and prepare healthy meals. And no, I’m not 80 years old. I’m in my 40s. I’m Gen X. But I know how to cook and prepare all my family's meals.
37
“We’re talking about foods that make up more than 50 percent of people’s diets, and they can be very attractive to people who have limited time, money, skills and access to ingredients that they can use to make meals from scratch,” he said. “For people who are working two jobs just to make ends meet and have a family to feed, a frozen pizza looks very good at the end of the day.”
This paragraph points to the real problem, which is the idea that food should be cheap and easy.
Food is the most fundamental requirement for life, and as such, it should take top priority. It literally is what your body is made of. Food takes time to prepare. Make the time and develop the skills.
This is not some corporate food giant problem. It's yours.
Access to ingredients? Come on. If you don't have a grocery store in your neighborhood, there's public transportation and delivery services and CSAs. I've been poor on and off all my life, and when I wasn't poor I was working two jobs. If I can figure it out, anyone can.
Equipment? You could cook everything you eat from raw ingredients in a single Instant Pot, using a knife, cutting board, sink and one electric outlet. And you'd eat well. Large family? Make that 2 IPs. Invest in a case of Mason jars ($12), and you can make one giant pot of organic vegetable/lentil soup (7 qts) to take to work for a week for under $20 and an hour of your time to chop everything up.
It's not hard. It does take time, commitment and planning.
41
@Jane
And public transportation and delivery services are not free, whereas some people need to spend every dollar they have on food, whether it be processed junk from the convenience store in their neighborhood or healthy food far from home.
5
@spc
Delivery services are about $10 (ditto for transportation). Convenience stores generally charge a lot more per item, somewhere in the 10-50% range (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580618/ published in 2017 for more data).
If you have $200 a month to spend on food (a minimum SNAP benefit for a single person), you'd easily get more for your money by using a food delivery service over walking to the convenience store.
And sure, there are many edge cases to any problem, which need additional or alternative solutions. But this article is about how processed foods make us eat more, even when we think we're making wise food choices, which points us to the conclusion that we're better off cooking from scratch. My original point is only that our expectation for cheap and easy food is what leads us to make poor food choices, and that we need an attitude adjustment to embrace the fact that healthy food takes time and planning.
1
Great study whose point is ONLY -- or almost only -- that, all other things considered and equalized as best as possible, highly processed foods are responsible for weight gain. It's not a prescription...
Great article in that alternative meal examples were illustrated.
25
It's an interesting study but failed to test one very important aspect of diet.
One can purchase blueberry muffins (for example) in the grocery store or one can make them at home from purchased ingredients; the same is true of French fries and many other "ultra-processed foods". Do home prepared versions of blueberry muffins and french fries and mashed potatoes and orange juice have the same effect on weight gain as the manufactured ones?
Seems to me that a better study would have produced the same menus, but with one home prepared and one "ultra processed".
68
@vineyridge Could it be that the unprocessed diet had so much less fat and sugar than parti ipants were used to that it just didn't taste right? Maybe some of the foods were not familiar? If salt free quinoa for breakfast is what your used to eating the decrease in calories would likely not be as extreme?
4
@vineyridge Vegan muffins and cakes made with oil are very high in calories, even if you sweeten with apple sauce. The article photo shows fruit as a snack and yogurt in one of the meals. You could eat blueberries and plain yogurt instead of a muffin.
Soup for all the people commenting on time to prepare. Make it Sunday night, keep adding new contents during the week if it gets boring.
Plastic. If you are worried about its environmental impact, cooking from scratch at least helps reduce some plastic entering the environment.
27
In fact, batches of soup freeze beautifully in single-serving sized glass or reusable plastic containers. You can have a variety in your freezer. Put one in the fridge to defrost overnight.
15
@poslug - One of my favorite meals to make now is to stir fry some vegetables/meat, heat up a pot of chicken/vegetable stock, boil some Somen noodles (takes two minutes), take a small sauce pan filled with the hot stock, drop an egg into the sauce pan with stock, and then pour everything into a bowl with some cilantro on top and a few good squirts of Sriracha. I keep the big pot of stock in the fridge for the next night when I just stir fry some more vegetables and noodles to make a super fresh meal again.
1
It is great to have scientific confirmation of what we already knew on an ad hoc basis -- that processed foods are fattening and the cause of the obesity epidemic.
What we have to do now, I think, is draw a distinction between healthy prepared convenience foods and unhealthy processed convenience foods, because as the article points out many don't have the time and resources to cook from scratch.
There is no reason why a frozen meal, say, can't contain the same simple, unprocessed foods that prevent weight gain. You could freeze many of the entrees here, and salads can be prepackaged, as can washed fruit.
The key is *unprocessed.*
The best solution for the poor would be economic assistance, though it's not impossible that inexpensive ingredients could be formulated to create healthier foods. The food industry is unlikely to do this, though, since they know that people are more likely to buy food that is high in cheap fats, refined carbs, and sugar.
BTW, I've personally found that my appetite is related to carb intake, so that if I go on Atkins I lose about 2 pounds a week, if I don't my weight remains stable, and if I eat processed junk with all its added sugar and fat I become hungry and it creeps up.
You don't have to be nuts about it, either -- the French forex eat white bread and treats, but in moderation, and they're fine.
6
I’ve been watching my diet for 22 years now, to the point where it’s second nature.
When I see a box of cookies sitting out for public consumption, my eyes immediately go to the nutrition label. 200 calories? For a single sugar cookie? When I think about my general calorie budget for the day, it’s hard to justify a single item like that costing so much as far as calories while providing so little by way of nutrition.
And so I pass.
It isn’t magic. Most people do it instinctively when they do things like manage a household budget. Watching what you eat is no different. But it takes discipline and sacrifice -
41
@Chris
"General carb budget for the day."
Dear me Chris - you hit the nail on the head, at least for me.
Everyone's metabolism and chemistry is different and unique only to them which is why there is no such thing as "one size fits all" diet or life style. What works best for me is keeping track of carbs and my level of activity. I need protein because anything with sugar throws me into a terrible downward spin with headaches, dizziness and other unpleasant side effects.
There are good carbs, good tasting carbs and then there are nutritious carbs and empty carbs. In the end, they are still carbs which turn to glucose.
What I loved best about this article were the side by side photos of meals. They offer great suggestions as well as displaying less than healthy ones.
17
@Chris
I read food labels too. For me that 200 calorie cookie translates to a 2 mile walk... That doesn’t mean I won’t ever eat it.
1
Chris: "Most people do it [budget] instinctively" -- wrong. This is a skill that must be taught.
A major problem with the "processed" food diet is that many of the items don't have a lot of flavor. Prioritizing convenience, packaging and shelf-life puts flavor way down the list, and all the sugar, salt and additives are designed to disguise the lack of actual taste. One keeps eating, in hopes of finding flavor in the next bite, but it never comes. Another problem is the caloric density of processed food- for the same number of bites, more calories get eaten. It's interesting that the weight gain of 2 lb in 2 weeks was perfectly consistent with the caloric excess (1 lb fat ~ 3500 calories; 14 days x 500 = 7000 calories = 2 lb). Eating food that is highly flavorful and higher in water content (as many fresh foods are) is going to mean fewer calories eaten for equivalent food happiness.
7
A couple of observations:
1) Let's not let the manufacturers of these products off-the-hook by claiming that processed foods are actually good for us. For the most part, most of them are "formulations," not food. If they ceased to exist in the grocery stores, would humans continue to survive? Absolutely. Their value is in that they are convenient and prefabricated. This leads me to my second point,
2) Just look down the left and right columns. The difference is not just the foods. It's an example of what happens when people go back to basics and learn how to cook (learning basic cooking and knife skills.
I have recently returned to Italy (a place where these process foods are becoming more popular) after having lived in Michigan for a year. Here, in Italy where people tend to cook from scratch, you rarely see the general obesity that you observe in the States. There's something fundamentally wrong with the food in the States and Americans are nothing but lab studies for the food science industry.
24
Agreed! To abound on your first observation, an improved regulation of food labeling would be helpful . Those “All-Natural”, “no corn syrup”, “high fiber” or even “organic” marketing labels mean nothing if it is a highly processed food. It is really easy to fall pray to those labels when running around the grocery store with the kiddos, even when trying to consciously make smart choices.
2
@Concerned Citizen, Yes, if italians didn't smoke, they'd live forever. You ignore the fact that Italians are some of the healthiest people in the world with the highest average life expectancy next to Japan. As I mentioned in my comment, those Italians who tend to be overweight are the ones visiting McDonalds and eating the filth that the convenience food manufacturers sell. By the way, just come to Italy and see for yourself. Most of my colleagues are thin and don't smoke.
1
Eating bark and fungus may be natural, all right/but that don't mean it gives me any roaring appetite/salt and sugar, bacon grease, are certainly requested/as staples for a good life that is thoroughly digested/and if it means I gain some weight, well then I'll stand the gaff/anything is better than the chewing on raw chaff
6
Could someone enlighten me if it is JUST the total calories consumed that accounts for the difference in obesity outcomes?
6
@RSSF I'm not a dr but in my experience, eating the same calorie intake in processed vs not doesn't really help your health in the long run. Decreasing calories will always help you lose weight, but if you aren't eating primarily nutritional foods (veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains etc) you're really doing your body a disservice and not feeding it enough nutrients, which can open you up to sickness, fatigue, feeling ill etc. You just won't feel *full*. It's really hard to overeat on fruits/veggies. There's something to be said for that.
5
The best part of these comments is all the people who clearly didn't read the entire article, and just came here to push their own agenda.
27
But how to do this if your body is not used to that much fiber?
2
@Kimberly Brook
You start by changing one low fiber food to one high fiber food at a time & after awhile, the body will get used to it.
@Kimberly Brook gradually add it in! Your digestion adjusts.
I'm shocked! Shocked I say! All those healthy foods have language on the labels extolling how healthy and good-for-you the products are! Some of them are even gluten free! How could this be! It's as if the food-processing industry is more concerned about making money than providing us with healthy food!
15
The "ultra-processed" diet includes lots of artificially sweetened drinks, but the "whole" foods diet doesn't include drinks at all, except an occasional cup of skim milk, which is not a thirst quencher. Why is there no bread at all on the "whole" diet? Not even homemade whole wheat bread. Margarine is included in the "ultra-processsed" diet, but the "whole" food diet has no dairy butter nor nut butter, and it is very low in fats. Of course you'll consume fewer calories if you severely restrict fats and carbohydrates. It has little to do with whether the foods are highly processed, like Goldfish crackers, or less processed, like honey or rolled oats.
I agree with the conclusions of the study, but the method is flawed, because the diets are not comparable.
28
@Eleanor Water is an excellent thirst-quencher and has no calories, nor is it processed.
About 7 years ago, I switched away from eating processed food (can't give up my morning coffee with half-and-half, though) and lost 25 pounds. Managed to keep it off ever since. Yes, it requires discipline, but not a lot. I still enjoy butter (every now and then) and cheese. But I don't feel deprived by not eating chips or muffins or what have you.
17
@Eleanor participants could eat all they wanted but those on the processed diet spontaneously ate more. Less calories were consumed on the unprocessed diet but less were desired is my read.
1
@Eleanor Water is used in both coffee and tea. Olive oil is used in place of butter. Quinoa is served in a few of the meals. These are replacements for a few of the foods that, if eaten daily, could lead to weight gain.
2
Processed food is *engineered* to taste good. Doritos, for example, contain such a vast array of flavors that your taste buds don't get tired of a flavor, which encourages you to eat more chips.
Keeping food companies' tricks in mind may help you resist their products.
39
The pictures really enhanced the article, as other comments pointed out . . . but what particularly leaped out at me from those pictures was the diet lemonade (or soda) in at least one "processed" meal PER DAY. Is it possible that the results were largely caused by the diet drinks alone, not the processed foods in general?
13
is any precooked meat not processed?
Come on Do you seriously think that the food industry is going to come up with ways to solve the "fat" epidemic.? All the food industry giants going out of business would help, then, we would grab an apple or nuts for a snack. Because, that would be what is fast, and tasty. It is a lot less work to eat raw veggies with dip than to bake a cake.
I would like to see a study on what microwaves do to food and how that changes the gut microbes
3
@smithe Microwaves spin water molecules. Moving molecules are hot molecules. That’s it.
2
When are we going to accept this conclusion? This is so much like the debate about tobacco years ago. The Big Food Industry is making people very sick. If not for reasons of compassion, how about for our economic viability as a nation. There was a photo this morning in the news of immigrants held in detention. It clearly showed a large bag of Doritos on the floor. Welcome to the SAD, the Standard American Diet.
19
Mr. O'Connor's interesting and useful article is marred by the jargon of the food/nutrition industry. That jargon has proceeded from ad-speak, wherein a bar becomes a trattoria offering "fine wines", a bakery proffers "artisanal breads", and other normal singulars are abandoned for plural genteelisms (applied to higher prices). Thus we have "foods" for food, "sugars" for sugar, "yogurts","meats", "juices", "grains", even "fast foods" and, of course, "behaviors". How long will it be until the local burger joint offers "ice creams and colas", and hospitals dish out "Jell-Os"?
7
I want to complement the reporting of this story, and particularly for including the pictures of an entire week of sample meals, because those photographs truly convey in very, very little time what the difference was in what the two arms of the study were offered/fed, which would have been very difficult for the reader to accurately imagine from just a word based description or couple of examples.
117
@Sean
I concur Sean. I thought those side-by-side meal examples were a compelling ingredient to this important article as well as my favorite part of the overall message.
I keep thinking of that phrase "a picture is worth a 1000 words".
6
I think the lesson is not to eat any product from a company that has the word "Farms" in its name. I should also add "Nature", "Valley", and "Healthy" to the list.
31
I see this in action in France, where lots of people still cook from scratch using fairly natural ingredients. There's no sense of deprivation. When I go to the U.S., the food tastes artificial. People have gotten used to the preservatives and all that added sugar.
73
@Cate
I spent some time in Paris last year and what I noticed was (1) that people ate fresh, minimally processed foods, with reasonable portions and that (2)there were almost no overweight people. We either walked or took the Metro everywhere, so I saw many, many people. Those who were fat were either older or tourists. I was in Florence & Rome last month & noticed the same thing: people were not overweight and their food was super good and superhealthy.
5
It’s still rather unusual to see fat people in Paris. The yellow-vested provinces are another matter, however, particularly hangdog small towns, but not exclusively: I’m just back from Lyon, a city famous for the delights of the table (long on meat and cream, short on vegetables). Never have I seen so many fat Frenchwomen before. On the other hand, the school kids we saw running around playgrounds and parks and on field trips to museums were almost uniformly thin — and far more active and exuberant than they’re cracked up to be. People certainly jog in France in the meantime. As elsewhere, I get the impression that obesity is largely a class and education thing.
5
I haven't had the chance to read ALL the comments here yet, but so far I have not noticed anyone stating the most obvious. Packaged, processed foods full of ingredients whose names can't even be pronounced, unhealthy fats and tons of high-fructose corn syrup, etc...all this stuff is highly addictive BECAUSE it means the manufacturers sell more! It has to do with their profits, and the sicker and fatter people become the more of this crap they can sell. I don't believe that it's not possible to prepare healthful foods economically. My mother did it and we were extremely limited in our resources. As for time, there are many foods that can be fixed quickly or prepared in advance and just warmed up. I am fortunate to be able to afford to shop in organic markets, but even non-organic produce is certainly preferable to 'fake' food in a box. I don't buy my produce at Walmart, but I have priced it out. Their prices are quite low and most of America does shop at Walmart so they can eat healthily if they choose. The bottom line is addiction and lack of understanding about food. It's amazing how little so many know about nutrition, including our vaunted healthcare professionals. It comes down to how we bring public health knowledge to people. These studies are not the deciding factor...we already know. I rate the food addictions in this country equal to the opioid addiction we are experiencing. Bad food can wreck lives and kill people too.
51
@Sheri
I've appreciated your observations. I , too have priced the produce available at Walmart. Actually produce is cheaper at both Sprouts and Trader Joe's, where it is also more varied and fresher-it does last longer in my fridge. Walmart has cheaper meat and dairy though. And it looks fine to me. Although I am enough of a high end shopper that I prefer to buy meat at a higher end source. But you are perfectly correct in observing that even if you only have a Walmart you can still buy a very decent diet. And they even have specialty items such as nut flours, quinoa and international foods. Plus cheaper paper goods and cleaning supplies. No reason not to go there.
The problem with the examples of nos processed is that they really complicated the recipes. I work a. lot and eat nearly processed home made food. But I do it in a certain way : I fallow a king of daily planning
Breakfast : plain greek yogurt, 1 slice of bread (I am French, this means real bread : flour, water, yeast nothing more is allowed in France to be called bread. Maybe a kiwi.
Lunch (homemade and brought yo job) :
cereal or legume 150 to 170 grams : rice, lentils, boulgour, chickpeas, potatoes, silply. cooked ans seasoned with oil or butter and some herbs oe spice I have at home of furikake + soy sauce or homemade Sichuan chili oil + soy sauce.
Huge portion of veggies, usually the same veggie that I cooked or ate the night before, no fancy multi veggie complicated thing plus a salad. Baking veggies is great : chop quickly, a little oil + spices, toss everything with your hands, on a parchment paper in a baking,g sheet, you forget it 30 minutes in the oven. Or I steam veggies, or I ca make huge soups. Soups are easy : everything in the big pot, water , you forget on the stove during your Netflix session, after that the immersion blender. You're done.
Sometimes a yogurt
Mid day snack : 50 grams of bread, a fruit, or a yogourt + a fruit
Comment too long, I cut it in two parts
12
I am surprised to see so much beef. Isn't the best advice - for our health as well as our planet - to limit the amount of red meat (beef., lamb, veal, pork) we consume? I try to eat red meat no more than once every couple of weeks - or less, if possible.
90
@Martha Plaine I agree! Way too much beef. It also seemed like a big portion to me.
22
@Martha Plaine
It was a study of weight gain and beef isn't fattening, on the contrary, you'll lose weight because fat and protein are very satiating.
OK, so -- processed meats -- very unhealthy. Avoid hot dogs, deli ham, salami, etc.
Red meat -- probably less healthy than poultry and fish, but the difference in studies isn't huge. Grass fed almost certainly healthier than grain fed, because a healthier balance of fats.
Low meat -- the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest diet that's been proved in a controlled study. Unfortunately, most diets haven't been in controlled studies. But probably uber healthy if you can tolerate a low meat diet. Many people can't.
Fish -- in studies, several servings of fish a week decrease mortality. Whether this is because the fish is intrinsically healthy or because it displaces less healthy meats I don't know.
4
@Martha Plaine
I'm not a vegetarian but I rarely eat beef or pork, maybe once or twice in a month, if that. Lots of veggies, often frozen,without added sauces, which are picked at their peak and are just as good with nutrients if you're not shopping at farmers' markets, some fish when I'm in the mood to cook from scratch
3
The "processing" of foods is often merely a kind of cooking, pre-cooking or preparation. The far-more insidious weight gains come from prescription medications, and no diet can help with that.
2
Even people who take no medications can be overweight.
5
It is difficult to overeat whole foods so the finding that people who consumed ultra processed calorie dense foods consumed more calories is not earth shattering. The processed junk carb and fat foods taste good and are manufactured and tested to make sure the "bliss point" is achieved to make consumers eat more. No wonder there is an obesity epidemic.
11
@Concerned Citizen
Conservatives are obsessed with regulating how everybody else reproduces, which about as Puritan and shrewish as you can get.
This study, at least partially, confirms what I have thought for a while - that the highly-processed foods that we eat in the US has lead to ever-increasing levels of obesity. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, but looking at when processed foods really started to be adopted into American homes (1960s), and the advent of exponential growth in obesity rates, there is a high correlation. In addition, we see those cultures that tend to eat less highly processed foods not have the same issues with obesity, and it consequential adverse health effects. However, when those same cultures that had previously tended to eat less processed foods started adopting a more "Western" diet, then their rates of obesity started to precipitously increase. We really do need to look at the processed food industry, and how it is negatively impacting our health. I understand that incredible convenience of processed foods, and do eat processed foods myself occasionally, but if the scientific evidence is there, we should pay attention.
4
@JBHart You are wrong in your assumptions. Processed foods were introduced far earlier than you think. What was new in the 1960s were baby boomers and television. The first generation to sit and watch instead of going out to play, developed higher ratios of body fat to muscle, in those inclined to do so. Now, it's the computer. But the internet is not full of clever commercials for Lay's potato chips, so an interesting study could be done there.
6
There’s no need for speculation. These links between manufactured “food” and obesity have been documented and studied widely for years.
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@JBHart
Also, back in the 50s and even part of the 60s, we didn't have families where both parents worked and the mother was expected to do al the prep for all the meals. Now both parents must work and single parents in effect, have double jobs which don't allow much time for preparing fresh food from scratch. And schools had home ec classes where girls (and some boys) learned to plan, shop for & prepare nutritious meals. Processed food were advertised as giving families more time to spend together as the mother or other female as tied down to hours in the kjitchen.
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Sorry second par of my comment
Dinner :
animal proteins mostly fish (250 grams) steamed or baked, grilled chicken (200 grams) or lean red meat (once a week) or 2 eggs.
Huge portion of veggies, the same I will eat the day after for lunch
sometimes cheese, but usually no more than 3 times a week (too fat)
And the occasional cake or treat.
If you shop the veggies in season, cheap fish, it is financially OK.
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I read somewhere that food in nature has either fat or carbs, not both, and that processed food is generally a mixture of the two.
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@Peter Silverman. Milk?
1
Interesting that only one of the researchers of this NIH sponsored study had an obvious "conflict of interest." How much money did this experiment cost? Were there any "outside" contributions from commercial interests?
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@John Booke
Maybe Tyson trying to push their 'beef tender roast'? Good lord, do people really eat beef that frequently?
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The photos show enormous meals. Perhaps eating less would help curb the obesity epidemic?
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@Anne
They do show enormous quantities of food, but I believe that each person was allowed to consume as much as or as little of each meal as they desired. My take away is that the people who ate the more highly-processed meals tended to eat more than the people who ate the "unprocessed" foods, who tended to eat less, and therefore not necessarily the entire meal. I believe that each meal, whether processed or unprocessed, had an equal number of calories. It seems that people who ate processed foods needed to eat more calories in order to feel satiated.
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@Anne I don't think the images show the actual meal serving sizes
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@Anne Each diet condition had about 5,000 calories available. While in the "processed" condition, subjects consumed above the amount needed to maintain. So it may well be that both condition meals were, in fact, "enormous" :)
4
It'd be helpful to list the nutritional info (or at least the calories) under each photo.
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I find the definition of “processed” food to be fairly specious.
How do you think that apple made it to May from September? It was most likely sprayed with 1-methylcyclopropene and then waxed.
All California almonds (and that is virtually all almonds in the US) are heat-pasteurized, and sold as “raw”. Also likely your sunflower, flax and chia seeds, walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews, dried apricots, strawberries and blueberries, and sun-dried tomatoes have been at least steam treated.
Speaking of pasteurized, that cow doesn't give pasteurized, homogenized skim milk. Raw milk of whatever butterfat content is collected, centrifuged to separate all fat out, and then the fat added back to it in whatever specifications are wanted. And let's not talk about ultra-pasteurized, which almost all of your national brands' “organic” milk products are.
And why does bulgar, food made of wheat groats that have been parboiled, dried, and ground get a pass for not processed, while a packet of dry roasted peanuts is considered highly processed? (Let's not even discuss the pasta and couscous that is allowed on the right.)
It's good odds that those herbs and spices were irradiated.
Oh, that brand of salmon is farm-raised and frozen.
This doesn't strike me as a comparison of processed vs unprocessed – it's more of a comparison of a low - nutrient diet vs a balanced diet.
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@Samazama, I don’t disagree with the gist of your comments. But I consider the comparison to be one of minimally to unprocessed foods with ultra-processed foods. Which is the way I try to eat, though plant based. And I “process” my whole food in my kitchen, where I wash, chop, mix, and sometimes cook them. And even though I’m a middling cook at best, my food is delicious! Better than anything I could buy.
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@Samazama I feel the article stacks the deck against processed food. Why is it high-sugar Honey Nut Cheerios instead of regular? White white bread instead of whole grain? Both are processed. Why fried foods on the left even though one buy plenty of processed non-fried alternatives. The article would be more convincing if the meals on the left and right were as similar as possible, but the ones on the left made with processed food. For example, I highly doubt that a Perdue chicken tender is worse, which is just chicken and breading, than a homemade chicken tender.
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@Samazama
You do know that apples are harvested in the Fall, not in May?
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If dry roasted peanuts and canned black beans count as "processed" food, how are "pinto beans (cooked from dry)" not processed? Similarly, how are tater tots processed if hash browns are not?
I hope (and expect) that the actual research was more rigorous than this article.
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The answer to this is blindingly obvious if you actually read the article. The tater tots are a commercial product that came out of a freezer bag, and the hash browns were prepared from scratch. The fact that a commercial product and a homemade product, that appear on the surface to be so similar, cause wildly different hormone effects when consumed, is literally the entire point of the study and the article.
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@Davy_G
"Processed" is really a misnomer.
1
The foods in this article are addictive.
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All of the foods are processed in some way, e.g., the chicken breast in the whole dinner probably isn’t ripped raw and gnawed from a chicken raised in the subject’s dining room. That banana from a faraway country has been through a whole series of processes.
There needs to be a better terminology around this.
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@Mollykins and that banana was likely treated with ethylene gas to ensure it ripened in the correct time frame.
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They obviously didn’t control for energy density. And why didn’t the subjects get high calorie desserts during the ‘whole food’ phase? There’s lots of wholesome, sugary dessert food out there too.
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The subjects in this study are not food addicts - and they still gain a pound a week = 52 / year. This article helps me understand how food addicts can gain 100 pounds in a year. And why so many of them have had bariatric surgery that ultimately failed.
This article convinces me even more that I am on the right track by moving to a plant based organic diet, weighing and measuring everything that goes on my plate, and cutting up my veggies in advance. With this method, it takes me about 10 minutes to put a healthy meal on my plate. It's a perfect solution for people who live alone and don't want to spend lots of time figuring out dinner and cleaning up the kitchen. And perfect for people who pack their lunch.
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@HelenA
Don't do all that. Your diet doesn't have to be plant based but more than that you don't have to weigh and measure everything. Just choose the right foods and your appetite will modulate to take care of the rest.
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The striking lack of fruits and vegetables in the processed meals makes this result a big 'duh'. Obviously the diet with no fruits or vegetables is going to be worse than the diet packed with them.
It would have been more informative to make the diets comparable except for the processing:
compare fresh green beans to canned, commercial veggie burgers to homemade, home roasted potatoes to frozen fries, etc.
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@TR They were, in fact, comparable when it came to macro and micro nutrients available for consumption.
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This is all I could think too. Of course it's hard to overeat on a diet of broccoli and green beans. I suspect that if the diets had been normalized for food volume as well as caloric content and nutrients the results would vanish. Processed food can be more calorically dense, and for most people an easy way to eat fewer calories is to eat more vegetables, grains, and unprocessed meat. But that's likely because of the volume discrepancy, not because of magic hormonal factors that occur due to processing.
Meanwhile there are plenty of "unprocessed" desserts, which don't seem to have been included--berries with cream, honey on ricotta, even bananas are quite calorically dense. If the processed folks were getting cookies and pudding, I don't understand why similarly rich unprocessed foods weren't offered.
Nothing here makes me think there's a substantial difference between eating muesli and Cheerios.
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@TR
It has to do with a lot more than the lack of fruits and vegetables.
Your second suggestion would produce little by way of useful results, since merely canning or freezing a food does little to change its nutritional value.
It's about the foods themselves, rather than whether they've been frozen or canned (though canning can destroy some vitamins and introduce chemicals like BPA).
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I wish scientists would stop wasting money conducting obvious studies about food.
We already know all the main points of this study. It’s been exhaustively proven. And proven. And proven.
That money could be better spent by community-based education efforts in regions afflicted by obesity, child-intervention programs, or by lobbying the government to stop giving tax breaks to fake food manufacturers.
In my discipline of English, scholars are supposed to find new topics to write about, rather than rehashing a thousand other dissertations, and I would recommend these researchers to put a little more effort into selecting their study.
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A difference not mentioned in the article is that I don't see anything sweet other than fruit in the "whole" meals. No added sugar. This would be a very hard sell for most Americans.
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@Ginger
Added sugar is probably most of the problem in practice. That includes fruit juices. And added fat isn't so good either, particularly when combined with salt and sugar. Neither are ultrarefined carbs. But fructose, which is half of table sugar, *does not suppress appetite* and causes binging behavior in many.
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@Josh Hill half of what of sugar?
@Josh Hill yes yes I know (I'm a nutritionist). My point is that the diet on the right is unrealistic for the average American.
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This is an interesting study, but I wish the authors would try a less extreme comparison next. For example, in the processed category, how about some whole wheat (store-bought) bread, milk to drink, Triscuits instead of crackers made with white flour, etc.? And in the whole foods category, it would be more realistic to add some sugar or honey here and there (perhaps to the yogurt and definitely to the oatmeal!) and some cheese. I think most of us eat somewhere in between these two diets and it would be nice to know where you could get the most bang for your buck in moving toward the whole foods diet. To me this study doesn't fully unpack whether all processed foods are bad for you, or just the ones that also contain a lot of sugar, salt, and starch. Also, I'd really have to change my food preferences to eat a big pile of barley for dinner...maybe in soup.
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@cg The authors did not expect to see such a large difference between the groups, so it would make sense to design the study with strong differences in diet between groups. Also, where do you get the idea of how “most people” eat? Is it just you and the people you know, i.e., in your socioeconomic bracket and region of the country? I ask, because when I was a poor grad student, I ate the processed diet all the time. Now that I have more resources, I eat the whole foods diet except on weeks when I work too much, and I’m somewhere between. Most people I know in my locale (New England) eat the whole foods diet all the time, subscribe to CSAs, etc. In contrast, my step-daughters’ extended family in Alabama eat an even more extreme version of the processed diet all the time. In science, we can’t let our idiosyncratic little view of the world determine study design.
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@cg
It's just what you'd expect -- the more you eat from the junk column, the more weight you'll gain and vice-versa.
That store bought stuff is usually pretty lethal no matter what it is. They will fake you out with supposedly healthy stuff that isn't. Like all that yogurt -- it has sugar added. And those who wheat triscuits are loaded with oil and salt, making them really palatable, so you'll eat much more of them than you should.
The rule is really very simple -- eat what they would have eaten 1000 years ago and you'll be fine, eat the refined and processed stuff in small quantities. If you want to *lose* weight do low carb until you do, then switch to a health unprocessed diet and avoid lots of carbs and those added fats.
1
Excellent study, and the results make complete sense.
Next, we need other experts to design whole-food meals that cost less, and made with ingredients accessible to more people. Obviously, that wasn’t the objective of this study, and we can’t fault them for that.
As Dr. Marion Nestle and others have shown, whole-food meals can be inexpensive, and can be fairly easy to make. One could eat really well with large bag of brown rice, cans of beans, canned or frozen vegetables, large bags of greens (cooking or salad greens), onions, garlic, even some canned or frozen fruit—things one could find even in a fresh-food desert. Meat tends to be expensive, and it’s probably better to use it as flavorings rather than as a main event if cost is an issue. Meals don’t have to take hours. Pressure cookers, slow cookers, and the like, can really help. If time is a bigger issue than money, pre-cut and frozen vegetables are very useful.
The concept of healthy food is simple, but one must make an effort to put into practice.
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I would like to see more articles that focus on studies about foods that contribute to overall health and weight control.
8
@William, check out nutritionfacts.org, a non-profit that reviews nutrition research articles published in peer reviewed journals, then presents the information in short, easy to understand videos. Links are provided to the research publications reviewed. The site is searchable by topics and key words. It’s objective is to find out what types of food are the healthiest.
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@Dr. J -
Full disclosure, please?
Nutritionfacts.org is not some unbiased site.
It’s objective is NOT to find out what types of food are the healthiest; it is a promotional site for whole-food, plant-based diets. It is run by Dr. Michael Greger, a vegan.
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I note that:
"The unprocessed diet used in the study, for example, cost 40 percent more than the ultra-processed diet."
Wow, that is quite a bit.
I also note that the prep time to make the unprocessed foods takes a whole lot longer than the processed foods. (Stouffer’s mac & cheese versus grilled chicken breast, for example, or Hormel beef and bean chili versus shrimp scampi with spaghetti.) Wouldn't it be great if we all had all that extra discretionary time.
So maybe it makes sense that obesity is more common in poorer communities...
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@SRP 1st time I've heard that. I wonder how they got that info? Cost per sack? Cost per calorie? Adding in prep time to the cost?
Certainly not cost per nutrient.
Also not figuring in costs of doctors visits, lack of energy, medications, etc. etc
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@twill
No, it is not cost per nutrient. When you are struggling, it is "cost to stop feeling hungry."
And no, when you are struggling, you are not amortizing the projected cost of future doctor visits over your working lifetime. You are trying to make what's in the house last until payday.
This sounds suspiciously close to the people who wonder why poor people don't just buy the nice shoes, because they last for years, and you actually *save* money over buying a new cheap pair every few months.
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@Arvind It is very expensive to be poor.
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The study isn’t really valid, the NIH folks dictated the menu which baked in their biases and shaped the outcomes. A real world study would have identical menus with or without highly processed ingredients. Or buffets with identical dishes and different ingredients, take what you like.
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@Gary
The idea was to emulate what people actually eat. Identical menus would have made that impossible -- no one is saying that a processed peach is less healthy than an unprocessed one. And you couldn't do a statistically valid study buffet style.
I think you're a bit short on the science here.
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@Gary
Your designs would have tested different hypotheses:
- There might be a good argument for the "identical menus with or without highly processed foods." this would not be totally possible but would have been an improvement.
- "buffets with identical dishes" would be testing what people choose. The authors wanted to see what the effect of different types of diet was on calories ingested and of hormones related to hunger. If you let people take what they choose, that is a different question. When you randomize a study, you want people in the group to be similar to each other. People who choose nutritious foods are not the same as people who choose foods that are not nutritious, so you could not answer the author's question with this design.
Researchers funded by the NIH design the study themselves. The NIH does not tell them how to design the study, though experienced researchers review studies, which causes some difficulty for innovative research. Usually the NIH also does not tell researchers what questions to ask, though there are ROIs to address specific problems. You can read more about this on the NIH website.
This study seems well designed to answer the question that was asked (as above). It can always be improved.
1
A tame title for a serious topic.
Also, it's not just making one fat, processed food as is also the source of all kinds of diseases from high blood pressure to cancer. By equating processed food to an increased likelihood of obesity, the author might be minimizing its insidious effects all across the board.
8
If these food manufacturers could be persuaded to start restricting the amount of oil they use in these products (olive, vegetable, canola, sunflower, etc.) they would remove a high source of fat that not only makes the consumer gain more weight, but that accelerates the process of aterial plaquing and rising cardiovascular danger. Processed oils are not necessary or healthy choices for anyone.
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@Sequel
Fats are not evil. Oils are calories, yes, but they are satiating calories, and there's evidence that carbs (e.g. simple sugars) are the things that mess with your hormones.
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@io. Agreed. Fats are the wonderful things that keep you from slamming down 3 packages of rice cakes because you can't get full.
1
The quantity of food in both the ultra-processed and non-ultra processed meals is high. I mostly eat meals like the ones on the right. Sometimes I need to cut corners and used canned beans, jarred salsa, and whole wheat English muffins. I eat two meals a week that are not homemade. Mostly I cook from scratch with a lot of vegetables. It is really expensive and time-consuming. I rarely eat dinner before 8:30 p.m. because I work until 6:00, then go to the gym or walk the dogs, and then cook a meal that was prepped on the weekend. ( I spend half a day each weekend going to various grocery stores and then another half prepping.) How could a working person with limited or even a middle income find the time and money to eat the healthy way?
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@Abby Mark Bittman seemed to be doing some work to support answering the question you asked before he sold out to start his yuppy food box company. It's a shame because I think he could have made a tremendous difference in our country by offering solutions to eat home cooked food in a manner that is feasible for working families.
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@Abby Since the study allowed participants to eat as much or as little as they wanted, I presume the pictured servings are for illustration purposes only.
That's not to say that plating doesn't have a huge impact on food consumed, but since the average weight loss on the unprocessed diet was about the same as the weight gain on the processed diet (about 2 pounds each, according to NPR's reporting on this), it suggests that being pressured to "clean your plate" wasn't a significantly skewing factor here.
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@Abby I spend quite a bit of time preparing my food. I pack lunches. Takes about 15-20 minutes in the morning. But here's the deal: I don't eat a lot of variety for lunch and breakfast. Couple of egg sandwiches, peanut butter & honey on toast. Lots of fruit (whichever is on sale). I'll pack a salad sometimes.
What I'm getting at it is: Forget the variety , if you can. I eat a lot of the same old, same old, and man is it good! Don't try to impress yourself. Eat for energy and health!
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I like that you added meals. Now show me how I can do this in a packed lunch for my kids, that isn't prepared hours in advance and isn't a salad.
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@Karen: Unfortunately, school kids at school can rarely have access to microwave ovens, and are limited to cold meals if eating packed lunches. So you're pretty much limited to a sandwich whose filling will be processed (PBJ, cold cuts+cheese) plus fruit (fresh or dried) or raw veggies (carrots, tomato) that are palatable without dressing.
European peasants, however, made do with country bread plus cheese, olives, dried meat/sausage and dill pickle. The use of ice packs gives you more options for fillings: savory omelettes, seasoned ground meat or legumes.
"Processed" food isn't all bad: in pre-refrigeration days, processing was necessary to preserve food. There's nothing inherently evil about cheese or bread; dehydrated fruit, vegetables or meats (pemmican, biltong) are perfectly acceptable provided you don't go overboard with the salt.
14
@Karen
You can put hot food in a thermos or other thermal container. There's bento box style meals. I struggle with this for myself. Mostly I end up bringing salad to work.
5
@Karen, yes! I’d love to hear other folks’ ideas, too. Every day my kids get a yogurt (I buy plain Greek and then let them stir in some jam and stick it in a tiny Tupperware...cheaper and less sugar, although I guess it’s slightly processed) and a piece of fruit that I buy in bulk (apple, tangerine). So far we’ve been at schools that allow nuts, so I usually do a little container of cashews or almonds or sunflower seeds, but that won’t fly a lot of places these days.
I mash up avocado with salt and a tiny squeeze of lemon and make avocado sandwiches on Dave’s Killer Bread (the kind in the green bag, which has 5g of both protein and fiber per slice). I make the sandwiches, they cut shapes with cookie cutters.
A less pricey go to for us is packing Costco mini individual packs of hummus with sliced bell peppers, snap peas, and carrots. (Although hmm, I suppose the hummus is processed.)
Finally, my daughter’s absolute favorite is a mix of brown rice and pinto or black beans with some olive oil and salt (and I usually grate in some cheddar cheese too) that we keep warm in a thermos.
Washing the little containers is annoying, but everything about making lunches is sort of annoying and at least I know they’re eating good stuff.
24
Great article, much needed study. Giving the ultra-processed foods a fiber boost seems a bit of a cheat, given what we are learning about the gut microbiome, fiber absorption, and blood glucose. But I quibble. I actually came to post on how huge these meals are! 3 meals a day with 5 different things on the plate, plus snacks is too much. Barry Popkin's question about "whether food manufacturers can create healthier processed foods that do not induce people to overeat", misses the point. These foods are designed to make you overeat, that's the point. Buy more, die more, next.
47
@kavewood,
The subjects on the whole food diet lost weight even though they were "healthy" to begin with. Doesn't that mean the meals were not too big? I think so.
4
@Robin Subjects were also allowed to eat as much or little as they wanted in this study, so I wouldn't read too far into the pictures regarding portion size.
15
@kavewood, I looked at the original publication (you can, too). Study subjects were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. I think the meals were made up to 3900 total daily calories. There were also snacks available. I presume that subjects were assured that they didn’t have to eat all of the food served to them. That’s how it was possible to observe that those eating the ultra-processed food ate about 500 calories more a day.
2
I like that you added actual examples of meals.
And I would like to know how much was spent on each meal, as well as an estimated prep time.
Reporting on scientific findings promote knowledge transfert and that's great and certainly beautifully done here. But cost and prep time information, or, better still, coming up with meals that are roughly the same price - and, while we are at it, publishing the recipe - would bring real added value for your readers.
32
@Anne-Marie
The article did mention that the unprocessed diet cost 40% more, but yes, I'd also like to know how much more time it spent to prepare.
4
@io I want to know if that 40 percent number is based upon the huge amount served or the amount eaten.
Regardless of money and costs, the meals on both sides are boring in my opinion.
This was interesting, but to me the processed meals look exaggerated. Do people really eat like this on a daily basis? Cheese and spam sandwiches on white bread? It would be interesting to see a study of comparable meals prepared with processed foods and ingredients versus the unprocessed versions. Also, there was no cheese in the unprocessed meals. That made me sad.
43
@Sweetie Darling I have family members who do. They do not have the ability for frequent shopping trips of perishables, and have little money to spend. Very sad.
11
Yes people really eat like this on a daily basis. I know people who have never prepared a fresh vegetable. Ever. I know people who consider a can of progresso vegetable soup their vegetables for the day and a can of fruit cocktail their fruit. Coke is their beverage 3-6 cans of Diet Coke a day. These people are not uneducated I met some of them in graduate school. But they are ignorant of nutrition. Processed food kills. But first it causes obesity, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, and depression - among other ills.
24
@Sweetie Darling
Also, low-income people often do not have access to healthy foods. They shop at the local liquor or convenience store or Walgreens where fresh vegetables and fruits are not stocked even if people could afford them. They don't have the time let alone the inclination to prepare fresh food from scratch and are not familiar with grains like quinoa. Furthermore, their children may not e willing to even try healthier food. One of the issues in the school lunch programs is getting children to eat healthy food when they are accustomed to highly processed food at home.
2
In addition to clearly and concisely covering this latest study on the benefits of not eating processed "food" on body weight, I love that this article contains so many actual examples of meals and manufacturers of products. Thank you.
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