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Posted on September 4, 2023 | 26 Comments
Today Small Farm Future brings you that rarity on this site, a guest post. In this instance it’s a review of Chris Van Tulleken’s book Ultra-Processed People from Christine Dann, who will be familiar to regular readers here from her comments (or perhaps from her books, like food@home).
Before I hand over to Christine, and talking both of books and of friends of this website, a shoutout to Brian Miller, whose excellent book Kayaking With Lambs: Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer is about to hit the shops (I read an advanced copy and can thoroughly recommend it). My best wishes to Brian as he sends his words out into the world.
Another interesting book just out is Peter and Miriam Wohlleben’s Our Little Farm, which I also read in advanced copy. Definitely of interest on the practical gardening/homesteading front – hopefully I’ll find some time to discuss it on here at some point, after I’ve written some posts about my own recent book.
Anyway, enough about all these other books – over to Christine, and Chris Van Tulleken.
Fake Fod versus Farm-Fresh Food
A review of Ultra-Processed People
by Chris Van Tulleken, Cornerstone Press, 2023
“Most UPF is not food, Chris”, the Brazilian scientist researching UPF [Ultra-Processed Foods] kept telling Dr Chris van Tulleken when he used the word in their conversations about UPF. In Fernanda Rauber’s opinion, it should be called “…an industrially produced edible substance”. (van Tulleken, 2023, p. 155)
Van Tulleken credits Rauber with being the expert who made the deepest impression on his thinking about UPF (or IPES – Industrially Produced Edible Substances – now my preferred term for these pseudo-foods as it covers how they are produced better than alternative terms like studge, gloop, or fod). She told him that the plastic packaging of UPF, when heated, decreases fertility in those who eat the heated industrially produced edible substances. (Warm IPES, anyone?) Also how the preservatives and emulsifiers in UPF disrupt the gut microbiome, which is further damaged by the lack of fibre in UPF. Then there are the harms caused by the high levels of fat, sugar and salt in UPF, which are not found in unprocessed or minimally-processed foods, like fresh vegetables or rolled oats.
What exactly are UPFs? Van Tulleken makes use of what is now the now standard NOVA categorisation, developed by the Brazilian research team of which Rauber is a member. It ranks foods into four groups by the level of processing involved, from unprocessed (think raw apple or carrot), through minimally and partially processed to ultra-processed (think packaged breakfast cereals or supermarket ready-meals containing multiple ingredients, many of them synthetic). Four chapters of Ultra-Processed People are devoted to exploring the differences between UPF and unprocessed or minimally-processed foods. Ultra-processing means that UPF can damage health in ways that farm-fresh food could never do. They include the mechanical processing which is essential to UPF, which destroys fibre while releasing sugar; the addition of synthetic flavourings and colourings which have not been adequately tested for safety, and also mislead consumers into thinking that the UPF is a real food; the nutrient deficiencies (and weight gain) due to over-eating UPF in the hope of finding the nutrients it lacks; the negative impacts of emulsifiers on human and environmental health; and the use of artificial sweeteners which are implicated in causing a range of health problems.
These could also include cancers occurring at younger ages. Since Ultra-Processed People was published, a new study which collated data from the G20 group of industrialised countries found that between 1990 and 2019 cancer rates increased by 22% in the age group 25-29. In the next age group, 30-34, cancer rates are at the highest level ever. In a 25 July article headed Why is cancer striking earlier? Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, refers to the evidence that UPFs are damaging bodies, and especially the gut microbiome, and why the substantial increase in UPF consumption in the three decades between 1990 and 2019 is a likely reason for the rise in early cancers.
Then there is the way UPF makes you feel, day by day. In what seems to be becoming a bit of a trend in British doctors with a possibly masochistic approach to research subjecting themselves (and/or those close to them) to different diets (check out Michael Mosley and Tim Spector) van Tulleken spent a month eating only UPF. When he did this at home, his three year old daughter insisted on having some too. He notes the negative effects it had on them both – even as they couldn’t stop eating it. (Or in his case, drinking six cans of Diet Coke per day!) At the end of his month’s experiment, van Tulleken was feeling rubbish. He had put on 6 kg in weight, was not sleeping well (with lots more nightmares), was so constipated he developed an anal fissure, and described himself as “ aching, exhausted, miserable and angry”. Even worse, his inflammation markers were up, his appetite hormones were “totally deranged”, and his brain scan showed that connections for desiring UPF had strengthened. (pp. 157; 160-161)
This last effect is the subject of a whole chapter (‘How UPF hacks our brains’) which includes a discussion of the differences between substance and behavioural addictions, and whether UPF is like gambling, a behavioural addiction which gives intermittent rewards, or (like alcohol) a substance addiction (it has a physical effect). Van Tulleken says the body of evidence now supports the substance view. Given the wide range of illnesses linked to regular UPF consumption (listed on p. 62) this is a big worry.
Yet despite ample scientific evidence of its dangers, UPF consumption is increasing world-wide. Van Tulleken documents the ways in which the current industrial food system is optimised to increase the number and variety of UPF foods and their consumers, with billions of dollars spent on marketing IPES. Young consumers are the prime target for seductive forms of marketing designed to hack their brains as surely as the IPES inside the pretty packaging. Van Tulleken gives an especially horrific example of a Nestlé boat taking UPF into the far reaches of Amazonia and getting young people hooked there. But the UK is even worse than Brazil when it comes to UPF consumption. Van Tulleken talks to teenagers in Leicester who have no youth clubs or other healthy community places to gather in any more, and hang out in junk food restaurants eating and drinking UPF instead. Those same young people have been fed lunches high in UPF at school, and meals high in UPF at or from home, meaning that British youngsters now have the highest consumption of UPF in Europe – around 65% of their diet.
What would it take to change this system, and what would it look like?
“We could at least imagine a system arranged around agro-ecological farming and the consumption of a diverse range of fresh and minimally processed whole foods” van Tulleken says. “Such a system would promote biodiversity and has the capacity to produce enough healthy food for a growing population on a lower land footprint than today with massive climate benefits.” (p. 265)
That’s starting to sound like a small farm future we could all benefit from. But now comes the but…
“But such a system wouldn’t favour the monocultures required for UPF that do so much damage ….. UPF requires the current destructive way of farming and is the only possible output of this system.” (p. 265)
Van Tulleken is adamant that the system needs changing, to preserve and enhance the health of humans and everything else living on Earth. He also presents depressing evidence as to why and how it remains so powerful, with billions and billions of dollars going towards developing and marketing new forms of UPF. He contrasts this with the small returns currently available to farmers producing whole foods in sustainable ways to serve local markets, and the lack of access to such foods for the majority of city dwellers on low incomes. So he is not hopeful about where things are headed – and that’s without considering the very latest iteration in UPF. These are the big tech investment start-ups growing fake meat and veg from cells, bacteria, algae – whatever takes your fancy – in factories. The boosters of these novel forms of IPES claim they will ‘spare’ land from farming and animals from suffering while also providing human nutrition. Too good to be true? Alas, yes. Given van Tulleken’s descriptions of how current UPFs are produced, one can be pretty sure that this form of factory-made IPES will have the same sorts of anti-nutritional additives required to make them pass for food which are found in existing UPFs. If that is the case then they will cause the same health problems, without having any impact at all on the industrial agriculture mono-cultures which currently trash the land, and are cruel to animals, in order to keep the highly profitable UPF mills churning out cheap industrially produced edible substances.
There is a lot more one can learn from reading Ultra-Processed People. (I found the chapter on Nazi support for making ‘butter’ from coal during World War Two a real eye-opener – and sadly not a one-off historical footnote, but one which has set a template for subsequent UPF production.) Van Tulleken’s explanations of the scientific findings on physiological processes, good nutrition, and the impacts of UPF on mind and body are clear and engaging. Plus he is not just another nutrition geek. He also covers the detrimental social and environmental effects of UPF, and the corporate profit-seeking structures which drive them. This makes the book a valuable reference for anyone concerned about improving the food system from farm to fork for society (and Earth) as whole, rather than just improving one’s personal diet. If one has that particular option – and here I felt rather let down by van Tulleken’s last chapter, in which he says that he wouldn’t tell anyone else not to eat UPF.
While it is true that nagging people about their diets (as he nagged his brother) doesn’t work, if my doctor knew I was eating poison and did not at least advise that I ate real food instead, I would question their competence. Given how hard it currently is for many urban dwellers to access good food, I can see why van Tulleken is loath to engage in what could appear to be ‘social nagging’, which can have no effect. Plus his expertise is scientific and medical, not social and political. Yet it is changes in the social and political sphere which have led to the rise of UPF and the loss of real food, and while the alternatives are currently no match for Big Fod, it is those alternatives – the sustainable small farms, the fresh food markets, the whole food stores and the like – which need to be celebrated and strengthened by every means possible. So that when a doctor tells a patient that their Type 2 diabetes is likely caused by over-consumption of UPF, and advises them to switch to real food, this is a genuine option for every patient. As it should be a genuine option for everyone.
No ifs, no buts, and please – more small farms producing real food for everyone, and no more IPES!
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Thanks, Christine, for the book review.
I have some reservations about bacterial protein powder (and similar microbial products) being lumped together into the same category as Organic Corn Flakes cereal, for example. It seems to gloss over (and detract from the awareness of) the unique problems with the new microbial products which require ultra-processing just to make them barely edible (such as removing harmful endotoxins, or reducing the nucleic acid content down to a level where the remaining nucleic acids are presumed to not cause health problems for humans).
Instead of IPES, the name IPBES (industrially produced barely-edible substances) seems more suitable when referring to these microbial products. At least the process for making the corn flakes begins with edible ingredients.
Staying with the Organic Corn Flakes example, I’m not a fan but I think I would prefer them over some conventional (not organically grown) Rolled Oats, even though the oats are not ultra-high processed (because those oats can include significant levels of glyphosate residues from off-label spraying to dry the grains on the plants before harvesting).
Thus, there are some nuances which might get lost in blanket recommendations to avoid a large category of products.
Very interesting.
Makes me look at my own diet a bit more.
In a way, I’m not too concerned about UPFs going forward.
We are heading for an “energy crunch” as the rising energy costs of energy reduce the viability of any industrial process, never mind studge.
Eventually the only viable way of producing food, will be by growing it “old skool” style.
Whether “old skool” will be enough to feed 8 Billion souls is another question?????
My understanding is that “old skool” horticulture has a higher caloric yield per acre (or square foot or whatever) than modern extractive mechanised industrial grain monoculture. It just also requires way more human labour than driving a tractor does, and stores better than most vegetables do (though the more I read about it the more I think things like chemical herbicides used for pre-harvest desiccation, and giant industrial grain dryers, and similar sorts of things are responsible for the higher storage yield of grains. Without those things they’d be quite a bit more dependent on exactly the right weather for harvesting…)
I suppose what I ought to do is plant winter wheat and potatoes in equal-sized beds, and see which yields more calories.
I was tired and my sentence structure broke there. I meant to say that grains store better than vegetables, not the other way around!
Thanks Christine, I enjoyed the book review.
I think any consideration of UPF, IPES and IPBES all sit somewhere along what could be called a nutrition geek spectrum, and since other titles received a mention in the intro to this post, I’d like to flag up Jo Robinson’s Eating on the Wild Side (2013), which looks at veg and fruit, pointing out which varieties offer the most nutrition and why, together with interesting tips on their preparation.
Thanks for the pointer, Simon. But before I run to the library, is the summary along the lines of “vegetables with strong and complex flavours have better nutrition”?
I like a sweet strawberry as much as the next person but I do want my strawberries to taste of strawberries, and I choose my varieties accordingly. And we “fired” a squash variety last year which gives pretty good yield but just doesn’t taste that special (possibly it didn’t have time to ripen properly, because it didn’t keep very well either, but two years in a row of huge-but-disappointing squashes is enough. Thankfully I almost never grow only one variety of anything, so, we had loads of other squashes to enjoy.)
The summary I’d be tempted to arrive at while I’m only a few dozen pages in is that colour, and more interestingly, morphology, can play vital roles in nutritional values. There’s a sample from the book online, comparing lettuces, which hooked my interest.
As for squashes, I had a the good fortune to bake and eat a Burgess buttercup recently, an old variety from Illinois, and can highly recommend it. I wonder what the book will have to say about that – I’m still on the Alliums.
Good to know, thanks.
I’m looking forward to trying the Burgess Buttercup squashes later this year that are growing at the Far Allotment. The vines have certainly been prolific enough with very little maintenance, though if I grow them again I will give them stronger stuff to climb as they broke part of my hazelwood bean tunnel.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/09/04/farms-that-create-habitat-key-to-food-security-and-biodiversity/
” Farms that Create Habitat Key to Food Security and Biodiversity”
With links …
Not exactly on this subject but certainly part of the small farm future
Really clear summary of the findings in this book, thank you. I’m beginning to see the modern world as a web of substance and behavioural addictions. As much as we like to keep options on the table, give everything a fair hearing and not foreclose on possible pathways, it’s becoming increasingly clear there is only one way out of this!
We have to make the small farm future the present!
A little more on van Tulleken and IPES:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/sep/06/ultra-processed-foods-the-19-things-everyone-needs-to-know
I can’t help but wonder why ultra-processed foodstuffs are suddenly being held up for inspection in the media spotlight. Perhaps it could be because of the excess death figures?
Belated reply … ah yes, anything to ‘explain’ the excess deaths. ‘Climate change’ and ‘stress’ were probably the last two excuses I heard. Quite hilarious.
The most senior person I can think of with a ‘corporate’ background who’s analysed the numbers is Edward Dowd, formerly in the upper echelons of Black Rock, Inc., one of the companies which pretty well ‘owns the world’. But clearly, Dowd does not hold that affiliation now, given his damning conclusions.
Put another way, look not so much at the food system but the medical system. Ask what intervention at least 65-75% of the UK (and US) population received in 2021 or -22.
Always ask for raw data, not propaganda, and ferret out what a person really was doing or saying, not what the MSM reports them saying or doing. I was following this advice from about May 2020 and waking up to the harsh reality … it’s not so hard.
A much more prominent UK environmentalist who woke up to it was Prof Jem Bendell. He emigrated to Indonesia to do regenerative farming.
A good test would be for George Monbiot to eat nothing but studge for a month and see how he feels.
One thing that has become more and more apparent as I grow more and more of my own food is just how bad the shop stuff tastes. I don’t just mean things like strawberries that don’t keep all that well anyway; the potatoes I grow, though imperfect, are so much better than anything I can buy. I had a sowing failure on my second lot of beetroot this year and so bought some beets from a shop… they really weren’t very nice at all, and I really hope my third sowing comes through for some winter beets. I’ll admit that frozen organic petits pois are almost as good as my fresh peas, but there’s still a flatness to them, somehow. If people are trying to eat minimally processed food and the best they have access to is mid-range supermarket provisions, it’s no wonder they reach for the processed stuff. It isn’t so much that it’s highly palatable, as much as the plain fruit and veg is… not particularly attractive.
I’ve found, too, that I can reduce my desire for highly-processed foods by making my own versions at home. I am in the process of filling my freezer with oven chips and mash, because sometimes convenience is good and the versions I can buy just make me sad. I made some potato crisps this afternoon just to see if I could, and while I don’t plan to repeat the process often (so much labour for not very many crisps), I think it has probably cured me of ever wanting to just grab a bag of Walker’s or similar. Pasta sauce made from my own tomatoes (and my own garlic, and my own herbs…) is far better than anything I’ve bought, and just as convenient once I’ve made it (though I’m not yet at the stage of making my own pasta at scale).
So true. I used to think tomatoes a worthy sort of item as regards taste, only bought for the visual effect. Then someone fed me some home-grown toms. Wow! Total revelation!
This may be a bit a tangent but people are swayed by emotion not logic. Ecomodernists are Coming for Your Pot Roast and Bacon would be a much more effective title. The book might need a few edits to mention beef and pork but you know what I mean.
Continuing from the last post a bit, sometimes it is important to point at the Emperor’s naked butt and laugh. Logic and beautiful arguments are not going to win the day.
Thanks for the comments, folks. Lots of interesting points. I could happily discuss vege varieties and which have the best tastes and most nutrition all day. I try new varieties every year, and follow the work of the NZ Heritage Food Crops Research Trust – https://www.heritagefoodcrops.org.nz/ – for pointers on flavour plus nutrition. However, one needs to be aware that climate and soil and other factors can influence flavour and nutrition, and what tastes great grown in a warm climate is not so great in a cool one, and vice versa. Also – the love of humans for the plant and its growth and use makes a difference. This is well-covered by Dan Saladino in ‘Eating to Extinction’, which describes traditional foods created with great care which are losing out to the UPF diet everywhere.
With regard to the best way to deal with this subject politically, I was interested to see that the comments on the Guardian article referred to contained a lot of pro UPF comments. Having read the literature on the many ways in which corporations lie in order to defend indefensible products (see, for example, ‘Merchants of Doubt’ by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway) it is hard to know how many of these people sincerely believe what they are saying, and how many of them are being used (consciously or unconsciously) by the corporations to do their dirty work.
The ‘New Scientist’ magazine (10 August) carried a ‘news’ article which said that the American society for Nutrition says it is not possible to define UPF – a lie which van Tulleken’s book exposes on p. 65, showing where and how the corporate-funded ‘research’ which claims this was generated. I expect this issue will play out as the battle over tobacco played out – over decades with lots of law suits in which good honest scientists will be harassed and vilified and governments will dither while people die.
Meanwhile…I feel very fortunate that I have the option of growing my own food in times like these – and the best food there is at that.
I pondered ‘why now?’ for UPFs in the MSM as UPFs seem to have been around for as long as I can remember.
Tangential I know, but concerning emergent tech like general AI (and general IPES?), I thought this article had a ring of truth to it.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/will-self-on-technology/
Studge is another step in the industrialization of our lives.
When it comes to food, it is clear that it has been a disaster. In Kansas the water table has dropped so far that irrigation wells are coming up dry. In Southwestern Minnesota and Iowa you can’t drink the water, nitrate pollution is still an increasing problem. Growing corn with just anhydrous ammonia has led to larger yields but reduced feed value and depleted soil. Confinement livestock has given us pork that tastes like ammonia and is so dry you have to cook it in butter. Etc.
Other than profitability, how are UPFs a good idea ?
They often store well for long periods with no refrigeration, and require little to no preparation in order to eat.
For someone like me who has decent cooking skills and the time and facilities to prepare meals from scratch, this is a convenience. For people who use the soup kitchen and food bank at my church… well, it’s not always safe to assume they have access to a refrigerator, microwave or kettle.
https://slaynews.com/news/cancer-cases-young-people-soar/
Perhaps this is something that needs to be brought into the discussion . Timings right for UPF
Thanks for the comments, and thanks again to Christine for the review. I’m a bit rushed off my feet at the moment, but I’ll be posting again soon.
Meanwhile, here’s a podcast I did with Maren & Jake from Death in the Garden, just out: https://deathinthegarden.substack.com/p/56-chris-smaje-being-a-good-keystone?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web#details
I’d also commend Maren’s long and interesting review of Monbiot’s book – https://deathinthegarden.substack.com/p/the-quantitative-cosmology
And a couple of reviews of my book in. This one quite positive, prompting an interesting ‘below the line’ intervention from Monbiot: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/09/hope-for-a-humane-agricultural-future-a-review-of-saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future/
This one not so positive, and likewise:
https://earthbound.report/2023/09/11/saying-to-to-a-farm-free-future-by-chris-smaje/
I’m at a couple of food/farming festivals over the weekend – see events page
Thanks Chris for linking to Maren Morgan’s ‘Quantitative Cosmology’ essay.
I think it is exactly on point.
I associate the fixation on machines and numbers and the human-made world with a fear of the natural world.
Which I understand completely – I live in Kansas where we have chiggers: tiny (almost) invisible tick-like nymphs that will give you a red welt on your tender parts any time you leave the pavement.
But, still…
As it happens, we just last week drove up and down the California Central Valley. It is not so much agricultural as industrial. Those farms and orchards are not growing food, they are growing industrial feedstock. The towns are dominated by factories and warehouses, and the roads are full of diesel trucks. The air quality is among the worst in the country.
So this line in the essay jumped out at me:
“Only in crazy world does anyone look at the Central Valley of California and think: this is fine.”
From there we went to Yosemite. Many automotive tourists just like us, seeking a bit of natural beauty. Nobody remembers anymore the people who lived there for hundreds of years, harvesting their own food from the valley floor, and needing neither cars nor parking lots.
Only in crazy world does anyone look at the current Yosemite Valley and think: this is better.
Maybe one way to crack open the 90 or whatever percent urban future idea is to ask “What will all those people in those conurbations be doing?” Is that what you really want to spend your time doing?
How many hours of drudgery before you get a pass for a guided tour of the ‘re-wilded’ land?
As with so much of what I read, the urban/re-wilding idea seems to be yet another instance of a lack of imagination. I’m pleased that Maren Morgan had the imagination to pry at the foundations, stubborn as they may be.
Thanks
“Maybe one way to crack open the 90 or whatever percent urban future idea is to ask “What will all those people in those conurbations be doing?”
They will likely be dying, as they will have far from adequate access to livelihood — because the essence of an urban economy is the importation of food, clothing, water, shelter, etc., from non-urban places. And that won’t be possible for very much longer, since a modern urban place is a place which is economically dependent upon the provision of luxury goods and services, meaning things we don’t actually need. But the future economy will have to be a very low energy and materials economy, per capita, and so the only principle forms of viable access to livelihood (economy) will necessarily be the provision of truly necessary goods and services, which means the jobs in the cities will mostly dry up and blow away. Which means the only viable future will be a small farm future — or rural agrarianism, mostly consisting not of cities but of villages and those who live in or near villages.
I did try to leave a comment (twice) on front porch republic but it never appeared.
I guess I was edited out.
I was only pointing out that Monbiot was mis-quoting the very text in the article which he was claiming was mis-quoting him.
Interesting one on UPFs and brain health.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/oct/21/nutritional-psychiatrist-felice-jacka-the-global-food-system-is-the-leading-cause-of-early-death