The American diet consists mostly of ultra-processed foods — and it’s time we take a closer look at those nutrition labels. Jancee Dunn is the Well columnist for The New York Times, and she joins host Krys Boyd to offer simple ways we can identify the worst offenders in our diets and break our reliance on these foods. Her series is “The 5-day Well Challenge.”
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] You might be wondering if every news outlet in the U.S. made a New Year’s resolution to cover these things called ultra processed foods. It seems like everybody is talking about their effects on health and weight, and they include lots of things we wouldn’t necessarily consider junk food. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I’m Krys Boyd. Okay. Yes. Flamin Hot Cheetos and Skittles and sodas. Those are ultra processed foods. But then so are some but not all of the breakfast cereals, bread, canned soups and frozen meals in your favorite grocery store stuff many of us have eaten in our whole lives without imagining them to be bad choices in the real world where we don’t all have the time to cook every single meal from scratch out of whole ingredients. We wanted to learn about the latest research into ultra processed foods, what they can do to our bodies, and how we can spot them in the wild. And for that, we have invited, well, columnist Jancee Dunn of The New York Times. She’s author of the Time series titled “The Well Challenge: Five Days to Happier, Healthier Eating.” Jancee, welcome back to Think.
Jancee Dunn [00:01:05] Thank you so much.
Krys Boyd [00:01:07] At this point, we’ve hall at least heard the chatter about ultra processed foods. What does that term actually refer to?
Jancee Dunn [00:01:15] Okay, so almost all of our food is processed or changed from its natural state to some extent. If a food has been chopped or cleaned or cooked, it’s processed. But ultra processed food is something different. So ultra processed foods or UPFs are defined as foods that you typically couldn’t make in your own kitchen because you don’t have the ingredients and you don’t have the equipment unless you have a jar of methyl cellulose in your pantry. You’re not going to be making it. And they contain ingredients, UPFs that, broadly speaking, change the texture, shelf life, flavor or color of a food. And they started, you know, I’m Gen-X. I grew up eating ultra processed food and I haven’t thought about it too much, you know, until all of this research started coming out. And again, as you see, so many publications, including our own, have been covering it. But it really struck me that one researcher called UPFs an, quote, industrially produced edible substance. So it’s sort of broken into. I know that’s the.
Krys Boyd [00:02:33] Delicious
Jancee Dunn [00:02:33] Foods that are broken into components or chemically modified. I mean, a good way to picture ultra processed food is to kind of think of the journey that it goes through from its original form like corn is the main ingredient in Doritos. So think about an ear of corn and then how many times that corn has to be processed and changed and then how many ingredients had to be added for it to become a nacho cheese flavored Dorito? Several steps. Quite a bit of steps.
Krys Boyd [00:03:09] And I should note, these foods allowed these, you know, chemicals that are in some ultra processed foods. These are allowed by the FDA at the moment. Right. Like taken individually an ingredient like guar gum, which can be used as a binder or thickener that has not been found to be particularly toxic.
Jancee Dunn [00:03:29] No. Most of them are what’s called generally recognized as safe. GRS nd on the other hand, there with many of these additives, there hasn’t been a ton of research on them. And so, yes, it’s there’s a lot of murky areas about some of these additives. For instance, what we went by in order to categorize ultra processed foods is we use the Nova Food Classification system, which began in 2009. And that’s one that’s widely used by a lot of researchers and scientists. And one of the when they’re defining ultra processed food, one of the ingredients that makes it an ultra processed food is natural flavors. So even the term natural flavors sounds like, okay, fine, lemon juice or something, but that can have ingredients that are components of natural foods that may not necessarily be all natural. So it’s just it is a really complicated area, even for scientists and researchers.
Krys Boyd [00:04:40] Just to cover all our bases here. We should talk about why we have so much of this stuff around. I mean, we’ll get to the question of hyper palatability and the fact that we want to maybe eat more of this stuff. But ultra processed food is often remarkably good at being shelf stable. Right. And resistant to spoilage.
Jancee Dunn [00:04:58] Yes. And if you’re a U.S. adult, an estimated 58% of your diet is ultra processed. Wow. They are literally everywhere. And so and and one of the absolute bonuses of ultra processed food is that they are shelf stable. They are convenient. You know, a lot of them, not all of them, but some of them are less expensive. And so, yes, they can stay they can be shelf stable for a long time.
Krys Boyd [00:05:26] And it is often convenient to pick things up to like heat and eat rather than preparing Whole Foods from scratch. The reality is not everybody has the time to cook every meal out of farm fresh ingredients. But I want to let people know there are ways to sort of buy prepared foods that are not so bad for us. So it’s not like we have to instantly start, you know, grinding our own corn at home.
Jancee Dunn [00:05:49] No, no, absolutely not. And we really wanted to be careful with this challenge not to shame people. I mean, I went through this whole challenge. Believe me, I still eat ultra processed foods, often standing over my kitchen sink so that the crumbs can just fall conveniently into there. We wanted to meet readers where they live, and this is not about scaring everyone to death. It’s just another lens through which to look at your food and the fact that there is research linking ultra processed foods, you know that there’s an association between them and some, you know, health problems is is worth noting.
Krys Boyd [00:06:28] Yeah. What are some of the emerging health concerns in recent years that researchers think could possibly be limit linked to our consumption of UPFs?
Jancee Dunn [00:06:36] Well, yes. In the last five years, scientific research on ultra processed foods has almost quadrupled and there are links to health problems, certain health problems. And so, you know, it’s very much on researchers radar, and they’ve linked ultra processed foods to 32 health concerns. And they’re pretty big ones. It includes, you know, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, some types of cancer. The studies have found links between ultra processed foods and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. There was a study that came out in the fall that suggested that UPFs may cause flares of psoriasis. So there’s there’s so many different conditions. And it’s not clear, you know, scientists have kind of reached a consensus that there’s something going on and that, yes, there are links to certain health problems. They don’t know the mechanism behind those what’s causing it. And so that’s kind of the next phase of research. Like what what is what is it about UPFs that are connected to these negative health claims? They don’t know yet.
Krys Boyd [00:07:53] So many of us struggle not to eat more than our bodies need. What are some reasons we might eat more of a serving of an ultra processed food than the more natural version of the same food?
Jancee Dunn [00:08:07] Well, some of these ultra processed foods are engineered to be what’s called hyper palatable, and that’s where they have a combination of nutrients like it can be nutrients that are found necessarily in nature, like sugar and fat. And they just make you want more and more to the point where it’s sort of difficult to turn off. And that’s why sometimes, you know, a person can kind of crush a family sized bag of something because even if you feel full, you don’t want to stop. And there have been studies that link these hyper palatable foods to addiction, that they light up the same areas in your brain that addictive substances such as nicotine and alcohol do. And so I find that very comforting that maybe it’s not some sort of, you know, failure of willpower that you have, that these companies have engineered these these foods to be hard to stop eating.
Krys Boyd [00:09:12] And, of course, these foods might be full of weird stuff whose effects we don’t know over the long term. They also kind of crowd out food sources that are closer to what nature intended. Right. Fruits and vegetables and meats and whole grains that have not been ultra processed.
Jancee Dunn [00:09:27] Yes. And when you’re at the grocery store and you have little kids and you’re pushing them around in a cart and you just want to get home, of course you’re going to grab chicken nuggets, you know, and I talked to about 40 different sources for this series. And several of the scientists said, Yeah, I feed my kids chicken nuggets. I’ve worked a long day at the lab and then I want to go feed my kids. I mean, it makes perfect sense and especially things that you can eat and eat. Although it’s interesting, I came to this challenge with a number of kind of misconceptions about ultra processed foods, including that, you know, a lot of frozen entrees were filled with all kinds of ingredients that make it ultra processed. Not necessarily. So. There were a lot of interesting things that I learned.
Krys Boyd [00:10:12] I mean, here’s where this starts to get complicated, right? We may be really good at you and I Gen-Xers at spotting junk food when we see it, stuff with little or no nutritional value. Oreos and Doritos and full sugar sodas. Plenty of ultra processed foods contain significant amounts of macronutrients or micronutrients or both. So like, sure, a Snickers bar is ultra processed, but so are most protein bars.
Jancee Dunn [00:10:39] Right. And so, I mean, that comes down to individual choice, right? I mean, what we’re trying to do with the challenge is to get people to just read labels a little bit more and then you make your choice. I mean, we also really wanted to get across that not all ultra processed foods are unhealthy for you. You know, there’s been research that the category, as you mentioned when we first started chatting, is very broad and it includes things like packaged whole wheat bread and flavored yogurts. There are plenty of nutrients in flavored and sweetened yogurts that still maybe sort of balance out the other additives that are in there, you know, vitamins and calcium and protein. So, you know, it’s kind of up to the consumer to sort of decide what’s best for them. I personally, when I, I still buy whole wheat bread, even though it has an ingredient or two that makes it ultra processed, because that’s just the equation that I make for myself. Like, I can live with that.
Krys Boyd [00:11:40] I am a food label reader for, you know, a product that I haven’t purchased many times in the past. But I know there’s research that shows that a certain percentage of people just never will read labels. There’s all this talk about maybe redoing them. Is there enough information on the food labels we have right now to determine what is ultra processed and what is not?
Jancee Dunn [00:12:02] No, not really. Okay. You’ve been a food label reader for years. What do you look for? Do you look for the nutrition information or do you read the ingredients or both?
Krys Boyd [00:12:10] Well, I’ve started because of UPFs to look at the ingredients. Mostly, though, I’m looking at the nutritional information, how much, you know, protein and sugar and salt and fat is in a product and how much fiber I might find, that kind of thing.
Jancee Dunn [00:12:25] That’s even hard sometimes to decipher, isn’t it? So I mean, there’s some countries that will have a very clear label that says that something’s ultra processed. They’ve been trying that in certain South American countries. And but I think that it’s still so confusing for just the average consumer. And even when we started, you know, printing each day of these challenges, we would readers had more questions than they had comments, which sort of speaks to how confusing it all is. And I mean, another thing that I wanted to bring up is that not only are some of these foods, especially the snack foods, addictive, but our brains, as several researchers told me, are primed to pay attention to novelty. And when you go to the grocery store and you see all the different flavors of some of these foods, like the companies know this very well, like I went grocery shopping with a this eminent nutritionist, Dr. Marion Nestle, at NYU. She came to my stop and shop in New Jersey where I live, because it has, you know, 3000 aisles in the suburbs. And we were counting up the number of flavors of Cheerios that were available at my stop and shop. And it was like 20 flavors, including Peach, Mango. And then there was Oreos. We counted up there was 18 flavors of Oreos, including a Coca-Cola flavored Oreo. That was a real feat of ultra processed flavor combo. So how can you compare that with an apple? It’s just not as exciting. Right?
Krys Boyd [00:14:05] All right, Jancee, I loved day one of the five day challenge when you had this quiz with foods that seemed to be all in the same category but may have very different outcomes. So like, we know that all ice cream is going to be full of sugar and fat, but some brands are ultra processed and some are not.
Jancee Dunn [00:14:24] Yes, and that’s another thing that you may not know if you don’t read the labels. And I know it can be a drag to read the labels, but it’s kind of enlightening because, again, you have to get past which I realized that I was doing in my own life, you know, a picture of a happy cow or words like wholesome. They don’t tell the whole story. You kind of have to see what’s what’s going on. And we with that quiz, we again started work on that quiz in July because we really wanted to kind of you know, we have a lot of smart readers and we wanted to throw a curveball to them and just, you know, see if we could kind of catch them out on a couple of things because something like energy bars or protein drinks or energy drinks, things that you think that have that health halo sometimes the packaging. One researcher told me that she saw a healthy looking I think it was an energy bar with an actual halo on it. So, you know, you tend to be lulled into complacency when you see these things right on the front of the package. But then when you read it, it can be a different story and some of these ice creams that you eat. And again, if you have a balanced diet, you know, it’s as many of the nutritious and it’s fine to have ultra processed ice cream or whatever you want to have if you can balance it out. But yes, that quiz that took us I can’t even tell you. I went to six different grocery stores because sometimes the manufacturer would provide a list of ingredients on their website, but it wouldn’t sync up with what was on the actual package. It could have changed and maybe they didn’t update their website, but we learned pretty quickly that we had to go see the physical foods. So for the photoshoots we did a photoshoot and then illustrations and then the interactive. I was constantly in grocery stores. I might as well have set up a cot at my my local grocery store, and I became best friends with Frank, the manager, because I was always there and they were wondering what I was doing.
Krys Boyd [00:16:26] I mean, it really is confusing in the drinks section of this, the thing called vitamin water, which is ultra processed. I think a lot of people, if they had to make a choice between like a regular soda and a vitamin water, you’re going to think vitamin water. I’m the smart one.
Jancee Dunn [00:16:44] Right? I mean, it’s in the name, right? You’re like, ooh, vitamins and water. What’s not natural and and minimally processed about that. So, yes, it really takes that extra step to get past even the names of these products. And then the claims on the front. Often, you know, the claims, they’ll say, no, no high fructose corn sirup, no this, no that. And that also can kind of soothe you a little bit. But then you turn it over and you look at the packaging. Even, you know, when I was with Dr. Nestle, she was saying, God, it’s really hard to even read some of the ingredients. You really need either a magnifying glass or it’s like hidden under a flap, you know, so it can take some diligence.
Krys Boyd [00:17:28] Is anybody talking about putting like some kind of sticker on certain foods that just label them ultra processed? Let people know right at a glance.
Jancee Dunn [00:17:36] There was chatter about that when the latest dietary guidelines came out. But I think the consensus among the people making those decisions is that it’s still kind of too soon, that the research is still kind of in its early days about ultra processed foods. So not yet. Like you could slap it on a banana like not ultra processed. Right. Something to think.
Krys Boyd [00:18:04] You also looked at breakfast cereals and you made a tricky because you didn’t just, you know, have like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms like I think most of us understand that those are probably not great choices. You gave us a choice between shredded wheat, special K fruit and yogurt cereal, Nature valley oats and honey protein, granola and fiber. One original bran breakfast cereal. That sounds like you’ve come home from college and your middle aged parents have ruined the pantry. All of them. But in fact, one of them is okay. And the other three are ultra processed.
Jancee Dunn [00:18:36] Yes. How about that? And I’ve been hearing from so many people, both readers and people that I know, that it was the Nature Valley granola. I mean, that really threw them. They could not believe that that was ultra processed. And again, it doesn’t we are not saying ultra processed equals evil. It’s not that at all. It’s just a way to kind of check your own assumptions that you make when you see something in it. Again, if we could just pick apart those words, right? Nature valley, granola, you know, there’s protein and and even the word protein, you think, that must be good, that must be healthy for me. But then often, you know, when manufacturers add protein to certain foods, it’s ultra processed ingredients, sometimes several of them.
Krys Boyd [00:19:26] And things that are no doubt sold to us as healthy choices are often ups, like many vegan meat substitutes ultra processed.
Jancee Dunn [00:19:39] Yes. How about that? And and again, you know, this is again why nutrition is so complicated, because undoubtedly it’s it’s better for the planet and maybe it’s better for your long term, your long term health to have something vegetarian rather than meat. However, as we put in this quiz, there was one meat. There was a one plant based meat that had I don’t even know how many ingredients that made it ultra processed, but it was it was quite a few. And so you think about it like, you know, they use thickeners things to bulk something up. Well, what are they using in order to do this? How do they change the texture so radically? How do they enhance it? Often it’s with these ingredients.
Krys Boyd [00:20:25] It doesn’t always have to be impossible to have anything convenient. So you have in this day, one quiz frozen pizzas. There is a frozen pizza on the list that does not qualify as ultra processed. How would we go about finding something like that if we don’t, say, shop in a specialty grocery store?
Jancee Dunn [00:20:40] There’s a database that we found very helpful and it’s called True Food, and that was developed by a team of scientists at different universities, and it has over 50,000 foods in it. And there are really common things that you find at the grocery store. And they once you, you know, you can plug in the name of their food and then it will immediately tell you what ingredients make it ultra processed and it’ll point you towards similar products that are less processed if you want to make that choice. And I found that very helpful. And there’s other websites too. The Environmental Working Group has one. If you want to just do it from the comfort of your own home and just get an idea of what’s out there and what these foods contain, you know, that’s another helpful source.
Krys Boyd [00:21:32] So I actually lost a lot of time on the true Food database after reading your series. And I found it so interesting because even foods in the same category sold by the same company can vary. So I eat protein bars most days for breakfast. Maybe I’m reconsidering that now, but I was surprised to see the brand pure protein come in at a relatively low score for one flavor, meaning less processed for another flavor. It was like four times the amount of processed ingredients. And this is just literally the difference between, I think, chocolate chip and caramel or something.
Jancee Dunn [00:22:10] Exactly. So if you can if you’re okay with making that tradeoff, then it’s good information to have. When I was again, when I was food shopping with Dr. Nestle. I love this particular snack food. It’s called pop corners. And I said, this is my favorite one. And it was it was white cheddar pop corners. And I always dreaded she would she would grab something from me to sort of scrutinize the label. And if she said, dear, then I knew that it was ultra processed. And I said, okay, what’s wrong with that? And she identified an ingredient there that was ultra processed. And then she said, Well, hang on. And she sort of started rummaging around in the pop corners section and she found some chips that had four ingredients that you could recognize. I mean, that’s always the criteria, right? Like, can you recognize them? And it was like, I think corn, sugar, salt and oil. And that was for the kettle corn flavor. And so that was not ultra processed. And I thought, okay, it’s not that much of a hardship to, you know, some some would argue, but I was okay with switching over from chip from white cheddar cheese to kettle corn. I was fine with that. And if you can do that, it’s worth considering.
Krys Boyd [00:23:25] I have to say, you know, war correspondents are very brave. It is also a brave thing for a journalist to go food shopping with Dr. Marion Nestle.
Jancee Dunn [00:23:32] Yeah, it really was. She was we did we went to three different places because we also wanted to challenge her and she was up for the challenge. And she’s 88 years old. And at the end of the day, I was worn out. And she was not. She was lightly skipping up the steps of the train to go back to New York, where she was going to edit two books that she’s working on. And I thought, you know what I mean? She is like the perfect example of living well and what it can do for you, like, like ramrod straight posture. And but I mean, she’s a purist. She doesn’t eat anything artificial. The day before she came to meet me, she had been making her own grape juice with the Concord grapes that she picked. So, you know, she’s she’s definitely walking the talk. But yes, it was it was definitely daunting because I, I went through every single aisle of the grocery store with her and I said, this is what I usually buy. And this is, you know, and she would just kind of shake her head sometimes. And but but it was, you know, now I go to the grocery store with a with knowledge. Like I feel very empowered. So it was worth exposing myself to her. Yes. And so then we went to the grocery store, but also to a convenience store and to a gas station. And I said, can you can you just find five things in here that are not ultra processed that, you know, people can grab when they’re on the go? And in the commune story there for over an hour before she can find things. Wow.
Krys Boyd [00:25:07] We could probably do a whole show about flavored yogurt. Yogurt itself, you know, is healthy. How do some products in this category end up ultra processed and and others are made okay.
Jancee Dunn [00:25:21] Well when when artificial colors are added and flavors and thickeners that change the texture or that make it more smooth, then it can be ultra processed again. It still has many nutrients in it that are good for you. You know, there was this long term study, 30 year study examining ultra processed foods and their effect on cardiovascular health, and they split it into ten categories of foods. And the two most harmful by a long shot were ultra processed meats, bacon, sausage, you know, and then sugary beverages such as sodas and fruit punch. But they actually found that flavored and sweetened yogurts that they were not bad for you, but actually a little bit better for you than some of the other foods that they tested. So, you know, there’s a health boost to eating them. However, you could if you wanted to get a little bit better about all your processed foods, just as many different experts said to me, just get some plain yogurt that isn’t flavored, that isn’t sweetened, that’s not ultra processed, and you could add some jam or something that’s not ultra processed or honey. Or lately what I’ve been doing because I like my flavored yogurts too. And I realized I was I mean, the one I was eating had artificial sweeteners in it, which is a dead giveaway usually that it’s ultra processed. So I’ve been trying a new thing where I take just plain Greek yogurt that’s not ultra processed. And then I add honey and some toasted nuts and a little bit of cinnamon, and I kind of pretend that it’s a baklava flavor that I’ve made up.
Krys Boyd [00:27:15] So, Jancee, most of us are eating far more UPFs than is probably good for us. We’ve grown accustomed to how these foods taste and how they feel in their mouths and how satisfied they make us. Day two of the challenge was all about helping us figure out how these products get us hooked. How can we compare the UPF versions with whole food versions of the same things, almost like your baklava yogurt versus the yogurt that was already packaged with the flavor?
Jancee Dunn [00:27:43] I came up with this exercise with this flavor scientist. Her name is Dr. Ariel Johnson, and she wrote a great book called “Flavor Rama,” and she consults with restaurants. And she’s just, as she says on her website, have flavor scientists, flavor scientists. And we had this you know, we went back and forth. Texting each other about a good sensory exercise is to compare a food in its original state and then a food in its ultra processed state. Now, of course, they’re not going to be the same, but it can give you a good idea if you use your senses about how much that food has changed, how many processing steps that it took to arrive at a Cheeto or whatever you’re eating. So in the case of me and Dr. Johnson, I brought her over a dozen foods that were in their original state and then in a process state. And then we kind of went through and used our senses to examine them. And it’s very interesting. Nobody I mean, most people, anyway, don’t kind of mindfully eat Cheetos, right? You just sort of shovel them in as you’re, you know, doing whatever you’re doing. And I had never thought to look at a Cheeto. Break it open, touch it, smell it. And what does it actually smell like? You know, we did that with Pringles, too. I smelled a Pringle. I’ve eaten Pringles, but I’ve never taken a deep sniff and a flavor scientist, you know? So the sense of smell is so important to taste. I was imitating her, and she would. She would huff this Pringle like, so I did, too, because I thought, well, what is she doing? You know? And it smelled. It didn’t smell like very much. And she said, Yeah, I’m not getting anything. And and I said, Yeah, it smells a little like, like wallpaper paste, like it wasn’t anything that you could recognize. And so going through and examining these sorts of foods with your senses and then comparing them with the original source was really enlightening. And we originally I thought, this will be kind of fun, but it really changed the way that I approach a lot of ultra processed foods. I remember there were these peanut butter balls. They were made into balls. They’re called P.B. Bites. And then I had her compare it with some peanut butter that was that had two ingredients peanuts and salt. And, you know, she uses kind of beautiful language to describe food. And she would say, okay. And she would eat a little bit of the the unprocessed or minimally processed peanut butter. And she would say. This is an earthy, deep, rich peanut smell. And then she’d have a bite of these P.B. bites, and she would say, I’m getting I don’t know. It’s sort of like a she. She couldn’t she couldn’t even come up with any language for it, like it wasn’t peanut. And so when you, you know, she when she’s training tasters, she has them go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Like in our case, we did a chunk of cheddar cheese and a Cheeto. And smell back and forth, back and forth. And the more you do that, the more that it becomes kind of clear how different they are.
Krys Boyd [00:30:59] This is really interesting. The look of foods gets us to this question of artificial coloring added to a lot of UPFs. Is there any purpose to food dyes beyond making things attractive to put in our mouths?
Jancee Dunn [00:31:15] I mean, you know, even when I did this exercise with the flavor scientist, she said to me, Notice where your eye is going. And when we were when we had an ultra processed food that was kind of brighter than the original food, your eye goes to it. You can’t help it. So, yes, visual appeal is so important. And. And often you know, when these I should say, sometimes when these foods are processed, like some of the color is taken out of them and then they’re kind of bland looking. So. But yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about when I go to the grocery store now, certain colors that aren’t in nature or certain flavors that even like blue raspberry. What? I don’t know what that is. Right. What is it? You know, and and even one scientist was telling me that certain foods that are entirely that have been created, they’re entirely ultra processed, that that didn’t exist in any way before, that they’re just in their very own category. So I thought that was interesting, too. But yes, there’s I mean, there’s plenty of emerging research about about food dyes and what they’re doing to, you know, kids and their attention spans and all kinds of things. So, yeah, that’s that’s I mean, as I might have mentioned before, one of the a quick if you want a quick indication that something is probably ultra processed. It is food dyes.
Krys Boyd [00:32:55] And to be really clear, scientists are working to try and tease out which of the different ingredients that go into ultra processed foods might be entirely benign and which might indeed cause problems. The reason this is hard and this has taken a long time and likely will take a long time is that, you know, studying people’s eating habits over the course of decades or a lifetime and then trying to tease out which particular chemicals might have effects. That’s challenging.
Jancee Dunn [00:33:25] Yes, of course. I mean, you know, this research by Kevin Hall at the NIH, he had this really groundbreaking study in 2019 where he monitored people for a month on both ultra processed diets and on a minimally and unprocessed diets. And it was only 20 people. And most of these sorts of studies, it’s people reporting on what they’ve been eating. But to really, you know, monitor in a controlled setting, what people are eating is a different story. Yes. And so it is tricky.
Krys Boyd [00:34:05] So I will be real with you. I am a great lover of a flavor, chip of any kind, and one of my resolutions in the new Year is to stay away from these flavored chips. They really do taste good. I mean, I share you you share a guilty passion for snacks covered in that nuclear orange cheese dust? I love it, too. I would probably buy a canister of it if I could. Cheetos has marketed their product based on the Cheeto Fingers phenomenon. What can we do to get something akin to that burst of flavor without consuming like a high school lab’s worth of unpronounceable chemicals?
Jancee Dunn [00:34:43] Well, on day five, you know, through this challenge, we really wanted to make it, you know, small changes that you can make. We were absolutely not saying overhaul your diet. It’s not realistic and it’s not possible for people. And so we were just doing we were just proposing small tweaks. So one thing one expert told us that a good way that you can sort of modify your diet a little bit is that you can just, you know, for breakfast, add, you know, one piece of produce, like a piece of fruit, an apple or, you know, lunch. Like if you’re having something ultra processed, then have some vegetables alongside of it, something that can just, you know, reacquaint you with the feeling of produce and in your mouth the textures of it, the crispiness, and that the foods can taste good. I think there’s you know, we worked really hard to try to make sure that there’s a way to do this realistically. So some researchers would say if 85% of your food is stereotypically healthy, then go nuts with the other 15%. You know, that’s a good goal to try for if you can at least round out, you know, if you have an ultra processed, you know, entree and you can add some produce to it. That’s what we say in the last day. Then then you’re doing all right. Just think about balance rather than, you know, one individual thing that you’re eating like your beloved chips. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Krys Boyd [00:36:27] And there are also these little what do you call them, flavor dusts that we can put together.
Jancee Dunn [00:36:35] Yes. We were thinking about how so many nutritionists will tell you have a handful of almonds, you know, if you’re feeling, you know, peckish in the afternoon. And there’s just something about that sad handful of almonds and there is no shade to anyone who enjoys their handful of almonds. But I just felt like, you know, you’re just like eating that handful of almonds from your plastic bag and you’re just there’s just something kind of, I don’t know, I felt like it was a little depressing. So like when we were meeting about it, we had I can’t even tell you how many meetings about this challenge. And I said, can’t we kind of judge up some Whole Foods that, you know, are healthy for you? Just with spices, Can we get creative? And so that’s how we came up with flavored us like, you know, nuts are good for you. Popcorn is 100% whole grain. What can we put on them that would just make it a little more exciting and make you, you know, kind of trick your brain into thinking, this is kind of like having my chips, you know? And so we had three different chefs come up with a flavor dust. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun to try out at home.
Krys Boyd [00:37:48] And these are basically just the spices that we can recognize in some cases, a little bit of salt. They add a kick of flavor, but they don’t have all the crazy stuff that we’ve never heard of.
Jancee Dunn [00:37:59] Exactly. And you’ll feel good after you’ve eaten. And then we also include links for snacks. If something sweet in the afternoon in particular is your thing. We have links to recipes that provide, you know, a little sweet kick, but there are Whole foods and they’re good for you and they’re easy to prepare. So we did that as well.
Krys Boyd [00:38:21] We should note, just so that everyone understands the fact that a food is not ultra processed doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best choice either. I mean, it is. This is all pretty nuanced, right? I mean, you know, you mentioned the kettle corn. I’m sure Marion Nestle would allow you to have a few bites of that but didn’t want you to make that a mainstay of your diet, even if it’s not ultra processed.
Jancee Dunn [00:38:43] Right. Exactly. And Dr. Kevin Hall, the scientist that conducted the groundbreaking study about ultra processed foods in 2019. When I was talking to him, he said, I don’t believe that all ultra processed foods are unhealthy and I stand by that. And he also said just because grandma made it doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. And I can tell you, my grandma was from Alabama and she fried everything she could possibly fry in bacon grease. So, you know, Is that healthy? No. So not all ultra processed foods are unhealthy, and not all foods that would be minimally processed certainly are healthy. And it’s just, again, about balance. We do not want to alarm anyone, but this is a different way to look at foods. And again, because of these health associations that that researchers are finding it’s worth paying attention to. You know, they are pretty much in agreement that even though they don’t know what is causing these associations, it’s probably good for your health to cut down on ultra processed foods.
Krys Boyd [00:39:52] I have been reading up on this stuff for a while in anticipation of this conversation. Jancee, I don’t think this was in your piece, but I imagine you’re familiar with the research, this idea of like the hyper palatable, ultra processed foods. It makes certain sense that we would want to eat more of those. It turns out when people are like given a choice, like they can eat as much as they want from this prescribed diet, people eat more of these ultra processed foods, even if they’re also given unlimited access to healthier foods. It’s not that they don’t like those healthier foods, but like there seems to be something in these updates that makes us keep going.
Jancee Dunn [00:40:30] Yes, that’s the the Kevin Hall study that I was talking about is that people ate on average when it was ultra processed foods. They ate 500 extra calories a day. They didn’t you know, they were doing it. They did not even know they were doing it. Yep.
Krys Boyd [00:40:46] So I appreciated that in the piece. You really do meet us where we are and I feel like nothing in the series is judgy. I appreciate your candor and saying there are certain things you’re still going to eat. Do we run the risk of of turning this into another thing by which people look askance at the choices of other people? Like, how can we just sort of get into this to make good choices without becoming obsessed over absolutely every bite?
Jancee Dunn [00:41:17] I mean, that’s the big question, isn’t it? And we we talked a lot about that because, again, there’s something about food choices, right, that really can get people whipped up. We see it in the comments like there’s you know, it’s really personal and it’s informed by so many different things, how you were raised. You know, there’s there’s cultural differences and it gets into class and money and and access. You know, some people live in food deserts. And we were we were very mindful of that, too. That, you know, it’s all well and good to say, cook from scratch and you know, go pick lettuce from your backyard and prepare it, you know. We didn’t want to be like that. And so, yes, there is that risk, right? That it could be something that alarms people and something that can make them that just enters the discourse and kind of this in a rancorous way that we certainly did not want. It’s a concern. And that’s kind of all I can say is it’s a that is the question. I don’t know how to answer it. It’s the research is evolving and concern is growing. And I don’t know how this is all going to play out.
Krys Boyd [00:42:34] Do you have any thoughts for us when we eat out? I mean, time was when people ate out seldom enough that it probably wasn’t a big deal if wherever they went was not particularly wholesome. Lots of Americans now have multiple meals from restaurants every week.
Jancee Dunn [00:42:49] I hesitate in giving specific advice like that because. There are so many factors that go into choosing your food, right? And so I would just reiterate that it’s about balance as much as you can. You know, it’s it’s it’s really hard to identify some ultra processed foods. It’s easier to identify those that are minimally processed. So, you know, the old advice of try to limit going out to eat fast food. You know if you go twice a week, try once a week for the new year or start don’t shop in the grocery store when you’re hungry. That age old advice is actually true. And it’s been true for me. Shop the perimeter of your grocery store where a lot of Whole Foods and minimally processed foods are sold and to kind of really as much as you can, even though you’ve probably you might not have eaten ultra processed food in a mindful way. Try it and just think about it for a minute. And, you know, and maybe it’s really delicious and you love it and there’s there’s you won’t have any change, but it’s worth just taking that moment to agree labels be eat a little more mindfully if you can and just make sure you’re really enjoying that ultra processed food and see if you can rather than, you know, homing in on one meal or one sort of snack to balance out what you’re eating and just add produce and other things that are maybe better for your health to balance it out.
Krys Boyd [00:44:32] When I mentioned at the top that everybody seems to be covering this issue now, it wasn’t meant as a dig at The Times or any other news publication that is covering this. We’re starting to understand it better and it’s important that the information get out there. I do wonder, though, Jancee, if you think consumer demand will have an effect on the kinds of packaged goods that food companies make available for sale.
Jancee Dunn [00:44:56] I mean, that’s the dream. It seems like this just as you said, this concern keeps growing and growing and growing. And, you know, if these companies can innovate to make these packaged foods that are so, you know, enticing, then they can maybe pour some money and research into making foods that are a little healthier for us that are also enticing and they seem to have the ability.
Krys Boyd [00:45:25] Jancee Dunn is well columnist for The New York Times, where you can now read the entire series focused on ultra processed foods. It’s called “The Well Challenge: Five Days to Happier, Healthier Eating.” Jancee, thank you for making time to talk about all this.
Jancee Dunn [00:45:39] My pleasure.
Krys Boyd [00:45:40] Think is distributed by PRX, the public radio exchange. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and any place you like to get podcasts. Our website is think.kera.org. Again, I’m Krys Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
