Why we can't stop eating ultra-processed foods
Around the world, the risks of developing diet-related health issues such as Type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease are rapidly rising.
"We're in the middle of a food crisis, but we can't stop eating," says British-Canadian medical doctor Chris van Tulleken in the documentary Foodspiracy.
While it can feel like the only way to make things better is for individuals to eat "healthier" — whatever that means — van Tulleken has a refreshing perspective: it's not our fault.
In the documentary from The Nature of Things, co-hosts Sarika Cullis-Suzuki and Anthony Morgan dive into the world of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and explore how giant corporations have worked to sell us products that seem to prioritize profits over health.
"The evidence is increasingly clear that pre-prepared, packaged, highly processed food is linked to weight gain and obesity, some cancers, dementia, Type 2 diabetes and early death from all causes," van Tulleken says.
What are ultra-processed foods?
Humans have been processing foods through curing, fermenting and drying throughout history, but the concept of "ultra"-processed foods is relatively new. Ultra-processing is when a food goes through multiple industrial steps; think foods like mass-produced bread, ice cream, breakfast cereal and instant soups.
"If you look at an ingredients list and there is at least one ingredient on there that you don't typically find in a domestic kitchen, then it's almost certainly an ultra-processed food," van Tulleken says.
UPFs are usually cheap and convenient. They've also been engineered to be, quite literally, irresistible by corporations with access to teams of scientists and cutting-edge technology.
According to industry insiders in Foodspiracy, food manufacturing companies use a variety of elaborate techniques to keep us addicted to unhealthy food.
"Companies spend a lot of time optimizing all aspects of a product: the taste, the flavour, the texture," says John Ruff, former executive with Kraft General Foods. "But what's happened is that palatability has been turned into, well, it's too good. It's addictive. It's too tasty."
And when food is too tasty, people tend to eat too much of it. A 2019 study by the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. found that participants on a diet of ultra-processed foods ate about 500 more calories per day compared to those on a minimally processed diet, even when calories, carbohydrates, sugars, fat and fibre of the meals were matched.
People eating more means they're buying more, which means higher profits for food companies. Here are some of the ways they make their products so irresistible.
Flavours created with scientific precision
If a food is slightly too sweet, salty or fatty, people won't want to eat as much of it.
But experts say that when all of the flavours are tweaked with scientific precision — where the taste is perceived as just right by the consumer — it becomes nearly impossible to stop eating. In the food industry, this is known as the "bliss point."
Companies use all kinds of techniques to determine how consumers react to flavour. Neuroscientist Francis McGlone introduced brain scanning to Unilever in 1994.
"One study that we did was feeding people in one of these brain scanners different types of ice cream," he says in Foodspiracy. "And what we found in this area right at the front of the brain here, [which] is called the orbitofrontal cortex, and it's a reward system area … it was glowing like a furnace."
McGlone says brain scanning has grown as a way to predict which product is going to be successful — and which isn't.
"There are teams of geniuses employed by some of the biggest companies on Earth, designing food that is irresistible and incredibly hard to stop eating," van Tulleken says.
Our brains don't recognize that we've eaten
When it comes to texture, many ultra-processed foods are also unnaturally soft, so we chew them less. They seem to instantly vanish, bypassing the body's normal mechanisms of telling us when we're full.
"The theory is because you're expecting protein that never arrives, you kind of reach for the next chip or the next forkful of noodles because you're going, 'Well, where? Why? Why didn't I get the nutrients?'" says van Tulleken.
As a result, we eat — and buy — way more than we should, simply because our bodies don't understand how much we've actually eaten. This is called "vanishing caloric density."
"There's an opportunity there for some kind of scurrilous behaviour in making food softer so that people will eat more and therefore you sell more of your product," says McGlone.
'Eating is multi-sensory experience'
It's not just the taste and texture of ultra-processed foods that leave you wanting more: it's everything.
"It has all been engineered to get you to eat more," says van Tulleken. "From the pictures on the boxes, all the way through to the mouthfeel, the way it cuts … the viscosity. There's the ad, the jingle, the cartoon characters. All of it is ultra-processing."
Even sound is considered. Most of us instantly recognize the satisfying hiss and click of opening a can of soda or the "snap, crackle and pop" of a breakfast cereal.
These audible cues are no accident. Welcome to the world of "sonic branding," where sounds are carefully considered to take the pleasure of eating to the highest levels possible.
"Eating is a multi-sensory experience," says food industry consultant Barry Smith in the documentary. "Sound engineers and manufacturers work really hard to get that sound just right."
Companies want you to buy more food for the 'in-between' moments
Corporations are all vying for a piece of our culinary attention.
"There are hours in the day in between breakfast, lunch and dinner. What happens between those hours? They want us to snack," says UPF expert Yanaina Chavez-Ugalde.
Companies work hard to entice us into buying more food for the in-between moments, like "healthy" post-workout protein bars or chips to eat while watching TV after dinner. All those ultra-processed snacks mean we're buying more at the grocery store.
According to Foodspiracy, more than half of Canadians' calories come from foods that are ultra-processed.
So the next time you can't stop eating something, remember that every element, from the taste to the packaging, has been perfected to get you to take the next bite.
For more information on ultra-processed foods, how they affect our health and what we can do about it, watch Foodspiracy on CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube channel..
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