This chapter discusses the various negative health effects of consuming ultra-processed foods, including weight gain, obesity, inflammatory diseases, metabolic diseases, cardiovascular disease, mental health problems, cancer, dementia, and early death. It highlights the high percentage of calories consumed from ultra-processed foods and the correlation between these foods and health issues such as obesity and stunting.
Ultra-processed food makes up 60 percent of the American diet. Though to call it food is a stretch. Because it is not, strictly speaking, food at all. It is an industrially produced edible substance. And it’s killing us. That is the nauseating conclusion Chris van Tulleken reaches in his new book, “Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food.” Today, he explains how big businesses have corrupted our diets and what we can do to stop them from causing further harm.