The key ideas

Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food... and Why Can't We Stop?

Chris van Tulleken, 2023

Why doesn't shop-bought ice cream melt in the sun, and why does a box of cereal vanish in a single morning? Doctor Chris van Tulleken spent a month eating the way many British children and teenagers eat, and worked out how food made in factories is put together. The book explains why the body can't cope with this kind of food and why willpower is not the issue.

Who it is for

For anyone who can't stop in time once they start on crisps or cereal and blames themselves for it. And for everyone who wants to understand what is really in their supermarket basket and why the advice “eat less, move more” works so poorly.

If you feel like you might want to quit UPF, don't. Eat along.

Ice cream that doesn't melt

A hot autumn day in a London park. Three-year-old Lyra hands her father an almost untouched pistachio ice cream and runs off to the swings. The tub is already warm, yet the scoop inside is still holding its shape. Her father tastes it: warm foam, something like jelly. In the ingredients he finds stabilizers, an emulsifier, glucose and several kinds of oil.

Lyra's father, Chris van Tulleken, is an infectious diseases doctor. That month he was running an experiment on himself: eating so that eighty percent of his calories came from ultra-processed food. That is the name for products assembled in a factory from modified starches, oils and proteins, with additives. The author's rule is simple: if a product is wrapped in plastic and contains at least one ingredient you wouldn't usually find in a home kitchen, it is ultra-processed food.

In the UK and the US, such food provides on average about sixty percent of calories. The author believes that this food, not weak willpower, explains why people eat more than their bodies need.

Next you'll see what a skeptical scientist's experiment showed, why appetite can't cope with this kind of food, and how to stop waging war on yourself.

A scientist set out to disprove the idea and proved it

The NOVA classification was devised in 2010 by a group led by Brazilian professor Carlos Monteiro. It divides food by how and why it has been processed. American physicist and nutrition researcher Kevin Hall thought this was nonsense: all that matters is sugar, salt, fat and fiber. And he set up an experiment to prove it.

Twenty volunteers lived at a research center for four weeks. For two weeks they ate ultra-processed food, and for two more weeks they ate whole foods. The diets were matched for sugar, salt, fat and fiber, and people could eat as much as they wanted. They liked both diets equally. But on the factory food they ate about five hundred calories a day more and gained weight, while on the other diet they even lost a little.

This is one small study, but not the only one. Large observational studies link this kind of food to early death, heart disease and depression, even after adjusting for sugar, salt and fat. These are associations, not proven causes. The classification has its critics, and some of them, as the author notes, have ties to food companies.

What does this mean in the shop? The colored labels on the packaging tell you about the composition but say nothing about how the product was made.

Read in Livria

About the author

Chris van Tulleken is a British infectious diseases doctor at London's Hospital for Tropical Diseases and an associate professor at University College London, where he earned his PhD in molecular virology. He works with UNICEF and the WHO on child nutrition and presents popular science programs on the BBC.

All books by this author: Chris van Tulleken

Terms from the book

  • Smith
  • Hall
  • Insulin
  • Lyra: The author's elder daughter. In the book she is three years old, and many of the scenes involving food feature her.
  • Emulsifier: A substance that binds fat and water so they don't separate. In a home kitchen egg yolk plays this role; factories often use synthetic emulsifiers.
  • Ultra-processed food: Products assembled from industrially modified starches, oils and proteins, with additives not found in a home kitchen. It is the fourth group of the NOVA classification.
  • NOVA: A classification of food by the extent and purpose of processing, proposed in 2010 by a group of Brazilian scientists. It has four groups, from unprocessed foods to ultra-processed ones.
  • Monteiro: Carlos Monteiro, a Brazilian doctor and professor of nutrition in São Paulo. His group created the NOVA classification and the concept of ultra-processed food.
  • Leptin: A hormone produced by fat tissue. It tells the brain how much fat the body has stored and helps regulate appetite.
  • Pontzer: Herman Pontzer, an American evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University. He studied how much energy hunter-gatherers and city dwellers burn in a day.
  • Xand: Xand van Tulleken, the author's twin brother, also a doctor and TV presenter.
  • Food swamp: An image from the book: a place where fresh food is available but drowns among fast-food outlets and their advertising.
  • Llewellyn: Clare Llewellyn, a British researcher at University College London. She uses twins to study how genes and environment affect eating behavior and weight.
  • Cant: Alasdair Cant, a British behavior change specialist. He trains social workers and police officers to help vulnerable families.
  • Fardet: Anthony Fardet, a French nutrition researcher at the University of Clermont Auvergne. He studies the physical structure of food.
  • Food matrix: The physical structure of a food: how the fiber, cells and juice are arranged inside it. Digestion breaks it down gradually.
  • Glutamate: A substance with an umami taste, a rich, savory, meaty flavor. In nature it is found in cheese, tomatoes and broth; in factory food it is added as a flavor enhancer.
  • Pringles: A brand of crisps made not from slices of potato but from a dough based on potato flakes.
  • Sella: Andrea Sella, an Italian professor of chemistry at University College London and a friend of the author's.
  • Sweeteners: Substances that give a sweet taste with almost no calories, such as sucralose and saccharin.
  • Rauber: Fernanda Rauber, a Brazilian nutrition researcher in Carlos Monteiro's group.
  • Gearhardt: Ashley Gearhardt, an American psychologist at the University of Michigan. She studies the similarities between cravings for certain foods and addiction to substances.

All terms

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