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my guest is an expert on a topic

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I think is of particular interest to those

1:01

of us in midlife. Our

1:03

special subject today is ultra-processed

1:05

food, aka UPF. Sexy, I

1:07

know. But UPFs are being talked

1:09

about more and more. And when you

1:11

start to look around in the supermarket,

1:14

you realise they are absolutely everywhere. So

1:16

what are they? What are they doing

1:18

to our bodies? And why are they

1:20

so prevalent in modern diets? These are

1:22

all questions I'm hoping that Dr. Chris

1:24

Van Tulliken will answer for us. Chris's

1:26

latest book, Ultra-Processed People, Why Do We

1:28

All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food and

1:30

Why Can't We Stop, is already a

1:33

bestseller. As well as an author, Chris

1:35

is an infectious diseases doctor, has a

1:37

PhD in molecular virology from University

1:39

College London, where he's also an associate

1:41

professor, and is one of

1:43

the BBC's leading science presenters, having

1:46

made countless programmes for children and

1:48

adults, including The Doctor Who Gave

1:50

Up Drugs and Operation Ouch. Alongside

1:52

his twin brother, Zand, he also

1:54

presents a thorough examination for BBC

1:56

Radio 4. Today, we're going to find

1:59

out what prompted him to explore this particular

2:01

element of food science, what he learned

2:03

and how we can avoid UPS in

2:05

our busy everyday lives. I'll also be

2:07

asking him some of the questions you

2:09

very kindly sent in via Instagram. We've

2:11

got a lot to get through. So let's get going. Chris

2:19

thank you so much for coming on

2:21

The Midpoint. Such a pleasure. In

2:23

your introduction I've kind of done a

2:25

little description of UPS but what

2:28

I want you to talk about is why you

2:30

became interested in them and the moment with the

2:32

ice cream. If you could just tell us

2:34

about with your daughter when you started to work

2:36

out that the ice cream wasn't melting. It's a

2:38

bit of a journey from infection to nutrition

2:40

but when I was a young doctor I worked

2:43

in very low income settings in Central African Republic

2:45

in South Asia and Pakistan and I

2:47

saw a lot of kids very ill or

2:50

dying because of the aggressive marketing of baby

2:52

food that their parents had to make up

2:54

with dirty water. Their parents couldn't afford it

2:56

so they would dilute it and

2:58

it didn't matter how many antibiotics we had you

3:00

can't save a child that's just drinking you know

3:02

sewage water mixed with baby food and

3:05

the same companies that were doing that I said the

3:07

same companies that are selling baby food in the UK

3:09

they sell us our grown-up food they sell food all

3:11

around the world they're very large transnational companies. So

3:13

I suppose my research moved from

3:15

infectious diseases and virology into studying

3:17

how what we call the commercial

3:19

determinants about how big

3:22

corporations food alcohol tobacco farmer tech

3:24

how they affect you and

3:27

then one day so I was

3:29

in the park with Lyra who's my eldest

3:31

and I guess at the time she was

3:33

about three and we got her this very

3:36

fancy artisanal pistachio ice cream

3:39

and so in your brain you think this is

3:41

like three pounds of scoop or something and so she had it in a

3:43

little cardboard tub and she was just chatting

3:50

with her friends and handed it to me to go on the

3:52

swings and the ball was still there she'd had a few scoops

3:54

but it was still a perfect ball and it was a hot

3:56

day it was quite early in the year but still hot

3:58

and it just hadn't melted And it was

4:00

a warm foam. And so that

4:03

sparked really me to start

4:05

looking into why does ice cream not melt?

4:07

And I spoke to an incredible guy, Paul Hart, who's a

4:09

big character in the book. And he died a few

4:12

months ago, but he became a good friend. And

4:14

he'd been an ice cream scientist at Unilever. He was

4:16

a biochemist. And he said the project

4:18

for ice cream companies all over the world is to

4:20

get ice cream. They don't need to freeze at all,

4:23

just to have foams that can be cooled

4:25

down at home or in a shop at the last minute.

4:27

Cause that would save them huge amounts of money. And they

4:29

haven't quite got there yet. But what we have

4:31

is these ice creams. And this is almost

4:33

all the ice cream you buy. We'll have

4:35

stabilizers, gums, and emulsifiers in it that

4:37

mean that in the drive home from

4:40

freezer in the supermarket

4:42

to sell for the transporters all over the country,

4:44

it stays exactly the same.

4:46

The ice crystals don't form. And when

4:49

you first read that, the kind of immediate alarm bell goes,

4:51

well, I'm never gonna be ice cream again. And I'm gonna,

4:53

yeah, exactly. But you got kicked. I'm

4:55

only gonna have it when it's kind of from

4:57

somebody that's made it locally and after that ice

4:59

cream. But of course all these

5:01

things become very practical, don't they? And a

5:04

lot of UPS history, I guess, is down

5:06

to practicality. A hundred percent. So

5:08

industrialized food was a big part

5:10

of helping women enter the workplace.

5:12

So one of the critiques that's

5:14

leveled at me by food industry

5:17

commentators is I want everyone

5:19

to start home cooking and that's gonna shove

5:21

a burden onto, you know, it's typically shoved

5:23

onto mums and women to do that. Of

5:25

course I don't want that. There's no opinion

5:27

about what anyone should eat at all. I

5:29

think in the whole book there is no advice. What

5:32

there is is information. How people use that is

5:34

very specific to them. The reality

5:36

of the food system in the UK is that

5:38

ultra-precious food is the only affordable, available food for

5:40

many people. If you, you know,

5:42

my colleagues in the hospital, many of them are

5:45

on night shifts. They're not on big incomes and

5:47

they've seen a real-time deflation in their wages. And

5:50

they need to eat ultra-precious food. It's all that's available

5:52

in the hospital. They don't have any time to cook.

5:54

They're not batch cooking at home. So this

5:56

is the reality of the food system. We need to be

5:58

thinking in terms of... big system changes.

6:01

But what in everything I say, and I

6:03

hope everything I write, at the

6:05

core of it is not making life more

6:07

expensive and trying to reduce some of the

6:09

shame and stigma that people feel around food.

6:12

Let's get to why that's important because you

6:14

do talk a lot and you go into the science

6:16

and the various papers that have been done although it

6:18

seems like there's loads more to do in this area,

6:20

you know, from what you talk about that okay,

6:23

might not all be bad and we'll get onto that as well,

6:25

but why we shouldn't have a

6:27

diet that is dominated by ultra

6:30

processed foods and what you've learned

6:32

about how that's affecting us as a

6:34

human race. So

6:37

the science is pretty clear, you know in

6:39

the UK we're dragging our heels and saying

6:41

there's more work to be done. I'll tell you

6:43

what UNICEF, you have the best nutrition team of

6:45

any institution in the world virtually, they

6:48

believe the science. We've got research

6:50

groups at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cambridge,

6:52

my group at UCL, you know,

6:54

they all believe the science. We've

6:56

got governments like France, Belgium, Canada,

6:59

Israel, almost all the governments in

7:01

South and Central America, they believe the science and

7:03

are issuing warnings. The reason we don't change

7:06

the environment here is because the food

7:08

industry has very very complete control over

7:10

nutritional messaging. Now this sounds

7:12

a bit tinfoil hat, a bit conspiracy,

7:14

but let's look at the picture. So

7:16

we have our biggest food charities like

7:19

the British Nutrition Foundation. Their healthy eating

7:21

week last year was sponsored by Coca-Cola.

7:24

Now whether you believe all the evidence on ultra

7:26

processed food or not, we can all agree that

7:28

the Coca-Cola Corporation doesn't have a healthy product portfolio.

7:30

Okay, they're also sponsored by McDonald's, they have corporate

7:32

members including all the major supermarkets. So that's our

7:34

leading food charity, they advise government, they advise the

7:36

public. We've then got

7:38

the government scientific advisory committee on nutrition.

7:41

Now this is an august body that

7:43

issues very sort of robust advice. About

7:46

half of its members have declared

7:48

relationships with companies like and including

7:50

Coca-Cola. So you can't, if

7:52

you have the government nutrition committee being partly

7:54

funded by the food industry, that creates a

7:56

real risk. Then we have university departments funded

7:58

by Pepsi and Mars. So

8:01

we have an environment and then we have the

8:03

Science Media Centre who sort of helps sort out

8:05

all the science stories that go into UK Press.

8:07

They're funded by Nestle, Procter & Gamble and Food

8:09

Drink Europe. So industry has a

8:11

lot of control of the messaging and then we

8:13

have the influencers and lots

8:15

of the doctors that you see

8:18

on social media partner with companies

8:20

that make ultra-processed food. I

8:22

won't name any names but you know it's pretty easy

8:24

to find out who they are. So ultra-processed foods as

8:27

a simple definition, anything that

8:29

is removed from its natural

8:31

state or added to buy a product

8:33

that is not. It's a

8:35

formal definition. It's

8:38

not like junk food. It's not a casual word.

8:41

It's a definition housed by the United

8:43

Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It's about

8:45

nine paragraphs long but it boils down

8:47

to this. If you look on your

8:50

packet and you see an ingredient that

8:52

you don't normally find in a domestic

8:54

kitchen like Zentum gum or a stabilizer

8:56

or an emulsifier or flavourings or extracts,

8:59

it's probably an ultra-processed food. If you're reading

9:01

an ingredients list at all, it's probably ultra-processed.

9:03

If it's a food product made by

9:06

a very big transnational corporation, it's

9:08

probably ultra-processed because whether you

9:10

look at Kellogg's or Nestle or Danone or

9:12

any of the big food companies, almost all

9:15

of them, the majority of their products will

9:17

be ultra-processed because this is how you make

9:19

money. And the

9:21

reason why ultra-processed foods

9:23

are causing so many health issues?

9:26

Well, we have, first of

9:28

all, let's say, well, what's the evidence they do

9:30

cause harm? We've got very

9:33

good big epidemiological studies. So the kind

9:36

of studies that we use to link

9:38

cigarettes with lung cancer, we

9:40

now have really a very, very

9:42

large number, probably more than a

9:44

hundred of those kind of studies

9:46

linking ultra-processed foods to inflammatory bowel

9:48

disease, dementia, anxiety, depression, cancers, metabolic

9:51

disease, weight gain and obesity, and early

9:53

death from all causes. So according

9:56

to World Health Organization data

9:58

and Lancet data... poor diet

10:01

has overtaken tobacco as the world's leading cause of

10:03

early death. So we're in a real crisis and

10:05

the UK has some of the worst rates in

10:07

the world. So that

10:09

kind of big population data is very robust. We're

10:11

sure this food is causing harm and we've got

10:14

studies on animals and small studies on humans where

10:17

we can point at emulsifiers or softness or

10:19

calorie density or high levels

10:21

of sugar, fat and salt. I mean we've got really

10:23

good evidence around them and almost all UPF has high

10:25

levels of sugar, fat and salt. So

10:28

we've got very, very good evidence it's harmful. How

10:30

does it harm us? Well it does it in a few

10:32

different ways and it depends what the thing

10:34

you're interested in is. Let's look at obesity because

10:37

that is probably responsible for more suffering

10:39

in this country at the moment than

10:41

almost any other health problem because it

10:43

leads to so many other problems. And

10:45

because people who live in larger bodies

10:47

are discriminated against by their doctors, by

10:49

their workplaces, by everyone. And now we've

10:51

got 60% of people living

10:53

with excess weight. So the

10:55

reason it drives weight gain is partly because

10:57

it's very soft. The

10:59

best example might be supermarket bread. You go

11:01

and buy a big loaf. You can squash

11:03

that loaf down to nothing. You can eat a

11:06

slice of supermarket bread really

11:08

quickly. Go and buy a loaf of

11:10

real bread. It will cost you perhaps 10 times more.

11:12

You know my local fancy bakery, a loaf of bread

11:14

is 6 pounds. But

11:17

it will take you twice as long to eat it. It will

11:19

also go stale very quickly. So

11:21

the speed with which we

11:23

consume the food means that it bypasses

11:25

all the hormones and nerve signals inside

11:28

our body that tell us when to

11:30

stop eating. So we can look

11:32

at levels of sugar and levels of salt

11:34

and flavourings and all the other ways the

11:36

food is engineered to drive excess consumption. But

11:39

the truth is any one product, whether it's

11:41

a chew bar or breakfast cereal, it's got

11:43

thousands of properties. It's got all the

11:45

nutrients and the texture and the taste. It's also got the

11:47

cartoon character on the box and the ad. Every

11:50

single property has been dialed up

11:53

to 11 by brilliant scientists working very

11:55

hard in labs over many decades so

11:57

that every single property drives out. excess

11:59

consumption. So we know that the marketing

12:01

makes kids eat more of the food.

12:03

We know that the flavouring does. We

12:05

know that the colouring of the box

12:07

changes the way the food tastes. So

12:10

you can try and deconstruct

12:12

it and we've got good evidence. But the big

12:14

picture is when I go and speak to food

12:16

company scientists and the book is full of testimony

12:19

essentially from whistleblowers, they all agree. They're

12:21

all like, no, we make

12:23

the food to drive you to eat all of

12:25

it because that's the only way we can make

12:27

money. We've got enough calories in this country. You

12:30

just have to get inside the head of being a

12:32

food company executive. If you manufactured

12:34

a product that really filled people

12:36

up and they didn't eat too much of,

12:39

would that product survive in the marketplace? Of course

12:41

it wouldn't. You have to make a product that

12:43

people want to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven

12:45

days a week and it has to have a nearly

12:48

infinite shelf life so that if it's a Christmas thing

12:50

you can make it all in January. You don't have

12:52

to make it all in the week before Christmas. The

12:55

other thing you said there in the list

12:57

of things that are going wrong with us

12:59

as a society in terms of what food

13:01

is doing to us, mental health issues and

13:04

gut health is increasingly, thankfully becoming

13:06

a more talked about and real

13:08

subject for people to understand the

13:10

gut microbiome but also how that links

13:12

to mental health. So are UPFs directly

13:15

related to that as well? Yes,

13:18

so this is food that is generally very

13:20

low in fiber and we know there's a

13:23

lot of nonsense around gut health.

13:25

What we are absolutely sure about is

13:27

eating beans, pulses, fruit and vegetables is

13:29

really good for your gut and

13:32

eating ultra processed food or even very processed

13:34

food, processed meats is pretty bad for your

13:36

gut. Beyond that what we're then

13:38

seeing in the middle is that the food

13:40

industry has very skillfully taken that knowledge about

13:42

fruit and veg and they've gone, well maybe

13:45

we could make branded products with fiber

13:47

extract in them and also add lots of

13:49

sugar but not mention that too much and make

13:51

like little shots that would be really good

13:53

for your gut. There's no

13:56

evidence at all that probiotics,

13:58

prebiotics, postbiotics, fiber extract any

14:00

of that is good for your gut. If you want to look after your

14:02

gut, eat real normal food,

14:05

cook it at home, and that's

14:07

kind of the state of the evidence. And you do

14:10

not need supplements and pills and

14:12

potions. But why? I mean, you know,

14:15

totally understand how they, how, how

14:17

is it affecting your mental health if you don't do that? So

14:20

how this food affects your mental health,

14:22

you know, we could probably talk for two hours

14:24

about all the different possible mechanisms. One of the

14:27

most important things is this microbiome that lives inside

14:29

our gut. So in terms of the cells in

14:31

your body, you probably have as many bacterial cells

14:33

as human cells. They're the biggest organ in your

14:35

immune system. And when you put

14:37

real food in your mouth and you swallow

14:39

it, the bits you can't digest get to

14:41

your colon. And the fiber, the stuff you

14:43

can't digest is eaten by the bugs there.

14:45

And they ferment it. And they turn it

14:47

into little molecules that are really important for

14:49

your brain and for controlling information and for

14:52

controlling your immune system. And for,

14:54

for generally improving the heart of almost

14:56

every organ in your body. And when

14:58

you start feeding these bugs molecules

15:00

that they don't like, or

15:02

when you start feeding them, when you start

15:04

eating a diet that promotes bugs flourishing that

15:06

shouldn't be there, do we

15:08

understand all the effects? No. Do we think it's

15:10

pretty bad for you? Yes. And we can show

15:12

with some of the additives and probably

15:15

it's also to do with the high levels of

15:17

fat, sugar, and salt, but some of the additives

15:19

we know have significant effects on the microbiome. So

15:21

the emulsifiers, emulsifiers occur in real food, like egg,

15:24

egg yolk is an emulsifier or mustard in a

15:26

salad dressing, it mixes water and oil. But

15:28

they also, is also an emulsifier. And

15:31

we think that some of the synthetic emulsifiers

15:33

in food act a bit like detergent. So

15:35

in a simple way, when you consume lots

15:37

of them, they scrub out your gut, they

15:39

thin the protective mucus, they change the bacteria.

15:41

We know that the non-nutritive sweeteners, the even

15:43

the natural artificial sweeteners, you know, the things

15:46

that taste sweet, but don't have many calories,

15:48

they seem to have very significant effects on

15:50

the microbiome as well. So effectively

15:53

good food, the pulses, the

15:55

seeds, the nuts, all the vegetables,

15:57

the legumes, they are helping

15:59

to feed the gut. You're putting good soil

16:01

in for the right plants to grow. That's

16:03

how I'd think about it. And you don't

16:05

need to be fancy about it. You don't

16:07

need to go and buy capsules and

16:10

special fibers and things. It's all in real

16:12

food. And in fact, there's some evidence that

16:14

eating fiber in the context of real food,

16:17

we know that's extremely good for you. We're

16:19

not sure that if you strip the fiber

16:21

out, you'll often see corn fiber or citrus

16:24

fiber as an additive. And it

16:26

makes a health claim. We're not really sure that

16:28

kind of fiber is particularly good for you. We

16:30

know that eating a banana, an apple, a head of

16:32

broccoli, or a can of beans is good. It'll

16:35

come up in some of the questions that we've been sent in. But

16:37

you focus a lot in the book

16:39

on diet products, or products that claim

16:41

lots of different health properties, which

16:44

I think overall, basically, your take is that

16:46

anything that says it's a diet product or

16:48

it's low in sugar or it's low in

16:50

fat is generally not a good thing. And

16:52

almost any pack with a health claim is

16:54

likely to be ultra-processed. And it's often likely

16:56

to be very high in sugar and salt

16:58

and often high in fat. I've

17:01

got a pack of Cocoa Pops at home that I

17:03

use as a prop. It has 12 health claims. Now,

17:06

it also has, above the UK

17:08

dietary recommended levels of sugar and salt,

17:10

and it is ultra-processed. And I

17:12

don't think there's anyone... How can you be allowed to

17:14

have both of those in one place? It

17:16

seems entirely illogical. So one of

17:19

the strategies that the South American

17:21

public health experts are using is they say, well, if

17:24

the food has a warning label for salt, you can't make

17:26

a health claim. I mean, that's just blindingly obvious. You can't

17:28

have food that's good and bad for you. There's

17:31

just food. Yeah, which bit am I eating of it then? Right.

17:34

And we also know that if you cook at home

17:36

that those kind of ingredients seem to be much less

17:38

harmful probably because we use much less of them. So,

17:40

yeah, a good rule is if you're eating like a

17:42

nutri bar, a

17:44

supplement, anything that's saying it's good for

17:46

you, you know, broccoli, eggs, milk, they

17:48

don't have health claims on the pack,

17:50

they're just food. Can I say

17:52

one... Because I know you're particularly interested in mental

17:55

health. There's one aspect to this food. Because

17:57

it's engineered to drive access...

18:00

much of it has become quite addictive for many people.

18:02

So there'll be lots of people listening to this who

18:04

feel a little bit out of control with this food.

18:06

And I'm certainly one of those people. And

18:09

the idea of addiction has been controversial, but

18:11

addiction is quite simple. It's can you stop

18:13

using a substance or a product even

18:16

when you try and quit it and

18:18

you know it's doing you harm, physical,

18:20

social, mental harm. And so

18:22

the addictive property of the food is really

18:24

kind of taking away people's agency and being

18:26

addicted to anything is incredibly damaging to mental

18:28

health. It's very distracting, it's a big burden.

18:30

And then we know the food is also

18:32

driving weight gain, which causes mental health problems.

18:35

So there are these very direct effects of

18:37

the food, the inflammation, the microbiome on the

18:39

body, but the very

18:41

fact of us not feeling like we can

18:43

stop. Yeah, all undermining mental health. Yeah,

18:46

of course. And then your inability

18:48

to move how you want and not

18:50

exercise and not... Exactly. You just have

18:52

those positive hormones. So those hormones are really

18:54

good. And then you get constipated, you get

18:56

sleep deprived. The physical problems, they also

18:59

erode your mental health and often drive you to consume

19:01

more of the food. And in the way that smokers,

19:03

the stress of trying to quit often drives

19:06

them to smoke more cigarettes. So as the

19:08

food causes health problems, you

19:10

seek the short term solutions of the

19:12

food, of tobacco, of alcohol, of social

19:15

media, of all these other things that interact with our bodies

19:17

in the same way. The

19:28

The The

19:38

The What

19:40

was that? Boring. No

19:42

flavor. That was as bad as

19:44

those leftovers you ate all week.

19:46

Kiki Palmer here. And it's time

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to say hello to something fresh

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and guilt-free. Hello, fresh. Jazz up

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19:59

Let's Let's get this dinner party started.

20:02

Discover all the delicious possibilities at

20:04

hellofresh.com. Okay, let's

20:15

crack

20:25

on with some questions. And

20:28

this has occurred in a few different guys'

20:30

questions. Angie says, how do I

20:32

convince my family that eating ultra-processed food

20:34

is not good for them? I

20:38

have 18-year-old twins. I know you love a

20:40

human experiment. And you talk about my

20:42

twins. I want

20:44

to get your belly. Because they

20:46

have such totally different attitudes

20:49

towards food, right? And I totally appreciate

20:51

this. It doesn't matter what I say. The

20:53

messages seem to go into my daughter, and she kind

20:55

of buys it, and she eats what we all

20:58

eat. But away from home,

21:00

my son is not buying into what I'm

21:02

saying, right? So I'm not able to influence

21:04

the fact that ultra-processed food is definitely still

21:06

a big part of his life. And

21:09

a lot of people are talking about teenagers in the

21:11

questions that have come in. And it's so frustrating when

21:13

you want to help them, and you know life will

21:15

be better for you. I

21:20

would love some advice from your

21:22

listeners, because I have a six-year-old, a

21:24

three-year-old, and a two-month-old. So

21:27

I still have some control over what

21:29

they eat. My approach is

21:32

– there are two things. First of all,

21:34

even with a six-year-old, I don't control everything. I

21:36

don't control these. Well, when they go to parties

21:39

and things, you can't. And what's very important, I

21:41

think, is food binds us to

21:43

the people around us. I don't want them being weird. I

21:45

want them to have normal friendships, and sharing food is

21:47

important. So they can eat whatever they want when they go

21:49

to a party. At home, I

21:51

try and make sure – we know

21:54

that part of all of

21:56

these kind of behaviours that are harmful is opportunity.

21:58

Cigarettes, right? If you're small, you're small. smoking, they'll

22:00

probably have one too. If you're having a glass

22:02

of booze, I might join in. So making

22:05

these things unavailable helps a lot. And it actually

22:07

makes kids feel better if the food isn't around.

22:09

So in my household, look, I have not cracked

22:11

this code. We really have got rid of most

22:14

of the junk. We used to have a big

22:16

bowl of it that was kind of a way

22:18

I'd prove to journalists that I was like hip

22:20

and normal. And increasingly, just the kids

22:22

were eating chocolate bars, you know, a couple of times

22:24

a day. And there was always pudding was always from

22:26

this big blue bowl of stuff from

22:29

grandparents from parties. So we've we've got rid

22:31

of that. And actually, the kids are much

22:33

happier not endlessly talking about the big blue

22:35

bowl. We only have water and milk

22:37

for them to drink. And that's, that's kind of the

22:39

one thing is maybe the one hard line I have

22:41

is we don't have any soft drinks. That

22:44

comes from colleagues at the World Health

22:46

Organization, who just have that

22:48

as their as their form of religion

22:50

is just kids should just drink milk

22:52

and water. Other drinks are so harmful

22:55

for them completely unnecessary, completely unnecessary. So

22:57

that's the one hard line. But part

22:59

of it also is like, don't try

23:01

and persuade your kids because one

23:04

of the journeys in the book is my my

23:06

twin, I've got an identical twin. He

23:08

went and lived in the States. He was very stressed there,

23:10

he put on a huge amount of weight. And for a

23:12

decade, I nagged him, I tried to control him. And

23:15

my family, you know, I'm from a wonderfully loving family,

23:17

but we do love to get up in each other's

23:19

grills. And it was we speak to

23:21

a therapist in the book who says you have to

23:23

just let this go. And in the

23:25

end, my project as a physician

23:28

and as a broadcaster as a scientist is I

23:30

want to change the environment for everyone. I want

23:32

warning labels on the food. I want to reduce

23:34

the influence of industry. But I will

23:36

not tell people what to eat. And my

23:38

advice to any listener dealing with a teenager

23:40

is they, they're essentially a grown up and

23:42

just, you got to find their own way.

23:44

You can't be the bar and they will

23:47

kids are smart. Actually, we know from from

23:49

evidence from Chile, where they've put these warning

23:51

labels, these big black stop signs on the

23:54

food, kids ask their parents not to buy

23:56

it just as you and I probably remember

23:58

telling our parents. not to smoke.

24:00

I remember saying to my dad, you know that

24:02

isn't good for you. You know, I'd have some

24:05

lesson at school and kids, you

24:07

know, I do a kitchen on the BBC

24:09

operation ouch and the kids we speak to,

24:11

they want to be strong and well and

24:13

smart and successful and be good at sport.

24:16

But as you say, the environment, it's so

24:19

depressing when I'm driving in the morning and I see kids

24:22

13, 14 drinking huge energy cans of

24:24

energy drinks and big chocolate bars as

24:26

their breakfast. And there's no warning on

24:28

any of that. Even the environment, that's what

24:30

they're picking up at shops, right? That's just

24:33

there in front of them. It's what everybody's

24:35

doing. Those harmful products, you

24:37

don't have to believe any of the evidence

24:39

on ultra processing to agree on

24:41

fat, salt and sugar. That evidence is the

24:44

jury's in. Everyone agrees on it. Why is

24:46

there not a warning about the amount of

24:48

sugar on a can of cola? There's

24:50

a little tiny red traffic light, but there are

24:52

three green traffic lights. So that according to our

24:55

current labeling, a can of cola is

24:57

three quarters healthy. A can of

24:59

diet cola is four green traffic lights,

25:01

the healthiest thing you can buy. It's

25:03

really, what it should have is a

25:05

big light. And yes, South America is doing

25:08

this. They're doing it incredibly well. They

25:10

are pushing rocks uphill because the food,

25:12

I mean, the food industry has any

25:15

one of the big companies that make

25:17

our food. They have revenues roughly equivalent

25:20

to the GDP of a medium sized

25:22

South American country. Okay. That's how powerful

25:24

one of these companies are. So you

25:28

cannot understand their sort of political power,

25:30

but because the tragedy

25:32

there was so sudden, they had an

25:34

influx of American food and within a

25:36

generation, there was this

25:39

explosion of obesity and type 2 diabetes. And

25:41

so there was great population desire. It was

25:43

very great clarity of like, oh, it's those

25:45

products we have to put warning levels on.

25:48

UK has crept up on us. You know, we've

25:50

gradually been since the 70s. It's been 50 years

25:52

of trickling into our diet. And suddenly it's most

25:54

of what we eat. But a lot of the

25:56

products in the UK are dressed up as healthy.

25:58

And that's why on the cover. of the

26:00

book, there's a loaf of brown bread. Because

26:02

that brown bread is soft, it's incredibly energy

26:05

dense, it's got emulsifiers in it, it's got

26:07

very high levels of sugar, very high levels

26:09

of salt, and yet brown bread is

26:11

the sort of... It pretends to be good. ...bread is the

26:13

thing we all lean on as being healthy is what we

26:15

serve our kids in the morning. And New Zealand, I've just

26:17

seen, as an example, my husband was there not so long

26:19

ago, and he said it was so much that he'd go

26:21

into a store and all he could see was good stuff

26:24

because... So interesting. Yeah, the other stuff

26:26

was pushed up very, very high or very, very low. And

26:29

he said he felt like there were... And he felt he

26:31

was in, I'll say, Whole Foods, you know, which

26:33

is the kind of like, I'd say

26:35

the shop in this country that probably

26:37

has more natural products than maybe... No?

26:40

No? Okay. Well... He felt like

26:42

he was in a health store. Yeah. You

26:44

know, maybe... I mean, I go around Whole

26:47

Foods with a slightly different eyeball, but supermarkets

26:49

are more or less all the same because

26:51

they're all, with the exception of Waitrose, is

26:53

unusual because it's not owned by institutional investors,

26:55

it's employee owned. So it's a slightly... And

26:58

that, when you go in not to promote

27:00

Waitrose, you know, I have no relationships with any of

27:03

these people, but it does feel a bit different. They're

27:05

less interested in driving this kind of incredible rate of

27:07

growth that all the other supermarkets... Yeah, and let's not

27:09

even get on for like three for ones and all

27:11

that kind of stuff. Well, we know the bog offs don't

27:14

save money. No. No. So let's move to another question because

27:16

I'm going to run out of time with you, which is

27:18

annoying because there's so much more to talk to you

27:20

about. This is another one we had quite a few

27:22

questions about as well, which is to do with oils. Claire

27:25

wonders, what is your opinion on vegetable oil

27:27

and rapeseed oil? The minute you walked in,

27:29

I talked to you about oils and, you

27:31

know, should we be cooking with them? Should

27:34

we be avoiding certain oils

27:36

in certain foods? So I

27:38

would say that the best evidence shows that

27:41

the reason we're thinking the seed oils are

27:43

harmful is because they're almost all being used

27:45

in ultra processed foods. So it's very hard

27:47

to sort of disentangle that evidence statistically. What

27:50

we're very clear about, in fact, one

27:53

of the reasons the definition of ultra

27:55

processed food was created is because the

27:57

Brazilian team noticed this paradox where families

27:59

that were buying lots of oil and

28:02

sugar were healthier than families that weren't.

28:05

Now the families that weren't were still eating

28:07

the oil and sugar but they were eating

28:09

it in these new ultra-processed products. So buying

28:12

sugar, salt and oil ingredients

28:15

is a sign of good health. Now

28:17

we could go toe to toe on is it

28:20

better to have cold pressed rapeseed oil and extra

28:22

virgin olive oil and are they better than just

28:24

plain old vegetable oil? I'd

28:26

say that's that's some killed in

28:28

the lily if you like. If you

28:30

are home cooking using ingredients it

28:33

doesn't matter really if your butter is grass-fed

28:35

and your oil is cold pressed you're cooking

28:37

food at home and you won't when

28:39

you cook at home you're not doing it

28:41

to drive excess consumption and to drive increased

28:44

purchasing and to make money for yourself. You're

28:46

doing it because you love your kids and

28:48

and you won't add loads of salt and

28:50

you'll we know when people cook at

28:53

home they're moderate with oil. So the levels

28:55

of salt in ultra-processed food

28:57

are so much higher than you cook with

28:59

at home and then you eat

29:01

way more of that food because of the

29:03

way it's engineered because its logic is

29:06

to make money. So if anyone here

29:08

is... But you're not going to split hairs about oil. I really

29:10

am not going to split hairs. Just cook

29:12

at home butter, oil, you know make tasty

29:14

food. The slight exception is there is now

29:16

this this growth of recipes that are like

29:19

take a pack of cheesy puffs and

29:21

pour cheese spread over it and you

29:24

know mix it with crisps and you know you

29:27

have you'd have to be cooking with ingredients

29:29

and not if you're cooking with a load

29:31

of ultra-processed stuff then you know. I

29:34

think I know what you're gonna say to this. Steffi

29:36

says what are your thoughts on vegan or vegetarian alternatives

29:38

like corn? So these

29:40

are this is really tricky and

29:43

I kind of deliberately avoided this a bit in the

29:45

book but I have put I've put in two new

29:47

chapters in the paperback and I do cover a bit

29:49

of this. What I'd say is

29:52

without getting specifically into corn

29:54

they have much lower carbon footprints in

29:56

general and some of them are pretty

29:58

unprocessed so they are just... There's

30:00

things like tofu and lots of

30:02

East Asian cultures and South Asian

30:05

cultures have had meat substitutes for

30:07

a long time and they're really

30:09

good. But the

30:11

new meat substitute burgers, their

30:14

purpose is to make you buy more.

30:17

They're owned by investors usually in Silicon

30:19

Valley and they're extremely delicious.

30:21

They're very high in salt and fat and

30:23

often high in sugar and so they're not

30:25

really healthy. If you're

30:27

being ethical about carbon, definitely

30:29

switching away from meat to them is

30:31

probably a good idea. There's

30:34

a whole load of nuance to that that I don't want to get into.

30:37

But they're not healthier really than eating real

30:39

vegetables and their purpose is not health. I'd

30:41

also say many of them are made by

30:44

the same companies that also make the

30:46

meat. So when you go to a fast food chain and

30:48

you eat the vegan burger or the vegan sausage roll, you're

30:51

still paying into the same corporation that's

30:53

flogging loads and loads of meat. And

30:56

fat and ill health. So

30:58

if you're trying to be ethical, I'm

31:00

not sure it's really an ethical decision a lot of

31:02

the time to buy some of these vegan products. Sarah

31:06

says I'm fully behind you. But

31:08

everything before the but is rubbish,

31:10

isn't it? This

31:14

is an interesting point because a few people kind of sent

31:16

me messages a little bit like this. What

31:18

do you say when people say that

31:21

you're demonising some foods? So

31:23

that's a very

31:25

important critique. I

31:27

think it is nearly impossible when we talk

31:29

about harmful food. And when

31:32

we criticise the food, it's hard not to criticise

31:34

those that eat it. I have tried very, very

31:36

hard to take the shame that people feel and

31:38

heap it onto the companies and the policymakers and

31:40

the people who I can hear that. But

31:43

there will be people who are living

31:46

on low incomes that this food is marketed

31:48

to who cannot afford to buy anything

31:50

else. Nothing else is available to them. And it's

31:52

really hard to talk about this food without them

31:54

feeling enormous discomfort. And I

31:56

have tried to populate the book

31:58

with people with... very different backgrounds

32:00

to me with very different expertise is so

32:03

I want the

32:05

book to reduce shame and stigma.

32:07

In terms of demonizing food there

32:09

is another important thing which is

32:11

the anxiety around eating disorders and

32:13

so I was very careful I've been speaking

32:16

a lot with the eating disorders faculty at

32:18

the Royal College of Psychiatrists and they have

32:20

early data that shows that some eating disorders

32:22

seem to be very strongly linked to consumption

32:24

of ultra-processed food and that maybe shouldn't surprise

32:27

us that binge eating disorders for example. The

32:30

ultra-processed food might be contributing to them

32:32

because it is food that's been processed

32:34

in a way that interferes with our

32:36

ability to control appetite and so

32:38

I think it's really important to

32:40

talk about the harms of the food you

32:42

know this is a significant form of death

32:44

and suffering. Now the British Nutrition Foundation have

32:46

been and the food industry been very skillful

32:48

at sort of going oh this is this

32:51

is snobbery and by criticizing

32:53

the food you're marginalizing people who depend on

32:55

it. I would say that the real shame

32:57

and stigma comes from the fact that people

33:00

in this country with even medium incomes can't

33:02

afford to eat real food and that makes

33:04

them ill and that's where the shame comes

33:06

from and just being ill is bad for

33:09

you and so trying to change the system

33:11

I think a critique of me from the

33:13

industry that's causing the problem saying that in

33:15

trying to solve the problem I'm contributing to

33:18

it it's one of the cruelest and most

33:20

cynical of their ploys. So these are valid

33:22

critiques I'm very aware of who I am and

33:24

this is why I hope

33:26

I never say this is what people should

33:28

eat I never make that kind of normative

33:31

statement and I sincerely don't

33:33

care what people eat I want people to have

33:35

choice so I want real food to be affordable

33:37

available I want harmful

33:40

food to have clear warnings but I'm not

33:42

even proposing taxing most of it

33:44

I think we probably should tax the worst confectionery

33:46

the energy drinks we do need taxes on them

33:49

but for the most part I want I want to

33:51

increase choice not limit choice and

33:53

this really needs support of

33:55

government To be able to change

33:57

this system. So my research I published a paper last.

34:00

Last year not with doctors, nutritional scientists but

34:02

with a group of economists and we off

34:04

the simple question if if you go on

34:06

the website of any big they come again

34:09

coke or less like a look at the

34:11

home page a new think these are charities

34:13

dedicated to reducing carbon, cleaning up, plastic, protecting

34:15

public health you know preventing children in the

34:18

workplace being exploited you have so we just

34:20

said com He has their own financial data

34:22

to test these sessions and it turns out

34:24

of course when these companies make money what

34:27

they spend it on these not a rewarding

34:29

women and. Children is not reducing carbon

34:31

emissions and limiting plastic pollution. What they

34:33

spend it on is doing share buybacks

34:35

and hang out dividends. You know they

34:37

buy that their own shares to drive

34:39

up the equity value. And when public

34:41

health proposals are put to the board

34:43

by some investors, it's the big institutional

34:45

investors, the pension funds, the hedge funds

34:47

to vote those proposals down so the

34:50

companies cannot control themselves. they are part

34:52

of a system that is just the

34:54

economic system. I'm not trying to criticize

34:56

that bought the place. We know capitalism

34:58

works brilliantly well is when it's well

35:00

regulated. The pharmaceutical industry specs enormous

35:02

profits for well regulated the aviation industry

35:04

in the automotive industry with trying to

35:07

regulate carbon. So saying that government should

35:09

regulate the food industry should not be

35:11

controversial. By the way, behind closed doors

35:13

when you go and speak to. What?

35:16

Could see sweet. You know the chief executive

35:18

bullying at board level of the of the

35:20

company's the hula desperate to be regulated they

35:23

know they're selling bad food. You.

35:25

Speak to supermarkets mean I said to one

35:27

Big supermarkets. Could you Not switch to being

35:29

a fruit and veggie business? Know like. Will.

35:31

Know people don't overeat pairs, you know

35:33

apple spoil lettuce? You know we don't

35:35

have any. I peace will just sold.

35:37

It is on the market prices. We

35:40

may com money from the chocolate tray

35:42

bake which we make from you know

35:44

palm. Fast and cheap flights directly and

35:46

I think it is entering the but

35:48

was there a point in history. In. The

35:50

last fifty sixty years where we can

35:52

have reached a and a nice balance

35:54

in terms of because I think that's

35:56

like my mom's childhood where everything would

35:58

have been an ingredient. that you know that

36:01

she that her family cooked her mum or who

36:03

you know whoever was cooking and then

36:05

obviously through my my childhood when my

36:07

mum got her microwave things

36:09

changing a bit and things started to make things

36:11

started being brought in that we could put in

36:14

the microwave the whole meal could come out was

36:16

there a point in history where our health was

36:18

at an almost the optimum because we had that

36:20

it's really the balance I think it's

36:22

really hard looking backwards because

36:26

partly there were so many historical problems if we go

36:28

back to the 50s I mean there were a lot

36:30

of bad things about the 50s I mean there was

36:32

a lot of fancy you couldn't buy a mango you

36:34

know yeah it was bananas were in short supply so

36:37

and a lot of people who want to want us

36:39

to protect the environment more would say we shouldn't be

36:41

buying mangoes because they don't grow here that's very valid

36:43

I think for me it's perfectly possible

36:45

to look at the current system and go it could

36:47

be so much better we live in a food apartheid

36:50

right people with enough money can eat better than they

36:52

have at any point in history we can buy any

36:54

food we want from anywhere in the world we can

36:56

cook the most amazing food we've got recipes

36:59

cookbooks but that is not the

37:01

food that's marketed to us and it isn't the food

37:03

that most of us eat most of the time and

37:05

so I think looking backwards ago life was wonderful in

37:08

the 50s it wasn't life was terrible for loads of

37:10

people and people living in poverty ate terrible diets then

37:12

and they smoke more and they drink more you know

37:14

that but I guess in the 70s we didn't have

37:16

the levels of obesity we have now well that that is

37:18

that we smoked that's it I mean in 1990 so one of my

37:20

one of the

37:22

goals I think we should have in 1995 percent

37:24

of children left primary school living with obesity

37:27

now it is 25% okay so

37:30

that is a tragedy you

37:32

know and that's not as you said

37:34

before that's not a statement of kind of

37:37

no it's just that we've allowed that to

37:39

happen to our food failure of government and it's

37:41

a failure of successive governments you know it's a

37:43

failure going back to conservatives

37:45

and labor then back to conservatives it

37:48

causes enormous suffering it has nothing to do with

37:50

willpower we know it has nothing to do with

37:52

inactivity it is all to do with the food

37:54

environment and it's about the failure of government to

37:57

regulate corporations but it's also

37:59

economic stupid So I

38:01

hate the economic arguments because the moral arguments are

38:03

so much more powerful You know this we just

38:05

shouldn't have 25% of kids

38:07

suffering with this because it will cause them physical and mental

38:09

and social harm But you can

38:12

if you are a right-wing hawkish economist

38:14

and you want a strong military right

38:16

and you know A powerful nation great

38:18

sports team to make Britain great again,

38:20

you know, bring your kids healthy British

38:23

children at the age of five

38:25

are this much shorter than nine

38:28

centimeters Okay, then their counterparts in

38:30

Eastern Europe or in Northern Europe in Scandinavia If

38:32

you take a class of you know I've got

38:34

a six-year-old if you take her class and you

38:37

move it to Norway and you put them in

38:39

a football match against The class of Norwegian kids

38:41

Norwegian kids will look like they're two years older.

38:43

Okay, you've got if you travel I mean if

38:46

you if I try and you know about

38:48

six foot tall if I travel to Northern

38:50

Europe I'm very average, you know, we see

38:52

and this is all because of diet. So

38:54

it's Economically very stupid

38:57

and we see there

38:59

is an anxiety about the companies. We don't want

39:01

we don't want to damage the economy We don't

39:03

know regulate these companies. It's just fantastically well when

39:05

you regulate them We've never seen you know The

39:07

banks loved being regulated because the banks collapse when

39:10

they're allowed to do what they want because they

39:12

sort of have to take these risks So

39:14

yeah, it's we we cannot afford not

39:16

to regulate this industry Keep doing what you do

39:19

because I think it's so important and I think

39:21

you know You're obviously very much the David in

39:23

this Goliath fight and I hope that there are

39:25

plenty more who want to join your fight Well,

39:28

I think that I mean, I'm a very small

39:30

part of this and I should say I'm riding

39:32

the crest of a wave to other people built

39:34

I mean there have been people saying this since

39:37

the 1970s my mum was saying this in the

39:39

1970s all the way through the 1890s

39:41

when I was a kid, so I am I'm

39:43

piggybacking on the lot of people who totally

39:46

believe and do what you're saying But

39:48

they're fighting against a system those that

39:51

can't get that food on their plates

39:53

Very quick personal one. My really

39:55

good friends Claudia. She Instagramed in when I

39:58

put this shout out She said Can

40:00

you ask Dr. Chris, why am I

40:02

addicted to Mark suspense's Florentine chocolates? Why

40:05

is she addicted to Mark suspense's Florentine chocolates? Is

40:07

it for all the reasons you've just said?

40:09

So you like the personal shout outs and

40:11

the answer. Claudia, I mean, you

40:13

are not the only one. Okay. We

40:16

can look at very specific aspects of those

40:18

chocolates. So they're incredibly soft. They're very, very

40:20

energy dense. And one of the things we

40:22

know about almost all addictive substances, whether we

40:24

look at nicotine or alcohol is

40:26

the speed of delivery is very important. So

40:29

sugar in a bowl on the table, not

40:31

very addictive. But if we mix the sugar

40:33

with fat and we put it in a

40:35

form that gets into your gut very quickly, whether it's

40:37

a soft drink or a chocolate, we know that can

40:39

drive this addictive relationship. But the main reason is some

40:41

very, very smart people in M&S have put that chocolate.

40:44

They've tested it on hundreds of people. And this is

40:46

the way, I mean, this is just the way food

40:48

testing works in general. So I don't know about M&S,

40:50

but this is the way all the other companies do

40:52

it. They test it on a few hundred people. How

40:54

many can you eat in 10 minutes? How many can

40:56

you eat in 10 minutes? And if there's

40:58

one formulation, people eat nine in 10 minutes and there's another

41:01

formulation and people eat 12 in 10 minutes, that's the one

41:03

that goes on the shelf. So it's designed

41:05

to make you more is to

41:07

make money for the owners of

41:09

the supermarket. And that is where

41:11

your pension is. So M&S

41:14

cannot regulate, they can't do

41:16

anything other than make chocolate in that way. And that

41:18

is why the government needs to come in and put

41:20

some big black octacons on that chocolate and take away

41:22

the advertising from the chocolate. It might make them a

41:24

bit less attractive to you, Kale. Thank

41:27

you so much for coming in. I feel like we

41:29

need a second go at this

41:31

at some point. I would absolutely love to. It's

41:33

been brilliant having you here. And we've, you know,

41:35

we've only gone through kind of a quarter of

41:37

the questions. But I think you get

41:39

the general sense of what people are wanting to hear.

41:41

They're brilliant questions. I'd love another bite if you're up

41:43

for it in the next few months. It would be

41:46

absolutely delicious. Brilliant. I love that. Thank you. Well,

41:51

thank you so much to Dr. Chris for coming

41:53

in and for being so generous with his time

41:55

and his knowledge. It's a subject you feel that

41:57

is just going to grow and grow in the.

42:00

interest that we all have in society in

42:02

terms of what we're putting in our bodies

42:04

and the effect it's having on us. And

42:06

if there are other topics you'd like us

42:08

to cover on the podcast, please do get

42:11

in touch. You can either leave us a

42:13

review on Apple Podcasts, message or comment on

42:15

my Instagram, which is at gabbylogan, or follow

42:17

me on Facebook and submit your suggestions there.

42:20

You might also want to scroll back through

42:22

our archives for similar expert episodes. We've got

42:24

Megan Rossi or Gerontology Professor Rose Ann Kenny.

42:26

Thanks again to Dr Chris for his time

42:29

to Spiritland Creative and to you for keeping

42:31

me company. I'll catch you next time. Hi,

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