This Isn't Everything You Want to Know About Ultra Processed Foods, But It's a Solid Start

Plus more interesting reads and listens from the last week.

Thanks for reading Almost Sated, a newsletter about the messy process of detoxing from diets, diet culture and self-suppression. If you like what you’re reading, please consider subscribing and sharing! It’s free to join, and subscribing ensures you never miss a post. On Mondays, I round up the most interesting reads and listens from the last week.

Ultra processed foods are the big bogeyman in the eating world right now. We’re supposed to be eating as many unprocessed whole foods as we can for our health, but what does that even mean? What of our food is actually unprocessed?

Dietitian

Laura Thomas, PhD, RNutr

with

Can I Have Another Snack?

has done an exhaustive three-part series on ultra processed foods that even she makes clear isn’t the end all be all on the subject. But if you’re looking to understand UPFs more, I highly recommend it. 

She starts with the classification of food processing. It’s complicated, of course, but the bottom line is that almost all the food we consume has been processed to some extent. Virtually every time we cook a meal, it’s processed. Further complicating it is that we don’t consider some of our unprocessed foods “healthy,” and some of our so-called “health foods” are ultra processed.

“Another example is white rice and flour, both of which are often referred to as ‘refined’ and ‘processed’, and therefore considered ‘unhealthy’. According to NOVA, they belong to group 1. And the ‘clean’ protein powder and rice cakes that are heavily lauded by the wellness set, actually belong to group 4, meaning they’re ultra-processed. Gwyneth Paltrow’s diet consists of a lot of ultra processed foods.” —Laura Thomas

We as a society do plenty of demonization of and moralizing around food, but there is a place for all foods. Thomas rightly argues that without UPFs, many a household would suffer nutritionally.  

Part 1: The Truth About Ultra Processed Foods

Part 2: Going Beyond the Headlines and Getting Our Science On

Part 3: Who Gets to Reimagine the Food System?

If you read only one of them, read part 1.

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One Doctor’s Response to Weight Loss Injectables for Kids

My next recommendation is also from

Can I Have Another Snack?

, but it felt particularly relevant because of a conversation I had this weekend with someone close to me who is worried about their child’s weight. 

Thomas interviews Dr. Asher Laramie in response to the news that the NHS/NICE in the UK are contemplating offering weight-loss injectables to kids. (These injectables are already available to kids in the U.S.) Having had multiple loved ones suffer from and anorexia and having suffered my own lifelong battle with my body, this is not a subject I take lightly.

Let’s be clear, no one yet has all the answers when it comes to long-term side effects and effectiveness of these drugs, especially on kids. So far, of eight studies done on these drugs, only one has involved teenagers. 

“If you look at the study over two years, people regained something like 15% of the weight that they lost within eight months. You carry that forwards….I mean, it's not particularly scientific to carry it forwards, but if you were to assume that every eight months you'd gain about 15% of the weight that you'd lost. Within five years, you've regained the weight. And that's if you are on the medication. If you stop the medication, which in the UK you only are entitled to have it for two years, the moment you stop that medication, you will start regaining the weight.  There is absolutely no way you can maintain it because nobody could. Nobody could maintain it, even when they stayed on the diet. They could not maintain that weight loss. They immediately start gaining the weight back and at a rate that is almost unprecedented. We've never seen such dramatic weight loss followed by weight regain with any other weight loss drug.” —Dr. Asher Laramie

There is a lot to unpack in this interview, and I highly recommend it.

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The Relationship Between BMI and Health? It’s Complicated

It’s tricky when your audience doesn’t necessarily share the point you’re trying to make on a particular topic.

Emily Oster

of

ParentData

attempted to weigh into the debate about the link to BMI and Health with mixed results.

“From an individual standpoint, many people struggle to think about the right health choices — for them and their kids. And for at least some of those people, it’s clear they feel stuck between a message coming out of the medical establishment — lose weight for better health — and messages coming from other angles, arguing that health and size aren’t strongly linked and suggesting that emphasizing this link may actually be detrimental.” —Emily Oster

I applaud her reasoning and found her points about BMI most impactful. The data between BMI and health was less compelling.

Not in Oster’s piece, but worth pointing out here is that the American Medical Association recently adopted new guidelines for using BMI, finally recognizing it as a tool for looking at height and mass across general populations versus individuals.

“The policy noted that BMI is significantly correlated with the amount of fat mass in the general population but loses predictability when applied on the individual level. The AMA also recognizes that relative body shape and composition differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders, and age-span is essential to consider when applying BMI as a measure of adiposity and that BMI should not be used as a sole criterion to deny appropriate insurance reimbursement.” —American Medical Association

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When It Comes to Email Productivity, Be Like the Bear

And now for some lighter fare.

Amantha Imber

with

One Percent Better

relays product designer John Zeratsky’s strategy for taming the email beast. Less checking and more intention is the key to more productivity and more wellbeing.  

Imber shares recent findings by researchers Kostadin Kushlev and Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia that found people who checked their email three times a day were significantly less stressed than those who constantly checked it.

Zeratsky himself has a strategy for email batching that keeps him productive and less stressed.  

“I assign a purpose to each email session. The first is a strategy I call ‘fishing bear’. During my morning email checks, I imagine myself as a fishing bear – standing on the bank of a river, reaching into the water to pluck out a tasty salmon here and there. —John Zeratsky

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Foodways and Final Food for Thought

On the heels of Independence Day and Juneteenth, my former colleague

Addie Broyles

with

The Feminist Kitchen

shares a lively and thought-provoking piece on her takeaways from a recent lecture with food historian Michael Twitty.  

Fun fact: I learned a new word from reading this—foodways—which, according to Merriam-Webster, is the eating habits and culinary practices of a people, region, or historical period.  

Broyles’ interpretation of Twitty’s message is that all Americans, but particularly white Americans, have adopted Black, indigenous and Latino foodways as their own.

And that’s not a bad thing. 

In an era of devastating divisions, Twitty doesn’t use food as a way to separate anyone from anyone else.

“Let’s look for the foodways that our ancestors shared. We are part of the same dysfunctional Southern family, and we have co-created the world we live in for centuries. This is a two way street, and to some people, that feels like oppression.”

There is way more to explore with Twitty’s message, especially in this day when so many of us collectively seem hellbent on demonizing “otherness,” but this is for another day.

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