Ultra-processed People (why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food)

By (author) van Tulleken, Chris
Short description/annotation:
New York Times Bestseller
Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year

“A fearless investigation into how we have become hooked.” —Financial Times

A manifesto to change how you eat and how you think about the human body.
Description:

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new age of eating. For the first time in human history, most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food. There’s a long, formal scientific definition, but it can be boiled down to this: if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t find in your kitchen, it’s UPF.

These products are specifically engineered to behave as addictive substances, driving excess consumption. They are now linked to the leading cause of early death globally and the number one cause of environmental destruction. Yet almost all our staple foods are ultra-processed. UPF is our food culture and for many people it is the only available and affordable food.

In this book, Chris van Tulleken, father, scientist, doctor, and award-winning BBC broadcaster, marshals the latest evidence to show how governments, scientists, and doctors have allowed transnational food companies to create a pandemic of diet-related disease. The solutions don’t lie in willpower, personal responsibility, or exercise. You’ll find no diet plan in this book—but join Chris as he undertakes a powerful self-experiment that made headlines around the world: under the supervision of colleagues at University College London he spent a month eating a diet of 80 percent UPF, typical for many children and adults in the United States. While his body became the subject of scientific scrutiny, he spoke to the world’s leading experts from academia, agriculture, and—most important—the food industry itself. But more than teaching him about the experience of the food, the diet switched off Chris’s own addiction to UPF.

In a fast-paced and eye-opening narrative he explores the origins, science, and economics of UPF to reveal its catastrophic impact on our bodies and the planet. And he proposes real solutions for doctors, for policy makers, and for all of us who have to eat. A book that won’t only upend the way you shop and eat, Ultra-Processed People will open your eyes to the need for action on a global scale.

Review quote:
"In Ultra-Processed People, a persuasive mix of analysis and commentary, [Chris van Tulleken] shows how [ultra-processed] foods affect our bodies and how their popularity stems in part from shady marketing and slanted science."
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"[Ultra-Processed People] is highly readable and van Tulleken…writes with the confidence of a doctor who has a reassuring bedside manner."
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"[Ultra-Processed People] is persuasive and scary.… [A]s van Tulleken rightly insists, there is simply something creepy about eating things whose composition we can’t comprehend."
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"Ultra-Processed People makes the case that corporate interests have given rise to highly addictive ultra-processed foods.… [A] brisk and engaging read, though it might piss you off. That’s kind of the point."
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"An unsettling examination of the food we eat [and] a fascinating, but frankly horrifying, investigation into our industrialised food system."
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"If you only read one diet or nutrition book in your life, make it this one. It will not only change the way you eat but the way you think about food. And it does all this without a hint of finger-wagging or body shaming. I came away feeling so much better informed about every aspect of ultra-processed food