We used to be so-called hunter-gatherers and got our food from nature, e.g., by hunting and gathering fruit. Later, we transitioned to agriculture, where we grow or raise our food. In both cases, peoples who still live as we did back then are almost never overweight.
However, today we have moved over to increasingly eating factory-produced food. This is a problem because food companies are subject to the same economic law as other companies: Maximize profit.
This is achieved by ensuring that people eat as much of your food as possible. The human body has built-in appetite regulation that ensures we get hungry when we lack energy and stop when we've had enough food. But if your goal is to sell as much food as possible, appetite regulation is your enemy. So when food companies design their products, they have two goals: create cravings and don't satisfy. This is ensured by experimenting with both mice and humans. They test variations of their recipe and search for so-called ”bliss points,” where combinations of sugar and fat provide maximum appetite. They design the recipe to avoid satiating elements like dietary fiber and protein. And they work with everything from flavor enhancers to the food's texture, mouthfeel, appearance, and aroma.
The result is foods that are uniquely appetite-stimulating. In studies, people eat over 500 kcal more per day when eating ultraprocessed food versus unprocessed food. Therefore, they gain weight, and this is where we find the source of the majority of the health problems ultraprocessed food causes.
We can see, among other things, from the success of weight-loss medication that a large number of the health problems we struggle with today are caused by obesity. When people lose weight, their problems improve or disappear. So, when people gain weight, it naturally goes the other way. Furthermore, ultra-processed food often contains large amounts of salt, which is appealing to most land animals, but which in large quantities increases the risk of developing high blood pressure and thus, subsequently, blood clots, cerebral hemorrhages, and dementia.
However, it is important to establish that the problem is NOT in itself the fact that a food is processed. It is perfectly possible to make ultra-processed foods that are designed to promote good health – for example, by being enriched with dietary fiber and protein. Whey protein is a good example. It is produced industrially by separating whey from the rest of the elements in milk and then adding sweeteners and various flavorings. This makes whey protein an ultra-processed food. But whey protein is not unhealthy. On the contrary, it has several beneficial effects – muscle growth (even in older people), bone strength, and weight loss (because protein is satiating).
So the concept of ”ultra-processed food” as something exclusively negative is a bit misleading. It would be more accurate to use the term I also use in Vanedyr – ”food super-stimuli.”.
