A Scientist Adds Nutrients to Ultra-Processed Foods in a Major Study

By the end of the month, the evidence was stark and damning: People eating ultraprocessed diets were consuming more calories and gaining more weight without even trying. This was the first randomized controlled trial of its kind and changed the way we look at ultra-processed foods. “Whole” food and “plant-based” diets are on the rise, and “clean” eating is trendier than ever as people aggressively seek to limit their intake of packaged goods.

But discovering that people were consuming nearly 500 extra calories a day on an ultra-processed diet did not convince Hall that convenience foods should be universally avoided.

“What we’re trying to understand is, what are ultra-processed foods in particular that lead to overconsumption and weight gain?” Hall told Business Insider:

He wants to understand exactly why ultra-processed foods do what they do and what, if anything, we can do to make them healthier.

“If you can avoid them, that’s great, but most people can’t do that,” he said.

So for more than a year, he’s been regularly inviting 18 volunteers to his private Bethesda, Maryland, laboratory to try newly formulated ultra-processed foods. By the time the study ends in 2025, at least 36 people will have tried the reformulated foods and will be monitored for hormonal changes as well as weight gain.

Hall is testing two big ideas and hopes that perhaps by translating some of the fundamental concepts of nutritional science into ultra-processed nutrition, we can be smarter about our ultra-processed existence and make eating on the go healthier. .

Ultra-processed foods attack our brains

We’ve long known that ultra-processed foods are associated with all kinds of poor health outcomes, from earlier death to more strokes and more heart attacks.

We know that refined carbohydrates (white bread, sugar), syrupy drinks (soda, juice), and ultra-processed meats (hot dogs) are some of the most dangerous foods in this category.

But whether the entire category (whether all packaged, ultra-processed foods are inherently bad for us) is still an open question.

One of the characteristics that distinguishes many ultra-processed foods from their unprocessed counterparts is their calorie density. Each bite of an ultra-processed meal tends to have more calories, even though it doesn’t contain nearly as much fiber as fresh food. Hall said that may be part of the reason why ultra-processed diets lead to overeating: It’s because each bite is rich and high-fat, but not very filling.

Hall’s second big hypothesis is that ultraprocessed foods may drive people to eat more because they’re “hyperpalatable,” meaning they’re rich in tempting combinations of fat and salt, fat and sugar, or carbohydrates and salt.

Almost nothing in nature tastes this good to us; One of the only natural “super delicious” foods is breast milk. “Breast milk can be sweet and fatty at the same time,” Hall said. We may be evolutionarily adapted to finding these rarer types of convenience foods an irresistible, hard-wired survival instinct.

When we cook from scratch, it’s nearly impossible to add as much sodium and fat as factories add when putting together ultra-processed foods. Combination meals at home can still be incredibly delicious, but sugar and fat tend to come into play with watery veggies and grains. In Hall’s landmark 2019 study, only 40% of foods in the unprocessed diet were extremely palatable, while roughly 70% of foods in the ultra-processed diet consisted of high amounts of salt, a feature that is “hyperpalatable.” sugar, fat and carbohydrates.

If the easiest, cheapest, quickest dinner option involves filling your plate with mouth-wateringly delicious but nutrient-poor foods, that’s exactly what you’ll do. The question is: can we do anything to make overly delicious foods a little less damaging?

Change the composition of your plate

For his new experiment, Hall is trying several different techniques to examine where the connection between overprocessing and weight gain lies.

One idea: cut back on “overly palatable” foods in some overly processed meals. So while participants may consume more calories in each bite than they would from an unprocessed meal, they will (perhaps) be less likely to overeat because the food will not be as irresistible.

Another idea is to reduce calories by adding non-starchy vegetables to a plate of ultra-processed foods.

“For example, you get more salad,” he said.

If adding vegetables to a ready-made meal leads to a normalization of the number of calories people eat, that could change the way we think about how we choose processed foods, and perhaps even the way manufacturers make them—if they want to change that.

Can fast food be healthy food?

There is also a more surgical technique that Hall tried in the experiment. He’s mixing fiber supplements into some ultra-processed foods (mixing fiber powder into packaged yogurts, for example) to see if it prevents overeating and improves health outcomes.

This is a simpler idea, and one that could be adopted by the food production industry if it shows promise. (Major food companies, including Nestle, are already reformulating some packaged foods, such as frozen pizza, to contain more fiber and protein, and targeting patients with appetite-suppressing GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic.)

If ultra-processed foods could truly be reformulated for health, I imagine something more heavenly than the extra fiber sprinkled on frozen pizzas and yogurts. What about packaged produce aisles that contain more beans, nuts, seeds, and less sugar than before? UPFs may also be inspired by traditional diets that we know work well, such as Mediterranean foods rich in olive oil, lentils, chickpeas and citrus fruits, which are relatively long-shelf-stable produce that experts agree are good for your heart and longevity. People can eat rice and beans from a bag or enjoy vacuum-packed vegetables instead of potato chips. These, whether homemade or factory-made, will be healthier choices than a “plant-based” treat like high-fat pastries.

No matter how processed your diet is, “everything we’ve known for a long time” is still worth considering, Hall says. Look for nuts, seeds, whole grains like oats or quinoa, black beans, hummus, lentils, and (yes) fresh vegetables and fruits that are unprocessed whenever possible. Avoid sugary snacks and refined grains. These are “things that are already discussed ad nauseam in dietary guidelines.”