Rejecting Ultra-Processed Food

The issue is more about rejecting the science around food.

An article popped up on Substack recently that caught my eye.

In a piece published in The Free Press, the journalist takes us on an odyssey and introduces us to that all-American of tropes, the Homesteader.

Arising out of the United States’ access and control of central North America in the 1800’s (read: forcibly taking land from indigenous tribes), those in government found themselves with a problem. With no one occupying the land it was near impossible to control.

Enter the Homesteader Act of 1862. This law kickstarted the movement to attract immigrants to the United States from Europe with the promise of abundant (160 acres) arable land at a low entry price. The agreement was that, after farming the land for 5 years, ownership of the land would transfer to that farmer.

Fast forward to today. The modern Homesteader is an individual or a family that moves out of an urban location, buys some land in a rural area, and becomes as self-sufficient as they can.

One key element of self-sufficiency is the ability to produce your own food. The article quotes a few of these modern homesteaders waxing eloquently about all the benefits the see as they switch from a highly processed food diet to one that is, instead, high in unprocessed foods.

As one homesteader relates in the article, it’s about knowing where your food is coming from, how it was grown or produced, the quality of the soil and whether or not any chemicals were used. If you grow it yourself, you know all these things and largely have control over all the stages of producing your own food.

But the article also touched on another element: the growing rejection by people of decades of what government organizations have recommended we eat, based on what the science recommends.

The science, that touchstone that was taken as a given and accepted as the best advice we could rely on, suddenly is being questioned as never before. It started with doubts being created about science in general during the COVID pandemic, and has since morphed into a critical regard of science in general, including the science around what we eat.

To be clear, I completely support scientific research and inquiry. Conclusions rendered by scientists, who conduct research using the scientific method, are the best advice/conclusion we could hope to get on a set of particular questions.

However, the scientific method was never conceived as a means to arrive at a definitive conclusion on anything. Scientific inquiry and research arrives at the best conclusion it can with the knowledge, data and study method used at that time. The scientific method is designed to continually evolve the thinking on issues, as knowledge improves, and as research is refreshed, or started anew with a completely different hypothesis.

So it is with the state of scientific research around the food system and what we eat.

Consider this example. Nina Teicholz’s book ‘Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese belong in a Healthy Diet’ reveals how the single-mindedness of one individual in the late 1960’s essentially set the United States, and much of the world, on a track to eliminate saturated fats (i.e., fat from animal sources) from our diet. The reason? The individual’s research purported to show how this type of fat contributed to the build up of unhealthy cholesterol in the blood, leading to a hardening of the arteries, a leading cause of heart disease. This was a big deal in the 1960’s as heart disease was the number one killer of males in the United States.

The problem is that the science that supported that conclusion was not conducted in a very rigorous manner. The data on what food was consumed by test subjects was spotty and consisted of small sample sizes. Further, when trying to validate the original conclusions with additional research in different countries, the researcher chose those countries whose data would support his conclusions, rather than randomizing the selection of countries, as most modern studies would do today. This was an obvious form of selection bias that unconsciously weeded out data points that would refute the main conclusion. Finally, nowhere in his research did he demonstrate a causal connection between what food was consumed, and the build-up of cholesterol.

Another example is the the US National Institutes of Health recommendation for the amount of protein the average adult should consume on a daily basis. Their recommended daily value (RDA): 0.8 grams/kilogram of body weight, or 50 grams/day. This was originally set in the 1940’s as part of effort during WWII to set minimum dietary values for meeting basic nutritional needs. The overall value has remained little changed since then; the 1941 value was an average of 65 grams/day/adult.

What’s important to note here is that this is a minimum value — it’s the minimum that a human being should consume to ensure they don’t get sick. Another way to say this is that it’s the minimum you need to survive.

Current practitioners are now recommending consumption of more protein that the RDA. Recent research is showing that the minimum amount of protein consumed is likely insufficient for maintaining lean tissue (muscle mass), or for those of us more physically active, sustaining, healing and growing lean tissue in the body. This gets more acute as we age and it becomes even more important to consume more protein than just the RDA in order to maintain healthy lean tissue. Amounts as high as 2 grams/kilogram of body weight are recommended, although the average value recommended is around 1.6 grams/kilogram, about double of the official RDA.

Is it healthy to reject science?

I don’t think so. But it is healthy to be critical of science and that means we all need to be more literate about what science is telling us.

The Homesteaders are right to be skeptical of the science around food. I get examples in my inbox on a daily basis of studies about the benefits of all kinds of specific foods, but most of the studies are produced by the industries that grow, prepare and market those foods. Invariably, the research is optimistic about the food item in question, and is primarily designed to engender a feeling of comfort or acceptability for the consumer that consuming that food is somehow safe and even good for you.

Here are some recent examples, sent to me by Marion Nestle, a food policy professor at New York University:

• Nuts — Mixed Tree Nuts, Cognition, and Gut Microbiota: A 4-Week, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Crossover Trial in Healthy Nonelderly Adults. The study concluded a positive effect of nuts on cognition following only 4 weeks of consumption in a healthy nonelderly sample, as well as upregulation of a microbial taxa associated with gut health. This study was funded by the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council.
• Artificial Sweeteners — a hot topic these days, as the industry and independent experts argue over whether or not aspartame causes cancer. This study — The Effect of Non-Nutritive Sweetened Beverages on Postprandial Glycemic and Endocrine Responses: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis — is a meta-analysis of studies of the purported effects of artificial sweeteners, concluding that its basically as safe to consume as plain water. This research was funded by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) whose membership is severely conflicted as their membership received funds from food industry groups their entire careers.
• Breakfast cereals — my favourite bugaboo; these shouldn’t even be called food but rather what they really are: dessert. This study — The Relationship of Ready-to-Eat Cereal Intake and Body Weight in Adults: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies and Controlled Trials — is a good example of interpretation bias. Basically, the study concludes breakfast cereals don’t make much difference to body weight. This was funded by General Mills.

Would you believe a cereal company telling you that its sugary, highly (empty) caloric products don’t make any difference in your weight, which is another way of saying you can pretty much each as much as you want?

I wouldn’t. And the Homesteaders don’t either.

In fact, none of us should. We need to develop our critical capabilities and learn to discern studies from independent researchers from those funded by the very producers of the very products they are researching. I’m not saying all industry-funded research is necessarily wrong or bad, but we need the tools to discern which ones are. Most of us just aren’t literate enough in food to know the difference. And when we cannot keep the weight off, or get chronic diseases where the root cause is the food we eat, we naturally lash out at the producers of the food in question, accusing them of misleading us, and lying to us. And when that happens, our faith in science takes a beating.

The modern Homesteaders are not wrong in rejecting highly processed food. But their answer to the problem is to go it alone. Most of us cannot, or will not, want to follow in their footsteps. There just isn’t enough land in rural areas to support a mass migration of people out of cities to live on their own plot of land; certainly not 160 acres. And frankly most of us just don’t have the skills to produce our own food.

But there is another way for people living in urban areas with a critical mindset to challenge the status quo of their food environment: ask questions of the people that provide them their food.

Grocery retailers will have no clue about the source of most of the food in their stores, so if consumers aren't satisfied with that, they need to take their business elsewhere. The Farmer’s market is a good place to start. Most cities have them. And when you’re able to ask those critical questions about the provenance of the food you’re buying to a farmer, you develop a relationship. And you’ll get better food. For the more adventurous, you can always seek out the farms near you that produce good food, either organically, or from using regenerative methods.

You never know. If enough of us do it, the whole food system would benefit, farmers would be better off, the soil would be healthier and consumers will reap the benefits of learning about where their food comes from. They’ll learn the seasonality of it, how it was grown or raised, and how much better they feel after consuming it.

There’s no need to reject science. But there is a need to be more critical of what the science is saying, and who is funding it. Once consumers do this, they’ll quickly learn the difference between what is valid and what is an attempt to sell them a fantasy.