Pause to visualize a little scenario, a random moment from the days when many young folks actually did pause to rethink their eating habits. The place: a college cafeteria. The girl who has just finished a very healthful lunch blots her lips with a napkin, sighs, and says thoughtfully, “That made me feel… fed.”
It’s a thing that happens now and then, in the presence of genuine nutrients. On the chemical level, the body gets the message: “Something just arrived that will make me healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Millions of tiny cells perk up, and flock to greet and engulf the molecules sent to deliver actual sustenance. A person’s body feels fed. It is an unmistakable sensation, and once felt, never forgotten.
Imagination helps
We have probably all seen something like this in a movie — the scene where a character gets a snootful of an enlivening drug, and shows the immediate effect, so powerful it borders on satire. We can tell that something special just happened. It is the same, on a micro-mini scale, inside the body when an allotment of genuine nutrition manages to get in. Imagine a zillion tiny nutrition junkies suddenly enraptured by a hit of genuine food. It’s the same rush on a different scale of measurement.
Or maybe it is like the scratching of some intolerable itch. Or like the difference between when a baby first wails in frustration, then suddenly latches onto the nipple. Peace at last. Given the opportunity, the body can tell that something extraordinary has just happened — a tsunami of joy, flooding every cell with atoms of pure goodness. When a person gives the body a chance, it can tell.
A closeup view
That is basically what a previous post expressed, in discussing the revolutionary work of Kevin Hall, which “has been cited nearly two thousand times” (as of early 2025, and certainly more by now).
As Dr. Dhruv Khullar wrote in “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?”,
Hall’s original study […] was the first randomized trial demonstrating that ultra-processed foods disrupt our metabolic health and lead people to overeat. It was hugely influential and is widely recognized as the most rigorous examination of the subject so far.
This is the other side of the coin — the terrible disappointment the body feels at being duped. At being tricked and made a fool of, led to believe that something necessary would be provided, had been provided. Being misled by a scent or even just by a fragment of long-forgotten hope, and then betrayed. Thanks to a scent or a flavor, the anticipation of joy welled up and lasted for a golden instant before being crushed.
Not surprisingly, that work recognizably “sparked controversy and opposition.” The debate over extensive meddling with food began to attract the interest of more scholars, like Dr. Chris van Tulleken. In his book, Ultra-Processed People, these words appear:
With a physiological confusion that barely makes it to the surface of our conscious experience, we find ourselves reaching for another — searching for that nutrition that never arrived.
Sometimes, a phrase absolutely resonates: “Searching for that nutrition that never arrived.” The body has been betrayed. Thanks to the aroma, the bright packaging, the texture of the crispy treats in the plastic bag, and finally their taste… something was promised, but not delivered. That is the junk food experience, which is almost identical to the ultra-processed food experience, because in many cases both categories are applicable.
The experience might be compared with trying to slake thirst with salt water. No matter how dehydrated a person is, that stuff just isn’t going to do the job. In fact, the more of it you drink, the thirstier you will become. Every cell in the body knows the difference, just like it knows the difference between an apple and a merchandised abomination of ingredients that no one in their right mind would want to pronounce or spell, much less ingest.
Disparagement
A critic of Kevin Hall’s work, Walter Willett, led a Harvard study that drew information from “survey data from more than two hundred thousand people,” which resulted in the classification of ultra-processed foods into two major categories. The first contains sugary sodas and processed meats, which increase the risk of cardiovascular trouble.
The second category encompasses “breads and cold cereals, certain dairy products such as flavored yogurts, and savory snacks” that, strangely, apparently decrease cardiovascular risk. (An additional five types of ultra-processed foods apparently do neither.)
When the time came for the government to update its recommendations and endorse or deprecate various food groups, it merely suggested that processed meats be avoided. On the question of whether any amount or impressive source of new information will change American eating, Dr. Khullar seems doubtful:
Our food environments — the type and quality of food that pervades our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods — influence our diets as much as our tastes do. And our food environments are shaped by our incomes, our government’s choices, and our desire for convenience, as well as active manipulation by the food industry, through things like marketing campaigns and lobbying for agricultural subsidies.
In other words, against what goes on in our neighborhoods, homes, schools, and workplaces — cautious warnings and common sense don’t stand a chance.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?”, Archive.is, 01/06/25
Image by tulajbila/Pixabay
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