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What Is ILSI, and Why Does It Hate Our Kids?

Pat Hartman May 27, 2025 No Comments

Wherever there is a hugely populated country, there is ILSI. Some years back, this was a problem in India because many people wanted manufacturers to begin placing red warning labels on the packaging of highly processed foods. But strangely, the leader of the committee responsible for achieving this reform turned out to be a member of the American non-profit, International Life Sciences Institute, funded by all the biggest producers of ultra-processed foods on the planet.

A reader might ask, “Just a moment, please. Isn’t that exactly backwards?” As a matter of fact, yes. A recent Childhood Obesity News post mentioned what has been deemed a “shadowy industry group,” the International Life Sciences Institute, which has managed to get its fingers into all sorts of places where they don’t belong.

ILSI’s publicly avowed mission is to improve “public and planetary health by convening international experts from academia, the public sector, the private sector, and other NGOs to advance evidence-based scientific research.” The federation currently includes 10 “entities,” namely: Mesoamerica, North Andean, Brazil, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and U.S./Canada/Global (headquartered in the U.S.).

The grim details

It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit which, by law, ought not to “engage in lobbying or political activities.” On its homepage, ILSI’s science videos boast a collective total of 33,726 YouTube views, which is not a lot. (By not a lot, we mean that a podiatrist’s single YouTube video titled “Two-Inch Toenails Trimmed” has accrued 227,000 views.)

Internet searches like ILSI+scandal, ILSI+corruption, ILSI+exposed, and ILSI+unethical bring up alarming results. Even Coca-Cola, which had long been a prominent financial backer, broke up with the non-profit. Mars, Nestlé, and other companies have also severed ties. Apparently, the outfit’s efforts have been focused on such dubious goals as convincing the world that obesity is caused solely by insufficient exercise, and sugar has nothing to do with it. Like so many other organizations that want something quite badly (and quite bad), it entices its members with nice conference vacations, at the very least.

Journalism to the rescue

A few years back, ILSI was examined comprehensively by The New York Times reporter Andrew Jacobs. For the public’s benefit, he broke down for general comprehension information originally made available in professional journals about ILSI, which at the time ran 17 branches around the world. At first, outrage was mainly focused on what was going on in China, with the encouragement and support of that country’s government.

A few months later, Jacobs expanded on the first round of reportage. Harking back to the initial paragraph of our blog post, it turned out that the committee head who put a stop to the red warning labels was ILSI’s own Dr. Boindala Sesikeran. Of course, all suggestions of conflict of interest were righteously denied. “Under no circumstance does ILSI protect industry from being affected by disadvantageous policy and laws,” the official statement attested.

But the jig was up. Jacobs wrote,

After decades largely operating under the radar, ILSI is coming under increasing scrutiny by health advocates in the United States and abroad who say it is little more than a front group advancing the interests of the 400 corporate members that provide its $17 million budget… Over the past year, researchers have documented how the organization’s China affiliate helped shape anti-obesity education campaigns…

But what is wrong with anti-obesity education? Well, it seems the philosophy advocated by ILSI did not call for dietary change, especially if that change involves reducing the amount of sugar that humans consume, even the obese ones. The organization was all about promoting physical activity, which, of course, is excellent advice. But not when it comes along with complete, uncritical acceptance of all the sugar anybody wants.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “ ILSI: Collaborative science for safe, nutritious and sustainable food,” ILSI.org, undated
Source: “ How Chummy Are Junk Food Giants and China’s Health Officials? They Share Offices,” NYTimes.com, 01/09/19
Source: “A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World,” NYTimes.com, 09/16/19
Image by NB_art/Pixabay

The Worldwide Growth of Growth

Pat Hartman May 22, 2025 No Comments

Back in 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released several charts and tables that collectively told a dismal story of how, since the 1950s, child obesity rates had doubled and adolescent numbers had quadrupled. This led to the publication of an article titled “6 real culprits that are making American kids fat.”

What were those villains deemed to be? For starters, people were eating an enormous amount of sugar, like an average of 132 pounds per year per capita. Even way back at the turn of the century, in 1900, that figure had been 90 pounds per year, and at no point since then had it decreased. Also, awareness was dawning that sugar, especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is wickedly addictive.

At the same time, people were eating lots of fast food, which is mostly highly processed fare, and fresh fruits and vegetables were much less popular than pizza, pancakes, pasta, and potatoes of the fried variety.

Bad habits grow fast

People, especially the young, were watching way too much television and neglecting physical activity in droves. Lack of exercise also contributed to insulin resistance, which is associated with both diabetes and obesity. To and from school, kids were traveling by car rather than walking or bicycling.

Among average people and their average meals, portion sizes had grown humongous. Since the 1950s, the standard portion size for soda pop had grown from seven ounces to an astounding 42 ounces, while the size of a hamburger tripled, and an order of fries did too. Last but not least, advertising convinced people to buy more and more of those processed, excessively large meals.

Of course, all these factors sound very familiar to today’s well-informed public, but back then, more than a decade ago, awareness of such matters was nowhere near as acute. In 2019, a randomized controlled trial, led by Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D., stirred things up by finding an association between ultra-processed foods and weight gain that did not exist with an unprocessed diet.

So, what else is new?

In the same year, The New York Times published an exposé of a “shadowy industry group” called ILSI. Reporter Andrew Jacobs commenced by remarking that, when the food corporations objected to the proposed inclusion of red warning labels on junk food, the government of India had backed down. Those who wanted warning labels were, naturally, unhappy; so the government set up a panel of experts to review the proposal yet again.

However, the choice of a Nestlé S.A. adviser to head the three-member committee did not go over well. Dr. Boindala Sesikeran was also a representative of the International Life Sciences Institute, an American nonprofit funded by agribusiness, food, and pharmaceutical corporations that works with, or some say infiltrates, governmental bodies in charge of nutrition and health. ILSI had been founded by a high-ranking Coca-Cola executive, so what could go wrong?

Jacobs writes,

In China, the institute shares both staff and office space with the agency responsible for combating the country’s epidemic of obesity-related illness. In Brazil, ILSI representatives occupy seats on a number of food and nutrition panels that were previously reserved for university researchers.

Sounds cozy.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “6 real culprits that are making American kids fat,” MarketWatch.com, 01/18/15
Source: “A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World,” NYTimes.com, 09/16/19
Image by Hans/Pixabay

A Drug-Free Approach to Weight Loss

Tatyana Meshcheryakova May 21, 2025 No Comments

While semaglutide-based drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have become popular tools for weight loss, many people still prefer to lose weight without relying on medication. For those looking for a natural approach, research shows that certain nutrients and eating habits can stimulate the same biological pathways that these drugs target.

Specifically, eating more fiber and healthy fats — like those found in olive oil and avocados — as well as paying attention to meal timing, food order, eating speed, and chewing thoroughly, can naturally boost the body’s production of GLP-1, a hormone that plays a key role in appetite control and digestion.

Mary J. Scourboutakos, Adjunct Lecturer in Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, who has a Ph.D. in nutrition, doled out advice and looked at some studies supporting it. According to Dr. Scourboutakos,

A strategic approach to weight loss rooted in the latest science is not only superior to antiquated calorie counting, but also capitalizes on the same biological mechanisms responsible for the success of popular weight-loss drugs.

Semaglutide medications work by increasing levels of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1), a hormone that signals fullness and slows digestion. They also block DPP-4, an enzyme that normally breaks down GLP-1 quickly. This dual action allows the hormone to remain active in the body for much longer (sometimes up to a week), helping people feel full for extended periods and eat less as a result.

But medication isn’t the only way to elevate GLP-1, as we’ve explored in some of our previous posts. There are some less expensive regimens that could serve as alternatives to taking weight loss drugs.

What you eat matters

Fiber, especially from beans, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, is a powerful GLP-1 booster. When gut bacteria ferment fiber, they produce short-chain fatty acids that trigger GLP-1 release. This may help explain why higher fiber intake is consistently linked to weight loss, even without cutting calories.

Monounsaturated fats, like those in olive oil and avocados, can also increase GLP-1. Nuts like pistachios, which are rich in both fiber and healthy fats, have also been shown to boost GLP-1.

How you eat is just as important

Beyond food choices, how you eat can also influence GLP-1. Meal sequence makes a difference: eating protein before carbs, or vegetables before carbs, leads to greater GLP-1 release than the reverse order.

Timing matters too

Like other hormones, GLP-1 follows a daily rhythm. Eating a meal in the morning, such as at 8 a.m., triggers a stronger GLP-1 response than eating the same meal in the evening. This helps explain the wisdom behind the saying, “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

The pace of eating and chewing also affects GLP-1 levels

One study found that slowly eating ice cream over 30 minutes led to higher GLP-1 levels than eating it quickly in five minutes. However, when vegetables are eaten first, the speed of eating seems to matter less in terms of blood sugar response.

Even how well you chew your food can play a role. Chewing cabbage, for example, increased GLP-1 levels more than drinking it as a purée.

Food vs. medication

While these dietary strategies can raise GLP-1 levels, the effects are still modest compared to medications, Dr. Scourboutakos points out. For example, a Mediterranean diet was shown to raise GLP-1 to around 59 picograms per milliliter, while even the lowest dose of Ozempic can push levels to 65 nanograms per milliliter, which is over 1,000 times higher.

Still, when it comes to long-term health outcomes, food may have the edge. Dr. Scourboutakos writes that…

[…] when you compare long-term risk for diseases like heart attacks, the Mediterranean diet lowers risk of cardiac events by 30 per cent, outperforming GLP-1 medications that lower risk by 20 per cent. While weight loss will always be faster with medications, for overall health, dietary approaches are superior to medications.

Dr. Scourboutakos’ advice for a drug-free weight loss approach includes:

Eating a substantial breakfast, or frontloading your calorie intake earlier in the day
Including a fiber-rich food at every meal
Making olive oil a regular part of your diet
Eating protein and vegetables before carbohydrates
Snacking on fiber- and fat-rich nuts like pistachios
Chewing your food thoroughly
Eating slowly and mindfully

What else can you do to lose weight without the meds?

A recent article on the Medical News Today website also dug deep into some proven, drug-free strategies to lose weight and keep it off. Besides of the ones mentioned above and a few other, most obvious ones like recommending regular physical activity. The three we’d like to mention are intermittent fasting, tracking your progress, and getting enough sleep.

Intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting, typically within a set window of time each day. It encourages weight loss primarily by helping people consume fewer calories overall. A 2022 meta-analysis found that intermittent fasting, when practiced for up to 26 weeks, can be just as effective for losing weight as a traditional low-calorie diet. Of course, fasting isn’t for everyone, even adults, so it’s best to consult your doctor.

Common forms of intermittent fasting include:

Alternate-day fasting: This method involves fasting every other day, while eating normally on non-fasting days. A modified version allows 20–30% of daily caloric needs on fasting days.
The 5:2 diet: Fast (or drastically reduce calorie intake) for two days each week and eat normally on the other five.
The 16:8 method: This plan limits eating to an eight-hour window each day (e.g., noon to 8 p.m.) and involves fasting for the remaining 16 hours. It’s often referred to as time-restricted eating.

Tracking your weight-loss progress

Keeping a record of daily food intake, physical activity, and weight progress can significantly support weight loss goals. Using journals, apps or online trackers helps people become more aware of their habits and encourages healthier choices.

A 2020 review found that this kind of self-monitoring can drive behavior change and increase motivation. A 2021 study also linked consistent food and weight tracking with more successful weight loss, particularly among users who logged their meals diligently. Additionally, a 2022 review suggests that wearable fitness trackers can improve activity levels, fitness, and body composition.

Getting enough sleep

Finally, this article took a comprehensive look at childhood obesity causes and treatment. We’ve covered plenty of that over the years on this blog, but the article reminds us that…

Studies show children who sleep less are more likely to be overweight or obese, and the risk increases with shorter sleep duration. A review of 17 studies found that children of all ages who slept less than the recommended amount had a 58% increased risk of being overweight or obese.

(Here’s a link to the study.)

So, just how much sleep do children need? The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends (and the American Academy of Pediatrics endorses) the following amounts of sleep by age group:

Ages 4-12 months: 12-16 hours (including naps)

Ages 1-2 years: 11-14 hours (including naps)

Ages 3-5 years: 10-13 hours (including naps)

Age 6-12 years: 9-12 hours

Age 13-18 years: 8-10 hours

Even though these natural strategies may seem obvious and may not match the potency of medications, they offer a sustainable, side-effect-free way to manage weight and improve overall health.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Nature’s Ozempic: What and how you eat can increase levels of GLP-1 without drugs,” The Conversation, 5/15/25
Source: “How to naturally lose weight fast,” Medical News Today, 5/14/25
Source: “Childhood Obesity Causes and Treatments,” Very Well Health, 5/13/25
Image by Vanessa Loring/Pexels

When NOVA Came on the Scene

Pat Hartman May 20, 2025 No Comments

As mentioned in a recent post, the NOVA system classifies ultra-processed foods according to their potential to do harm. The term (shortened to UPF) was brought into the mainstream by Carlos Monteiro, a Brazilian epidemiologist.

In the early 1970s, curious about why so many people were both obese and malnourished, he learned that his fellow citizens were at the same time buying less “fattening” grocery items like sugar, oil, and salt, and none of it made sense. In 2009, he published a research paper, writes newyorker.com journalist Dhruv Khullar, M.D.,…

[…] suggesting that something very bad had happened when industrial food systems started churning out cheap, convenient, and tempting foods. He argued that scientists should classify foods by their most unnatural ingredients and by their means of production.

Group 1 foods are as basic as it gets, either minimally processed or left alone, and the examples given are nuts, eggs, vegetables, and pasta. Group 2 includes stuff you put on or in those basic foods: butter, salt, oil, sugar, etc. The combination of the two is labeled Group 3, food that is technically somewhat processed, but not necessarily unhealthful.

But then comes the great leap into Group 4 where anything goes, including the examples given here — “modified cornstarch, whey-protein concentrate, xanthan gum, and disodium phosphate” — to name just a few of the possibilities, and there are hundreds. These are the additives now required to be listed on product labels and scrutinized with a magnifying glass.

Khullar explains the next stage thusly:

The ingredients of a Group 4 meal tend to be created when foods are refined, bleached, hydrogenated, fractionated, or extruded — in other words, when whole foods are broken into components or otherwise chemically modified. If you can’t make it with equipment and ingredients in your home kitchen, it’s probably ultra-processed.

It took a while for Monteiro’s theory to catch on. Eventually in 2015, researcher Kevin Hall, of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, got interested. He had been working with contestants from “The Biggest Loser” and saw an opportunity to understand more about obesity, which was becoming a national concern of immense proportions.

Hall recruited 20 subjects to spend a month at the Center, closely watched, on a minimally processed diet for half the time and an ultra-processed diet the other half. With the former, they tended to lose a pound per week, and with the latter, to gain a pound per week. Of course weight gain and loss were not the only factors the team tracked.

One important observation was that dehydration necessarily concentrates the ingredients of a product and makes it energy-dense. The hyper-palatability factor (irresistible taste) showed up as pretty important. Many interesting details were revealed. For example:

The occasional whole egg, which contains more than half the daily recommended dose of cholesterol, might be preferable to packaged liquid eggs, which are protein-rich and sometimes cholesterol- and fat-free, but often contain preservatives and emulsifiers.

Then Harvard University scholars performed a massive study of 200,000 people’s eating habits, and reclassified ultra-processed foods into 10 subgroups. Eventually they came up with contradictory and puzzling conclusions:

Two types of ultra-processed foods (sugary sodas and processed meats) increased people’s risk of cardiovascular disease, but three types (breads and cold cereals, certain dairy products such as flavored yogurts, and savory snacks) seemed to decrease their risk. Another five didn’t appear to affect it at all.

The end results were not very definitive, but did inspire an official warning against processed meats. Meanwhile another expert, Prof. Alan Levinovitz, defined the whole research effort as a waste of time and money: “We already know why populations are gaining weight: ubiquitous, cheap, delicious, calorie-dense foods.” Dr. Khullar, meanwhile, summed up his article with words from Michael Pollan’s 2008 book, In Defense of Food:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?,” NewYorker.com, 01/06/25
Image by johnhain/Pixabay

Ultra-Processed Food — the Scoop Goes On

Pat Hartman May 15, 2025 No Comments

About half a year back, a new study made the case that probably far too much of the average child‘s diet is composed of ultra-processed food, familiarly known as UPF. Measuring consumption in terms of calorie intake, researchers reckon that for 7-year-olds, processed foods comprise 59% (well over half) of their diets. But just wait until you hear about the younger ones:

Researchers found processed foods made up 47% of toddlers’ calories… The nutritional culprits may not be what you expect. The biggest offenders weren’t ice cream, fries or candy. They were products like high fiber cereals, flavored yogurt, and breads — foods that are often marketed as “healthy.”

Toddlers are commonly understood to be children whose walking skills are not yet fully developed; from one to three or even four years old, depending on whom you ask. Also, to be fair, some babies start to toddle at nine months, so of course they must be included in the classification.

It will come as no surprise, that kids who are set on the UPF path by heedless adults, will probably continue upon it. Most people like to stick with what they already know, so hyper processed it is. But even if they don’t cling to the familiar, that curious adventure-seeking tendency will send them eagerly in pursuit of more exciting junk food. Yet, at the same time, these early adapters to ultra processing are rarely adventurous about exploring ultra-nutritious alternatives to balance out their diets.

Regrettably hooked minors

The consumption of excessively processed foods (and food-adjacent substances) is believed to correlate with an overall higher mortality rate. For instance, research published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that chowing down on a lot of UPF “increased the risk of premature death from all causes,” and the authors cited numbers:

A new study has found that for each 10% increase in calories from these foods, the risk for premature death increases by almost 3%.

According to a very recent piece published by BBC.com, a study that covered eight countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom (which are the worst two in terms of junk food’s effects on their citizens), suggests a connection between UPF and early death.

One factor that makes it so difficult to keep track is that the typical hyper-processed food tends to contain five or even more ingredients with shady reputations. Sacrificing safety to favor aesthetics, these additives, sweeteners, and other chemicals are tossed in to improve the texture, flavor, eye appeal, or some other aspect of the product. Also, human life is complicated, so the individual’s general dietary preferences, exercise, sleep, medications, and many other factors can affect the equation.

Regrettable limits

This fact is hard to accept, but we have no other choice: To perform really undeniable research in this area would require keeping humans in conditions matching those of experimental laboratory animals, for decades. Because otherwise, there are just too many variables, and too many opportunities for accidental mistakes in reportage, or even deliberate sabotage.

But when people are just living their ordinary human lives, any attempt at strict accounting is vulnerable to colossal amounts of randomness, which is not compatible with good science. The uncontrollable quality of life holds less true with infants and very young, who can sometimes be satisfactorily managed. There is no excuse for not exercising some amount of conscious deliberation in feeding them.

A moment’s consideration will reveal that children whose ambulation is still uncertain, even at the advanced age of four, are probably not able to hike to the convenience store on their own. Also, few of them drive, and even if they did, they might not be able to reach up to the counter to pay for their junk food.

The hard truth is that no child gets hold of UPF unless some nominally responsible adult supplies it to them. Grownups, there is no point in trying to squirm out of responsibility. This is a “you problem.” Please don’t feed those kids junk, or let other people do it either.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Study finds how much ultra-processed foods children are eating,” WBay.com, 11/11/24
Source: “Every Bite of Ultra-Processed Foods May Increase Risk of Early Death, Study Says,” VeryWellHealth.com, 05/05/25
Source: “Ultra-processed foods may be linked to early death,” BBC.com, 04/28/25
Image by angelicavaihel/Pixabay

New Research on GLP-1 Receptor Agonists vs. Pediatric Obesity

Tatyana Meshcheryakova May 14, 2025 No Comments

There’s been much debate whether GLP-1 receptor agonists should be given to children to treat obesity, and whether it is even safe to do so. New findings presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025) that is happening this week suggest that children with severe obesity are more likely to see a significant reduction in their BMI when GLP-1 receptor agonists are included in their treatment.

What the study showed

To explore the effectiveness of these medications, Dr. Annika Janson, researcher at the National Childhood Obesity Centre, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, and a team of researchers studied their impact when added to an existing intensive treatment program for pediatric obesity.

The study analyzed data from 1,126 children (ages 0-16, about 52% boys) with severe obesity, classified using criteria from the International Obesity Task Force, who were enrolled in the National Childhood Obesity Centre in Stockholm. All participants were undergoing intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment (IHBLT), a comprehensive program that works with families, schools, and other support systems to improve various health-related behaviors, including nutrition, physical activity, screen time, and mental health. A multidisciplinary team typically provides this care.

Starting in 2023, GLP-1 medications — first liraglutide, then semaglutide — were incorporated into treatment for some patients. Approximately 25% of the children in the study were prescribed one of these GLP-1 drugs.

The caveats

The study authors did establish that GLP-1 medications can be given to kids from the age of 12 as “clinical trials have shown children lose 5-16% of their body weight after a year of treatment.” This comes with warnings and call for safety precautions — as it should.

According to Dr. Janson,

[…] treating children in real-life situations has challenges that don’t come up in research studies. Children have varying degrees of obesity, co-morbidities and complications and may have faced problems in supply of the drug, financing it or taking it. As a consequence, it is difficult to isolate the effect of adding GLP-1 drugs to the plethora of treatments that are already available.

This echoes the opinions of another group of researchers that looked into treating pediatric obesity using liraglutide. The study authors said:

This meta-analysis suggests that liraglutide could be a useful therapeutic option in pediatric obesity, especially in patients who have not achieved significant weight reduction with conventional interventions… However, its implementation should be individualized, considering the potential adverse effects, and rigorous monitoring should be carried out to ensure safety.

An added benefit

Dr. Janson’s study also suggests that weight loss injections like liraglutide may also reduce family conflicts around food and mealtime stress. Families reported less tension and fewer arguments around food, with children experiencing less constant hunger and being more open to other lifestyle changes.

Dr. Janson said:

For some children, not always feeling hungry is a completely new experience… While not a solution for every case, GLP-1 medications offer real benefits for many children with severe obesity, and more should have access to them.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “GLP-1 drugs linked to significant BMI reduction in children with severe obesity,” News Medical, 5/12/25
Source: “Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Liraglutide Treatment in Children Who Are Overweight or Obese: A Therapeutic Paradigm Shift?,” Cureus, 5/8/25
Source: “Weight loss jabs in obese children can help avoid mealtime rows, study says,” The Guardian, 5/12/25
Image by Guduru Ajay bhargav/Pexels

The Scoop on Ultra-Processed Foods, Continued

Pat Hartman May 13, 2025 No Comments

We discussed the NOVA classification system, where the designated fourth group, ultra-processed food, is the villain of the day. A lot of humans feel very strongly that meat-eating is not only okay, but beneficial to the system. And yet, even if meat is available and philosophically acceptable, it might still be problematic.

A slab of beefsteak is one thing, but a tampered-with burger is something else. Sausage, hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats are under suspicion, because they are likely to be spiffed up with nitrates or miscellaneous preservatives. Meat that has been salted, cured, smoked, and otherwise processed is a whole different animal. (Incidentally, for protein, experts recommend such alternatives as tuna, grilled chicken, and boiled eggs.)

Likewise, frozen meals that only need to be heated up in a microwave or standard oven are likely to have been ultra-processed, and replete with plenty of sodium and an inordinate amount of fat, and garnished with flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and preservatives.

What’s inside those crunchy, irresistible chips and crackers? Emulsifiers, saturated fat, preservatives, artificial flavors, and lots and lots of sodium. Salty chips go great with chilled, intensely sweetened beverages, whose coldness and fizziness block the mouth’s ability to perceive the overdose of sugar they deliver. Speaking of which… how about those cookies and cakes? You got your heaping helping of sugar, your refined flour, your preservatives, your fake colors and flavorings — what more could a person ask?

Morgan Pearson, M.S., R.D., goes on to say that aside from those major players, it is also a good idea to check the credentials of some more innocent-looking items. Supermarket bread, instant soups and noodles, fruit yogurts and drinks, and even baby formula can all conceal unwelcome surprises.

“But the customers like it,” and other weak excuses

The sad fact is, plenty of players (mainly the manufacturers and purveyors, including advertisers, of NOVA Group 4 products) will defend the stuff with their last breath. We will not hazard a guess about the exact percentage of miscreants in the field. But for most of them, it’s all about profit, and more specifically, about how much of the profit finds its way into their own personal pockets.

Then there are folks who work for the food industry and in related fields, who are not necessarily people with bad intent. It’s just that, for them, the evidence does not add up in the same way it does for more cautious medical specialists.

Prof. Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics, The Open University (a distance-learning university based in U.K.), said of a particular study that it “makes lots of mathematical assumptions which make him cautious about what the findings mean,” and he is not the only one with reservations. Is all ultra-processed food unequivocally bad for all people? Would it be possible to pinpoint certain recipes that could be improved, and still produce the same results of customer satisfaction and loyalty?

Many executives and other defenders point out that it is “impossible for any one study to be sure whether differences in mortality between people who consume different UPF amounts are actually caused by differences in their UPF consumption.” University of Oxford diet and obesity expert Dr. Nerys Astbury agrees that the research so far has its limitations.

It is no secret that diets high in fat and sugar can increase disease risk, and ultra-processing does tend to hang out with bad company like sugar and fat. Of course the industry calls that sort of food “energy dense,” a description which has a more respectable ring to it.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Ultra-Processed Foods to Avoid If You Want to Lose Weight,” VeryWellHealth.com, 04/09/25
Image by Create4fun/Pixabay

The Scoop on Ultra-Processed Foods

Pat Hartman May 8, 2025 No Comments

Ultra-processed (aka hyper-processed) edible products are a blight on public wellness and society at large. VeryWellHealth.com prefers “ultra-processed,” and it was possible to glean copious information on this food genre from three of the website’s recent articles (authors: Stephanie Brown and Kathleen Ferraro), all listed at the bottom of the post.

Some experts say that these abominations constitute over 70% of the total USA food supply, which if true is pitiful. Others say they make up 50% or even close to 60% of the average American’s diet. All those sources could be correct. Still, large amounts of research on this matter have taken place not only in the U.S., but in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

Back in 2009, a research team led by Carlos A. Monteiro (M.D., Ph.D.) defined ultra-processed foods as the most extreme of four possible categories, according to the NOVA classification system. This system has been refined somewhat over time, and its creators have put together an online research tool, TrueFood, which extracts data from systems run by the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The website uses machine learning whose algorithm assigns ultra-rating numbers to more than 50,000 food products, based on how much they have been messed with. In theory, the number indicates the hazard level of the different foods, in terms of their degree of processing. (That web address is not included here because your computer’s security system may issue a danger warning — probably because the site uses Artificial Intelligence to rate the thousands of items, and the results include “margins of error” anyway.)

So, get on with it

Group 1 includes unprocessed or minimally processed foods; Group 2 signifies processed culinary ingredients. In the third group, “processing” is a benign word that does not indicate danger, but just means that the edible item has been washed, chopped, peeled, steamed, or something else that an old-fashioned cook might do — in other words, any basic prep level at all.

With Group 4, however, we are now in ultra-processed land, where the problems dwell. Dr. Monteiro suggested that “[…] the end products of food ultra-processing are products that perhaps we shouldn’t call foods…” His official definition deemed them to be…

[…] industrial formulations made mostly or entirely with substances extracted from foods, often chemically modified, and from additives, with little if any whole food added.

These agglomerations of predominantly harmful (or at best, useless) stuff are likely to contain plenty of fat, sugar, salt, and weird additives. Apparently, if the product is made with any additive, or with even one NOVA Group 4 ingredient, it can be considered ultra-processed.

What these alleged groceries will likely not contain are whole foods or even identifiable elements of food, like fiber, vitamins or minerals. The allegedly edible substances may have been subjected to chemical modification and recombination. Here is a fact with a sinister ring to it:

Sequences of processes are and must be used to obtain, alter, and combine the ingredients and to formulate the final products.

As a definition, that sentence encompasses so much it actually turns out to be meaningless. Because multiple various factors are involved, and because studying the actual habits of people is problematic unless they can be kept in environments equivalent to lab cages, some experts are not convinced of the potential harm.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “What Does ‘Ultra-Processed Food’ Actually Mean?,” VeryWellHealth.com, 07/06/22
Source: “Every Bite of Ultra-Processed Foods May Increase Risk of Early Death, Study Says,”
VeryWellHealth.com, 05/05/25
Source: “What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Fewer Ultra-Processed Foods,” VeryWellHealth.com, 04/11/25
Image by jodiandbrett/Pixabay

Jamie Oliver Continues His Quest to Improve School Lunch, Now in the U.S.

Tatyana Meshcheryakova May 7, 2025 No Comments

Renowned chef and children’s health champion Jamie Oliver has brought his Ministry of Food’s 10 Skills Food Education program to the U.S. for the first time on May 1, 2025. He is now making promo rounds, including news and talk shows like Good Morning America and Live With Kelly & Mark.

After seeing major success in the U.K., this free and forward-thinking initiative aims to teach middle and high school students the core cooking skills they need to make healthier choices that last a lifetime. With an ambitious target of reaching one million students worldwide by 2030, the program provides teachers and community groups with hands-on lessons, videos, recipes, and tools designed to help young people build confidence in the kitchen.

Again, it’s free, but schools need to sign up. And in case you were wondering, The “Ministry of Food” part comes from Oliver’s 2008 book, “Jamie’s Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours” (you can find some of the recipes here).

A long, tough uphill battle dating way back

Recently, Jamie Oliver opened up about the toughest battle of his career — transforming school lunches in the U.K. From public backlash to political breakthroughs, one chef’s mission to feed kids better sparked a national movement and lasting change. Thanks to our head writer Pat Hartman, this blog also followed Oliver’s difficult yet determined journey through the years, like this 2016 post on the Oliver vs. sugar debate and the 2012 post about his crusade against childhood obesity in the U.S.

In a candid interview featured in a new episode of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table: Legends,” Oliver revisits the stormy days of his school food campaign, calling it the “most miserable” period of his life. His mission was simple: get healthier, more nutritious meals into British schools. But what seemed like common sense to him — feeding kids better — quickly turned into a national controversy. Oliver’s efforts famously signaled the end of unhealthy cafeteria staples like the Turkey Twizzler, sparking fierce pushback from some parents who went as far as delivering junk food through school gates.

Oliver recalls:

I just wanted to fix it all… I was like the enemy… The bins at the end of lunch were full of my food…

Despite the discouragement, Oliver remained determined. He later realized the resistance wasn’t about the food itself but familiarity. “Those kids were probably the fourth generation that hadn’t learned to cook at home or at school,” he explained. It wasn’t just a change in menu but a cultural shift.

Oliver says:

I was told a child needs to try something 14 times before accepting it. They need love and encouragement, just like your own child.

Getting policymakers on board proved equally frustrating. Oliver recalled the challenge of getting government officials to move past budget concerns. But the tide finally turned with the release of his Channel 4 documentary “Jamie’s School Dinners.” The series captured public attention and coalesced political will. Within weeks, Oliver had a meeting with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, who agreed to fund sweeping reforms in school food standards.

Blair himself appears in the “Chef’s Table” episode, praising Oliver’s enduring influence:

Jamie’s much more than a chef. He made cooking cool and linked food to health and nutrition long before it was mainstream.

A few words about “Chef’s Table: Legends”

If you are not familiar with “Chef’s Table,” it’s an acclaimed docuseries in its second decade that spotlights some of the world’s most visionary and captivating chefs. The latest installment, currently playing on Netflix, features legendary chefs Jamie Oliver, José Andrés, Thomas Keller, and Alice Waters. Not only are they culinary icons but they’re also compassionate advocates for a better world, feeding those in crisis, and creating healthier lifestyles for us all.

A glimpse at Oliver’s worldview

In a recent roundtable interview, Oliver spoke about how he got into cooking (“And when I say cooking saved me, I don’t think I’m exaggerating”), and the one ingredient that he absolutely could not live without:

Olive oil. We grew up using butter and lard and ghee. But olive oil is the connector. It’s the thing that allows you to transmit flavor and spice and herbs. And of course, it’s the healthiest oil on the planet, full of polyphenols.

We will leave you with one more quote, which was Oliver’s response to the question about the one thing he wished people understood about food:

I think, now more than ever, cooking is freedom. Cooking is the amazing ability to nourish yourself and your family and the people that you love with deliciousness and truth. And it’s a real superpower.

If I had one wish in the world, it would be that every 16-year-old kid would leave high school knowing 10 recipes to save their life, the basics of nutrition, where food comes from, and how it affects their body.

It is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. It’s a life skill. Every time you’re trying to fix a problem, you’re looking at the most vulnerable within the problem.

And in the U.K., we have free-school-lunch kids, and the parents of those kids have to be earning a very small amount of money to get that free school lunch. Filling that child’s tummy and that child’s mind is really exciting.

For me, that just gives you a template for true hope. And to truly be fair, to truly be a democracy, you have to have hope — that no matter where you come from, as long as you apply yourself, as long as you turn up, as long as you’re kind, the sky’s the limit.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Culinary Legends Gather Around the Chef’s Table For Its 10th Anniversary,” Netflix, 4/25/25
Source: “Jamie Oliver shares cooking lessons,” Good Morning America, 4/29/25
Source: “Episode Guide,” Live With Kelly & Mark, 5/1/25
Source: “Jamie Oliver admits controversial school dinners campaign was ‘most miserable’ time of his life,” Tyla.com, 4/28/25
Image: Screenshot of Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food’s Ten Skills Food Education Program homepage, used under Fair Use: Commentary

Eggs on our Minds

Pat Hartman May 6, 2025 No Comments

To mention that eggs have been in the news lately would be a laughable understatement. For approximately the past three months they have been on everybody’s mind, and even that is far from being the whole picture. For EatThis.com, Sarah Garone and Olivia Tarantino wrote:

If there’s any food fraught with a tug-of-war over its healthfulness, it’s eggs. Over the years, eggs have been viewed as everything from an example of the perfect whole food to a dreaded harbinger of heart disease.

Too many eggs can bring on an undesirable effect: too much cholesterol. The authors note that nutritional guidelines no longer mention a specific cholesterol limit, but recommend that consumption of it be “as low as possible.” On the other hand, a spectacularly large study (half a million adult Chinese subjects) revealed that “up to one egg per day actually decreased the chances of developing cardiovascular disease.”

But with more, the benefits drop off precipitously. The people of China are known for their per-capita egg consumption, and collectively they account for around 400 billion eggs per year.

A recent article from ScienceDirect.com delved into the effect on obesity of the various nutrients found in eggs. Some of them actually play a role in regulating lipid metabolism in ways that prevent obesity. Apparently, it is not even certain that the consumption of egg cholesterol increases human blood cholesterol. When it comes to diabetes risk, the jury is still out.

As for weight gain, eggs seem to suffer from a certain amount of guilt by association. People like to eat them with bacon, sausage, hash-brown potatoes, and other unwise choices. Some helpful suggestions in this area include studying up on heart-healthy cooking fats, and combining eggs with vegetables.

What is going on, anyway?

A review published at around the same time in the journal Poultry Science looked at a meta-study that had reviewed two decades of nutritional literature and found that most of the nutrients in eggs are not obesogenic but surprisingly appear to “reduce the probability of obesity via lipid metabolism regulation.”

However, there seems to be an exception among “high responders,” or individuals who are particularly prone to significant changes in their cholesterol levels because they metabolize it either more or less effectively. The body of course needs the stuff, but normally our own livers produce enough of it. There seems to be a feeling that more research in this area would be welcome.

Leaving that aside, “[E]ggs are one of the healthiest sources of protein, essential amino acids, and micronutrients beneficial to human health.” Not surprisingly, the cooking method makes a noticeable difference, with soft-boiled eggs being the safest bet.

In “9 Steps to Perfect Health,” Chris Kesser has noted that nutrients in animal products like fish, meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs are highly bioavailable, meaning that we can absorb them easily. Pasture-raised animals are known for their nutrient-dense meat, while pasture-raised hens make eggs that contain as much as 10 times more omega-3 than factory hen eggs, as well as being noticeably higher in B12, folate, vitamin A, protein, and fat-soluble antioxidants like vitamin E.

Can we agree to disagree?

The consensus seems to be that eggs are great for just about everyone, except people troubled by diabetes or cardiovascular disease. But even for folks who do not have to deal with those conditions, there is still such a thing as too many. Agreement seems to have settled on the notion that an average of one egg per day is reasonable, although they can be distributed throughout the week as multiple eggs on some days, and none on others.

Some authorities are even okay with healthy folks eating 10 eggs per week, although cholesterol-sensitive individuals need to tone it down. For those who forego the yolks, two egg whites count as the equivalent of one whole egg.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “ 5 Dangerous Side Effects of Eating Too Many Eggs, According to Science,” EatThis.com, 09/01/24
Source: “Association between egg consumption and risk of obesity: A comprehensive review: Egg Consumption and Obesity,” ScienceDirect.com, February 2025
Source: “Eggs are back on the menu: Study finds no link to obesity with moderate intake,” News-Medical.net, 12/19/24
Source: “9 Steps to Perfect Health,” Chris Kresser, undated
Image by stevepb/Pixabay

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Journalism to the rescue

The Worldwide Growth of Growth

Bad habits grow fast

So, what else is new?

A Drug-Free Approach to Weight Loss

What you eat matters

How you eat is just as important

Timing matters too

The pace of eating and chewing also affects GLP-1 levels

Food vs. medication

What else can you do to lose weight without the meds?

Intermittent fasting

Tracking your weight-loss progress

Getting enough sleep

When NOVA Came on the Scene

Ultra-Processed Food — the Scoop Goes On

Regrettably hooked minors

Regrettable limits

New Research on GLP-1 Receptor Agonists vs. Pediatric Obesity

What the study showed

The caveats

An added benefit

The Scoop on Ultra-Processed Foods, Continued

“But the customers like it,” and other weak excuses

The Scoop on Ultra-Processed Foods

So, get on with it

Jamie Oliver Continues His Quest to Improve School Lunch, Now in the U.S.

A long, tough uphill battle dating way back

A few words about “Chef’s Table: Legends”

A glimpse at Oliver’s worldview

Eggs on our Minds

What is going on, anyway?

Can we agree to disagree?

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

The Book

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Presentations

Food & Health Resources