Ultra-Processed Foods Are Making You Fat...Here's Why

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me, Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid on what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello sir, good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their stuff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Now, you actually knew Princess Diana. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the present. But before that interview, no-one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game-changer? So, join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5, as we catch up with the Royals.

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1:39Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. At Boar's Head, we've been going back to school for over 115 years. And this year, every school lunch is reason to celebrate with the flavors your kids love and the exceptional quality you expect. helping you make school lunch fresh, easy and delicious. Ring the bell, the deli is open. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905.

2:36Today we're getting into why ultra-processed foods might be making you fat. Now, this is a big statement, but there is a new study coming from UCL and is published in Nature Medicine by a well-known author you're all very familiar with, Chris Van Tullican, one of the experts and godfathers of the field of ultra-processed food. And it's really clear that they are bad for us, but let's get into how bad they could be for our weight. So this new study, what it did, it took 55 adults with an average BMI in a real world setting where they had home deliveries provided to them for eight weeks. And it was a crossover design study, which means the participants did one version of the study for eight weeks.

3:28And then they did the second version of the study for eight weeks to control for individual differences. and one group ate ultra processed foods and the other group ate minimally processed foods and both diets critically adhered to the UK eat well nutritional guidelines. So broadly speaking, well controlled for calories, fats, proteins, and a good, well-rounded, balanced diet as we called it. but the interesting thing is the MPF or the minimally processed foods led to a two percent weight loss compared to the ultra processed foods which only saw a one percent weight loss in this study now that's twice the effect if you're eating minimally processed foods versus ultra processed foods which is a huge difference and bearing in mind it doesn't sound like a lot one or two percent weight loss.

4:23But the reality is that's just in eight weeks, right? So it's a very short space of time. If you did that over the course of a year or two years or three years or for the rest of your life, it would make a huge, huge difference to your health. So what they saw is energy intake dropped by about 290 calories a day on the minimally processed food diet because the individuals were still free to eat however much they wanted. They just had their food delivered to them versus 120 calories a day on the ultra processed foods diet. So you're told to eat freely. You can do what you want. You've had your food delivered, but the very mechanisms of ultra processed food is driving you to eat more than when you're eating whole unprocessed foods essentially.

5:11So extrapolating that to a year means it could be around 9 % weight loss to 13 % weight loss for men. There were some individual differences, but big, big changes to your diet. If you're 80 kilos, you could drop eight kilos in a year just by eating the same, doing what you normally do, but just switching to a more minimally processed diet. Now, obviously in this study, that weight loss, there was still weight loss on the ultra-productive food diet, probably partly down to the fact that they were having their food provided for them. they were eating to the UK Eat Well guidelines. So that, you know, that isn't a clear picture of what everyone's going to do, but it's really significant.

5:54And what's the most important is that minimally processed foods delivered better fat mass reduction, craving control, and lower triglycerides compared to the ultra processed food diet weight loss that didn't reduce any of these things. So you are getting health benefits alongside this weight loss increase from minimally processed foods. So, you know, Chris Van Tilken famously breaks it down as ultra processed foods are engineered to be softer, slicker and sweeter and to bypass our brain's natural fullness cues. The products are so engineered that you eat them more, you eat more of them and more often, even when you think they're healthier on paper.

6:42So this is a real, it's hijacking our sensory systems. It's hijacking our satiety. And that means we reach for more and we then over consume calories and put on weight. So if you want to apply this to your daily life, what we need to do is make it really realistic and simple for you guys to eat more minimally processed foods and avoid those ultra processed foods. So as I do through all my social content, really simply, you've just got to look at the ingredients, try and avoid the additives, try and avoid the preservatives, try and avoid ingredients that you don't recognize the name of. If you don't know what they are, they're probably something you couldn't make at home and therefore maybe best avoided.

7:26But also let's not demonize this. This isn't about entirely removing ultra processed foods. Sometimes they're convenient, they're affordable, and you're just going to eat them. But in reality, it's about having most of our diet minimally processed and whole foods based. And that's where you then can easily allow yourself 10, 20 % of the time treats and nice things. And don't make this a really big problem where you have to totally change your shopping habits. Don't throw everything out of the cupboard and start again, because it makes the change hard. start small, start with maybe some batch cooking or start with a few simple swaps at home, little things that just move you in the right direction.

8:10And then as you've got those down, compound them over time because that's when you can make real sustainable change. Summer's supposed to be the easy season. So why are so many people quietly googling a therapist between summer Fridays? Because more daylight doesn't fix the hard stuff. Sometimes it just turns the volume up. Grow does therapy differently. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time.

8:49The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. At Boar's Head, we've been going back to school for over 115 15 years and this year every school lunch is reason to celebrate with the flavors your kids love and the exceptional quality you expect helping you make school lunch fresh easy and delicious ring the bell the deli is open

9:50there doesn't need to be this big upheaval of your whole life which is what most diets try and make you do and then they're really hard to stick to and after eight weeks you basically give up because it's too complicated or too hard so you know the problem here lies in the food system is it's actually not you and it's not that you just haven't got the willpower it's the fact that the food system is hijacking your biological mechanisms and kind of getting you to eat more so we need to change the narrative and we need to change what's in our food cupboards if we do that you will see a massive impact on your health so this study is pretty powerful and gives us a clear demonstrable evidence that ultra processed foods aren't good for us and ultra processed foods can drive a lot of weight gain if we aren't looking after our diet and we're not exercising properly and so essentially the conversation really in my mind doesn't need to be about are ultra processed foods bad or not it doesn't need to be about how we define ultra processed foods because this is what the food industry likes to do.

11:05They essentially want to confuse the issue. It's typically what the tobacco industry did when the first studies came out of tobacco and smoking causing cancer. They paid scientists, they paid doctors, they paid studies to confuse the issue. The documentary is amazing, by the way, if you want to watch it, it's called Merchants of Doubt. And it breaks down all these industry tactics. So when you're an ultra processed food, big food company, maybe like a Kellogg's or a Mars or a Nestle, what you want to do in this situation is you want to muddy the waters, make it really confusing. So the way you do that is you focus on the definition of ultra processed food and you say, well, look, but here's this ultra processed food over here.

11:49And that clearly is good for you because it has vitamins and it has fiber and it has other things over here. Because what that does is it makes everyone focus on the definition, the categorizations, the classifications, and the fact that we're still figuring that out means we don't have to take action now. And so this is a proven industry tactic. So what I'm urging you and all our listeners to do is avoid the noise. There's enough data to show ultra processed foods are bad. If you look at just macro population data, 63 % of the UK are now overweight or obese. And our kids are eating a 60 % ultra processed food diet overall.

12:31And if you look at more detailed studies on lunchboxes, we're talking about 80 % of a kid's lunchbox is now ultra processed. So there is no time to waste. This is happening now. The state of our health is terrible, let's stop arguing about the definitions and start changing what we put in our shopping trolleys because everyone will clearly be healthier if we eat a whole foods, minimally processed diet. So that is what we have to focus on and we have to focus on how we can change the food system to start making more minimally processed foods that offer you the same convenience, offer you the same value and make you healthier because it's not always that healthier food has to be more expensive.

13:15There are plenty of examples in the supermarket where it's cheaper and it's healthier in some areas and some products. So we need to go back to how food was originally made. Really simple, minimal processing that's going to make a huge difference to your health, help you lose weight and keep you healthy. So this is fundamental. This is what I want to do. I want to change the food system. So it's super easy for you guys. You don't need miracles. You don't need diet plans. You don't need to calorie count. You just need real food as often as you can. I always, always, always say to people, if you just eat vegetables and meat, you can't go too far wrong.

13:58Health doesn't have to be complicated. So we just need to shift our focus, shop the fruit and veg aisle, shop the meat aisle, shop the dairy aisle, minimally processed foods, real foods, whole foods. That's it. Do that. You're going to be healthier. Do that. You're going to have, you're going to lose weight. Do that. And you can live a longer life. It's really that simple. And that's all I'm here trying to do and trying to show you. And so thank you to Chris Van Tolikian for working on this recent study that's just been published in August, 2025. really clear evidence in just eight weeks. This makes a physiological difference to how many calories you eat and how much weight you lose.

14:42So go for the minimally processed foods. Let's eat a whole foods diet and let's live healthy. Thank you for listening.

14:57At Boar's Head, we've been going back to school for over 115 years. And this year, every school lunch is reason to celebrate with the flavors your kids love and the exceptional quality you expect. Helping you make school lunch fresh, easy, and delicious. Ring the bell. The deli is open. Boar's Head. Committed to craft since 1905. That sound could mean a lot of things. And when something's going wrong at home, the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is. At Thumbtack, you can upload a voice message or a photo, and our AI-powered search will help diagnose your project. Plus, the pros we know have over 14 million five-star reviews, so you can hire with confidence.

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