Are ultra-processed foods that bad for us? | BBC Maestro 

Don't put too much trust in labels: there are many things the industries can put in their recipes that the law allows them not to declare.

1.Beware of 'lean' deli cuts. They too are chemically processed. In fact, any type of processed meat - bacon, sausage, et al, should be avoided. 2. The food industry has more than 34 names for sugar. If 'sugar' or any of its alternates feature in the first three ingredients, it's best to leave it on the shelf. 3. The 'diabetic menu' suggests 1/4 of daily food intake should be carbs - the exact formula for diabetes. Reduce carb intake as much as possible. 4. Real food does not require a label. Signed, a (3-year sugar-free) concerned citizen.

Three things I got here 1. Fake health claim labels like protein bars & shakes 2.They mimic real food because they’re not 3.Real food does’t need advertising

I had been seriously overweight pretty much my adult life. In all honesty, i never really consumed cereals and juices. I only ate sweets every now and again. I could never lose any serious weight. About 2 years ago, i made the decision to give up bread. It was pretty much the only UPF i ate regularly. Id say 4-6 slices a day. Not really that much i think most people would say over the whole day. It was the game changer. Without doing much else, i lost 6kg in one month. After 6 months I lost 5 stone. Thats all it took after years of being overweight. What the hell?

Tim Spector is both an outstanding academic and science communicator. I hope the world listens to what he says.

I started Nutrisystem four months ago to help jumpstart my calorie control while transitioning to healthier eating. For the past two months, I've been eating mostly whole foods, plant-based, with very minimal ultra-processed foods. Now, whenever I eat cereal or anything with added sugar or highly processed ingredients, I feel horrible afterward. I feel tired, my mood dips, and overall, I feel unwell. I never noticed this before when I ate poorly every day. It's amazing how you become more in tune with your body. Your videos are a great source of nutrition information and have been very helpful!

Fermented bread is best which has just 3 ingredients:flour 5% salt and water .

Eye opening. Shocked nothing was done before. cost to NHS is billions. why aren't laws in place to protect our health?!

Excellent discussion.

Great Video.

An article in the prestigious journal "The Lancet" from Dec. 2023 concludes, "A higher consumption of UPFs [ultra-processed foods] was associated with a higher risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases. Artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages, animal-based products and sauces, spreads and condiments, but not other items, were associated with increased risk of multimorbidity, suggesting that more nuanced subgroup analyses of UPFs are warranted." Undoubtedly, tge science is young, and there is much to learn. Nonetheless, strong evidence suggests that regularly eating some UPFs increase the risk of death like routine smoking.

Excellent

Thanks Tim.

Thanks Tim

Thank you very much for sharing these clips with us, I know we all have a hunch about how bad these foods are for us, but clips like this get the point across in a fascinating way

Guar gum is essentially soluble fiber. I thought soluble fiber was good for microbes and slowing the digestion? I believe his message but i add psyllium husk to my own baked goods and think it does the same. It adds soluble fiber.

Great information

I used to eat lots of this ultra processed food up to 4 years ago, I was over weight, depressed, stressed, had low self esteem, eczema and the food was easy assessable relatively cheap and gave me a temporary high. Then 1 day I said enough was enough and went total cold turkey and changed my diet completely, 1st 3 weeks were awful with sugar and fat cravings so I started to go running. I now don't eat any ultra processed food and my life is 1000 times better, complete transformation. Just remember that UPF is made for profit and not for your benefit.

Thank you

So true

Video was immediately followed by an advert for KFC burger!

You mentioned once that you’re a specialist on osteoporosis but I can’t find a segment dedicated to this topic by you. I’d love to hear what you have to share on this. How can we improve our bone health if we’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis. I can’t find anything promising on improving this health issue.

Important advice. Stop eating ultra processed foods. Try to eat whole foods and natural foods.

It still staggers me that we say it's ok to still have UPF as a treat. Seriously. A treat should be good for us not a poison. Until we change the way we think about UPF nothing will ever change. How can you say UPF are bad but its ok to have it occasionally as a treat??? Make no sense.

Thank you. Kids get addicted to the sugarized, over salted and oiled foods. What a business model. Some 60% of calories come from industrial produced food stiff.

I understand now: "real" food is not made of chemicals.

I'm going on 5 years whole foods.

It would be good to see health warnings on labels endorsed by the health service (or rather disease service )😏

What does Tim Spectre say about seed oils? Sunflower and rapeseed oil are in many food items that are healthy additions to meals such as pesto, houmous and in food items created by health influencers like Deliciously Ella. I get so confused as to whether or not it’s ok to use these things? I know home made is always better, but sometimes it’s not always possible.

5:30 “gut microbes who react very abnormally to it and also affects our gut lining”: these claims would be more compelling if there were more specific scientific claims of damage or risk beyond “abnormal” and “affects”.

Great video, I thought veggi meat alternatives were healthy, please could you explain to people that these are also UPF?

If you stir up chia seeds in water it will look glue-like, too. This isn't very rigorous science..

All very good. I would go one step further and reduce your overall carbohydrate intake. Also, important to mention insulin resistance - this is the central tenet of metabolic health and how it's being adversely affected

Yesterday I bought a pack from a cheese counter, short date so cheap, brand name unknown to me, 3 normal cheese ingredients. Just looked it up - it's produced by a Nestlé subsidiary, Lindahl's. It's not cheese.

This video should be on every tv station.👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

What's the consensus on milk?

For a year I've avoided USP foods wherever possible. I wasn't overweight and stopped purely for a healthier diet but I've still lost 10kg and look noticeably slimmer. I'm the same weight and have the same heart rate and the same blood pressure that i had in my 20s despite now being in my 60s. I feel healthier and don't feel hungry as often as before and as a consequence I don't eat as much. I've told friends with health and weight problems about the dangers of a UPF diet and why not try reducing the amount of UPF in their diet. I'm visible proof to them that it brings health benefits but they simply don't believe that UPF is the reason for their illness or weight problems. They can't switch out of the view that it must be ok to eat these foods because it's marketed as; healthy, low fat or low sugar and they believe the food industry wouldn't be allowed to sell products if the claims weren't true.(See minute 14 onwards in the video). Unfortunately, from my experience I believe that the majority of people who are unhealthy and obese will continue to believe what they want to believe whether it's evidence based or not and this will include continuing to eat a predominantly UPS diet.

I agree on not eating processed foods, but: Why would fat be unhealthy? Also, I don't think a human needs fiber at all. I'd like my gut bacteria to stay calm and not freaking out.

Ultra processed food should be labelled on packaging.

Increasingly reading that BigFood is coming out fighting.... Nestle are going to market a pizza for people on wegovy!!! 😂😂

After spending the better part of the last 25 years eating an unprocessed foods diet, I had some birthday cake from the grocery store a couple weeks ago. The next morning, I vomited out goopy chunks of undigested cake (which perversely still tasted like cake) and left a thick oily residue on the toilet which needed to be cleaned up with dish detergent. NO THANKS!

When he advised the demonised fat he lost me.

Your first oath as a doctor is to do no harm remember that, i dont care where the sugar or carb comes from or wether its processed or not which you know means nothing, its glucose, what are whole foods? Doesnt exist. Telling people not to eat processed foods isnt nutritional advice, you know carbs are glucose, you know that! Kods are eating 100x more sugar than 100 years ago, dementia was rare, alzhemiers was a one case phenomenon in 1906, autism was rare now so many kids have it, our kids have diabetes and fatty liver, its got fk all to do with "ultra-processed" foods, its sugar and carbohydrates and fibre, not a single gram is needed ever! And when vegetable and seed oils (which are actually industrial bi-products) replaced saturated fats we started to suffer from these disease and with the added sugar it went 100 fold. The reason you dont need a single gram of sugar is because our body produces it by a process called gluco-neogenesis, WHICH YOU KNOW. So as i said remember your oath i dont care who pays you

In short? YES! They are. Why even question it? 😅

22% to almost 28% of the Uk population of working age in some areas (North East England) are economically inactive with a lot of the reason ill health. Unfortunately the cost of these foods is overall much cheaper than 'real' foods and due to poverty, inequality and lack of education plus the constant advertising of Ultra Processed Foods in poorer economic areas alongside the saturation of fast food outlets and a complete lack of healthy choice leaves people with little alternatives that are easily accessible to them. It's no wonder that NHS waiting lists are on the rise.

Yes, just ask dr pradip jambadas if you're not sure.

Without references, it sounds like opinion. I searched on guar gum and I can only find rare side effects but also studies showing benefits as a prebiotic and soluble fibre. Tim, please add to the description giving refs for each claim.

3:18 I say evolution did teach us “how to eat these kinds of foods created in factories”.

Just. Curious who made the decision to use Jack-In-the-box as a sponsor??!!

… but it doesn’t always result in obesity. My grandchildren and their parents have a terrible diet and they are skinny. I haven’t eaten UPF in years and yet I’m the fat one! But people make the judgment based on what we look like. I’ve just had a health check. BP, cholesterol, liver, kidneys, hba1c, all good. I battle constantly with my family to get them to eat healthier. They think, because they’re thin, they’re ok and that’s because the unhealthy narrative is always linked with obesity.

Carrots

It's disappointing the BBC is giving a platform to this guy. He's done a lot of good work in the past but his recent obsession with UPFs has taken him a long way from the scientific consensus. Obviously, there's some truth in what he's saying. The problem is he's presenting his very contentious views as scientific fact. By endorsing him, the BBC is giving the impression that his views are mainstream and based on robust evidence, but they aren't.

We should adopt a new name for ultra-processed foods: pseudofoods.

I think this should be stop at school, school all children is eating this for lunch 🫠

Behind profesor in right corner is large bread whole grain.. look the color 👌🏻

Trans Fats! That was a challenge.

Lol he kinda looks like Jaishankar

0:28 You can choose processed foods with fiber in them or get fiber separately, and sugar and fat are not problematic unless you are overcalorificating.

From the first sentence this is not a great video. His definition of "added ingredients not found in a kitchen" excludes white rice, white pasta, white bread, muffins, pastries and so on.

Eat a vegetarian diet, u feel better & feed everyone in there, low fat too , 💝

SO EATING BUGS IS BETTER RIGHT? RRRAaaaiiighhteee? allllrigtee then mofos! lets eat da damn bugs!

Typical BBC, the crisps will be cooked in seed oils which are the worst. I'm carnivore and healing myself.

8:25 You’re “not against fluorescent colored licorice” but mention colorants as number uno “chemical” anyway 1:50, which vagueness all makes it sound quite like religion and piety.

Why are you focusing on meat alternatives? Ultra processed foods are everywhere and are not only meat substitutes. Any food that comes from a drive through, out of a box, from a corporation, is likely ultra processed and likely contains bacon fat and milk based additives. Why single out plant substitutes. This is disingenuous and just inflammatory. It feels like there is some corporate money behind this little speech.

Isn't it a little rich to let someone who has multiple financial interests in this area talk about this without any other independent opinions?

I like to follow people like this, but I have no idea who or which to follow because there’s a contradictory message on each. Vegetables are bad. Fruits are bad. Meat is bad. Grains and seeds are bad. Who can I believe?