By Kevin Kolodziejski
The Check Out That Wasn’t
At first, I thought the woman behind the checkout counter was checking me out, but that couldn’t be. When she had scanned my groceries any time previously, she had paid scant attention to me. Plus, she looked to be in her thirties, and I certainly don’t.
What she was checking out, I decided, was not my bod but my attire. A long-sleeved T-shirt from the 2018 Turkey Hill Bicycling Classic and a baseball cap from Shirk’s Bike Shop. So when she said, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you,” I assumed it was not my marital status but something about cycling.
I was wrong on both accounts. It was about spinach. Specifically what I did with the five eight-ounce bags of it I bought every week I shopped there.
She guessed most of it got blended into smoothies, but I explained it did not. That I add half a bag to my daily suppertime salad and eat the rest with mid-week lunches “unadorned.” That word seemed not to register with her (pun intended), so I added what I never add to my favorite edible Asian plant: “No salad dressing, no nothing.” Her expression, which had been one of interest, changed. It changed in such a way that I knew exactly what she was thinking.
What Registered With the Woman Working the Checkout Counter
That she was checking out a cyclist whose tires were at best threadbare and less than fully inflated. I saw it in her face and even heard it in her voice as she handed me the receipt and said, “Have a nice day.”
Now you’ve heard, I’m sure, about a type of tire that cyclists never want to possess. It’s always overinflated, super-resistant to punctures, and goes not around a carbon or aluminum rim but around your waist.
The ironic twist to all this: That tire you never want to possess, you actually purchase each time you go to a grocery store and buy too many or the wrong kinds of ultra-processed foods. But that’s more than a manner of speaking; studies have suggested this for years. Including one published last year in the December issue of Obesity Science and Practice that was designed not as a diet but an eight-week intervention.
The Intention and Benefits of a UPFs Intervention
According to the press release about it, the intervention performed at Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences was intended to help wean the participants off UPFs because of the “uniquely problematic aspects” that make reducing consumption of them “extremely difficult.”
Charlotte Hagerman, the study’s lead author and assistant research professor at Drexel, explains why. The food industry designs UPFs to be “ultra-delicious, convenient, cheap,” and in an attempt to get consumers “hooked” makes sure UPFs are “constantly present” via TV, internet ads, and billboard signs. So Hagerman and her colleagues recruited 14 obese or overweight adults who had been consuming their fair share of UPFs and educated them on the food industry’s motives. They also helped them plan meals, offered strategies to address their UPF cravings, and provided financial support for purchasing healthier foods.
The participants quickly became “enthusiastic” about all the help, the presser points out, when they began to “experience improvements in their mood and energy.” The published paper notes this, too, as well as some other pretty remarkable results.
On average, the participants lost 7.7 pounds in eight weeks even though, as previously mentioned, weight loss was not the targeted goal. The goal, to reduce consumption of UPFs, occurred at a rate of 48.9 percent, which resulted in an average of 612 fewer calories being eaten each day. Moreover, the participants also decreased their sugar consumption by 50 percent, saturated fat consumption by 37 percent, and sodium consumption by 28 percent.
One Final Note
While there’s no confusion in these results, what’s less than clear is the difference between processed foods, which are necessary and can be really healthy, and ultra-processed ones, which are unnecessary and usually aren’t. That’s because there’s no agreed-upon definition for UPFs, in part because the definition used in the 2010 groundbreaking study that coined the term ultra-processed food is not only confusing but also 80 words long.
So for the purposes of the aforementioned study, UPFs are defined as “industrial formulations that consist of no or minimal whole foods and are produced with substances extracted from foods or synthesized in laboratories . . . using techniques that could not be recreated at home.” Common examples the paper cites are store-bought breads, frozen meals, candies, cookies, snacks and cereals.
While that’s helpful, what’s more so for me is Chris Van Tulleken’s explanation of those — “specifically engineered as addictive substances” — in his book, Ultra Processed People: “Much of it will be familiar to you as ‘junk food’ [but UPF is much more]. If it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you usually wouldn’t find in a standard home kitchen, it’s UPF.”
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.
Kevin:
I have difficulty with food studies like this because of small sample sizes, lack of a control group and the psychological impact of being studied. Food science is very difficult due to the large number of poorly designed, small experiments some folks are calling studies. The smallest sample size to imply causation would be around over 32 people in both trial and hold out with similar medical,
And behaviorial backgrounds. Those results would still have low confidence.
Rich Gordon
Not difficult at all. Just take a look through the isles of any typical Walmart. Observe the size of a large percentage of the shoppers, then look at what’s in their shopping carts. Do this ad nauseam and your “study” will be done. You don’t need no stinkin fancy study.
R Groves.
The lifespan of Americans has doubled since the introduction of processed foods around 1880 (General Mills started selling clean flour). In 1880 life span averaged 39.4 years, in 2020 Statista shows it was 78.8 years (The US statistical abstract shows 2025 at 79.4 years). To me, that is a telling correlation.
Creating causal models of which foods have what impact health would be a valuable use of our government funding, but would be extremely expensive.
As I stated earlier, I have little confidence in opinions based on poorly conducted experiments. Observation is good for generating ideas for study, not for diagnostics. The particular study mentioned in the article reminds me of the Hawthorn studies in the early 1900s. Where researchers discovered that subjects knowledge that they are being observed changes their behavior.
“Telling” correlations are not the same as causations. A lot in our lives has changed since the 1880s.Think antibiotics.
It’s really not that hard to love and respect yourself. Fresh and frozen vegetables are cheaper per serving that frozen processed meals. I buy veggies on sale and from the mark-down rack where the ugly or not-so-fresh veggies are placed. I also buy quick-sale meat or frozen fish on sale, and use meat protein as a condiment to the meal rather than as a centerpiece. I eat an egg a day mixed into the steel-cut oats I cook every morning. I cook dried beans, onions, green veg, and a sweet potato into a “soupy-stew” once a week and eat from that daily. I avoid things with added sugar or added sodium, and I seldom add salt to food I cook, choosing other tasty seasonings and aromatic spices. Water, kefir, coffee, and unsweetened tea are my first choices of hydration, with the occasional Gatorade or tomato juice after especially grueling activity. I do occasionally indulge in all-natural ice cream with no additives, but only in a small amount, and with plenty of time for my body to process that sugar. I’m female, over 60, 5’10, 128-132lbs with zero health issues except possible beginnings of AMD, and I take Preservision for that. No other medications needed. I walk or ride my bike wherever I need to go, borrowing a neighbor’s car only for errands too dangerous to run on bike or for large/bulky/heavy groceries or garden supplies. I mow my own 0.4-acre yard with a 22-inch “me-propelled” push mower, and grow many of my own veggies in summer and fall/winter (think collards in winter).
Bottom line is that we ultimately choose our actions, including what we put into our bodies for fuel. Just think about how much you care about yourself when you’re at the store and choose only quality fuel for your body. It’s really cheaper than packaged meals that are gone in one sitting!
I find it interesting that the semaglutide weight loss drugs, by many reports, are changing the food preferences of their consumers, away from ultra processed foods to more whole food healthy choices, even curbing cravings for alcohol among those who are so addicted. Of course the manufacturers of junk foods are now researching how to reformulate UPF’s to overcome this reluctance, so they can continue to poison their market share. If you were raised in a family that made healthy eating and lifestyle choices, and internalized nutrition based dietary decisions – count yourself very fortunate. I give thanks every day for that.
To the titular question, Duh, Yes. Why do people eat them in the first place? UHPF’s are addictively tasty. Why are there so many options? UHPF’s are profitable. An addictive, profitable product! And legal. See movie “Idiocracy” for our future.
Kevin, I have read that spinach contains oxalic acid which hampers absorption of calcium and magnesium. What is your take on that with the amount of spinach you consume?