Processed Foods & Your Health

Why Grocery Store Layouts Matter More Than You Think

Produce, meat, milk, and cheese are almost always tucked away—either off to the side or along the back wall. In order to reach them, we have to pass through a maze of cake mixes, frozen dinners, potato chips, cookies, soft drinks, etc.

This layout isn’t an accident. It’s a way to force us down aisles filled with processed foods…. and it works.

The food industry profits from processed foods, which is why they are strategically placed. Most of these products are made from beans and grains, especially wheat, corn and soy. From these cheap and simple foods, manufacturers create thousands of items with different textures and flavors, all designed to trigger our cravings and open our wallets.

How are Processed Foods Made?

Processed foods are made by breaking natural foods into different components, sort of like taking a piece of fabric and separating it into different colored piles of threads. Just as thread is not the same thing as fabric, many people don’t consider the products of food processing to be food. Dr. Roxanne Sukol of the Cleveland Clinic has coined the term “manufactured calories” to refer to processed components and the “foods” that are made from them. Her reasoning is that manufactured calories don’t affect our bodies like foods and shouldn’t be confused with them.

What is the difference between manufactured calories and real food?

Nutrient Loss

Manufactured calories are stripped of many essential nutrients. That’s why manufacturers often add vitamins and minerals back in—an effort to “beef up” the nutritional profile after processing. Ironically, these products are labeled as “fortified.”
Whole, unprocessed foods don’t need fortification—they already contain the nutrients our bodies require.

When we eat nutrient-poor foods, we often remain hungry, which leads to overeating. This creates a vicious cycle: the more we eat, the hungrier we feel, and the more we continue to eat.

While manufactured foods are low in nutrients, they are rarely low in calories. For this reason, they can cause us to be both malnourished and obese. Malnutrition may be one of the reasons that it can be so hard for people with obesity to have the energy to exercise.

Rapid Absorption and Insulin Spikes

When sugars, fats, proteins and fiber occur in natural combinations, the body has to work to break down food so that it can be absorbed. This is called “digestion”. Digestion is not the same as when a food manufacturer breaks down food at a processing plant.

In the healthy digestion of natural food, all the nutrients found in that food are available to the body in the appropriate natural balance. One example is the difference between drinking fruit juice, which has had the fiber removed at a processing plant and eating a whole fruit. The juice in a whole fruit is just as sweet as the processed juice (assuming sugar hasn’t been added). However, when we eat a piece of fruit, our body also has to digest the fiber of the fruit, which slows the digestion process and also helps lower bad cholesterol.

When food is absorbed slowly, it only takes a little bit of insulin to carry sugar to the cells. Manufactured calories, on the other hand, are already partially broken down. This is why they are absorbed more quickly. The faster a food is absorbed, the more insulin the body needs all at one time.

If our pancreas produces too much insulin, an insulin spike results. Over time, high levels of insulin can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Hyper-Palatable Foods

Before the modern food processing, eating was closely tied to hunger. “Recreational eating” and the obesity it can cause were rare. Today, scientists have engineered foods that are hyper-palatable — combinations of manufactured calories designed to overstimulate the brain’s reward centers.

These foods trigger abnormally high levels of pleasure, which override our natural ability to sense fullness. The more we eat for pleasure, the less we eat for nourishment—and the worse our health becomes.

Researchers at the University of Kansas found three combinations that create hyper-palatable foods (Source: Hyper-Palatable Foods: Development of a Quantitative Definition and Application to the US Food System Database – PubMed (nih.gov)):

• Over 25% calories from fat and more than .30% sodium by weight
• Over 20% of calories from fat and more than 20% from simple sugars
• More than 40% calories from carbohydrates and more than .20% sodium by weight

While it’s possible to make hyper-palatable foods at home, we’re more aware of what we’re adding—sugar, fat, salt—and it takes effort. That awareness and effort help limit how often we indulge.

Stop the Self-Blame

With the rise of hyper-palatable foods, eating a healthy diet has become more difficult. While other factors affect our health (think exercise and plenty of sleep), we can’t enjoy good health if the bulk of our diet is unhealthy foods.

It’s ok to eat limited amounts of things that aren’t good for us, but only as exceptions to what we normally eat. The more we eat for recreation, the less likely we are to be in good enough shape to enjoy other kinds of recreation.

Understanding how processed foods affect us helps us realize that:

1. Healthy eating isn’t easy, and
2. Diet-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease aren’t just about willpower.

The more we understand, the easier it becomes to make changes—without shame or self-blame.

Where do we start?

If you’re not already on the whole foods bandwagon, here are some practical steps to begin:

The best way to eat a healthy diet is to stop the cycle that drives us to eat unhealthy foods.

• Focus on eating good foods rather than avoiding bad ones. When we nourish our bodies, we’re less likely to feel hungry afterward—and less likely to crave unhealthy options.
• Cut back gradually. If you eat ice cream daily, try every other day. If you have dessert at lunch and dinner, reduce to once a day.
• Take it slow. Small, sustainable changes are better than big ones we abandon after a week.
• Learn to cook delicious meals using whole, natural ingredients. This doesn’t mean avoiding cooking—it means using real, unprocessed foods.
• Make meals social.
• Eat slowly and savor each bite.
• Avoid eating in the car.

Examples of Whole, Natural, Foods

• Nuts
• Whole fruits and vegetables
• Pressed (not processed) oils
• Butter and animal fats
• Meat and fish
• Natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup