A review by campbelltaral
Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind the Food That Isn't Food by Chris van Tulleken

challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

5.0

"It's just a thickener." "It stabilizes the product." "It improves mouth feel." "It boosts protein content." We hear these kind of things, justifying the ever-increasing list of ingredients in packaged foods, and we are helpless to do anything about it because we're already hooked. Convenience, cost, availability, and the insidious rewiring of our brains that make us crave ultra processed foods that will never satisfy. 

We underestimate the resources corporations have at their disposal to ensure profits continue to go up. And the only way they go up is if we buy more. Of course they're going to configure the product so that we want more of it, it's capitalism. The most heart-wrenching part is what is happening in poorer countries: displacing cultural food systems, indoctrinating people as babies, and leaving them entirely dependent on nutritionally-void food-like substances that are killing us all.