A member of my family texted me a few weeks ago: “Thinking of you as I’m watching CNN report on the effects of ultra processed foods… Followed by an ad on controlling diabetes numbers. (Did they consult you?)”. She knows how long I’ve been thinking about this.

So I decided to write about ultra processed “items” this week. The media has got to stop calling them food.

An old friend once came to visit, and she told me that she’d been discussing my dietary recommendations with her clever boyfriend. He spent some time mulling them over, and then said: “Processed food is a menace to satiety.” Indeed it is.

Have you ever given any thought to the fact that you might be able to eat your way through several pounds of potatoes in the form of potato chips, but never as baked potatoes? How many baked potatoes do you actually think you could eat? Remember to include the butter because, after all, most potato chips are fried. 

My husband and a bear-sized buddy of his from Athens, Ohio, used to joke that the best way to eat Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookies was to open the cellophane and slide the entire sleeve right into your mouth all at once. Ouch. A sure sign of ultra processing.

What’s the record number of bowls of breakfast cereal — just name your brand — that you’ve ever eaten at one sitting? Three? Four? What about a whole box? Do you think you could eat that many bowls of oatmeal? I suspect not. That’s because real food nourishes, and whole oats are real food. Generally speaking, however, most breakfast cereals are manufactured calories; and manufactured calories do not nourish. They will never nourish you. They do something different. They entertain. Entertainment is fine, entertainment is fun, but entertainment is not food. Any time a manufacturer has to tell you when to use a particular product or product category (breakfast cereal, lunchables, TV dinners…), there’s a very good chance that it’s not really food.

Real food fills your belly. Real food tells you, “You’re full now. You can stop eating.” Highly processed manufactured edible products don’t do that. They bypass the exquisitely sensitive signaling systems that are designed to keep your body working right. They hijack your appetite. You can’t tell when you’re full. So you keep eating. You cruise the cabinets after dinner even though you JUST ate. 

When you’re hungry, it’s not a good idea to eat something that’s been processed or manufactured into a form that is no longer recognized by your body as real food. Instead, it’s a much better idea to eat something that your body recognizes as nourishing food. Maybe a slice of cheddar or Swiss cheese. Some leftover grilled asparagus. A cup of brown rice. Broccoli soup. A ripe avocado, or a slice or two of turkey breast. A cup of raspberries. An orange. A bunch of grapes. Celery sticks dipped in hummus. A homemade oatmeal-raisin cookie.

Real food is truly satisfying.