Category Archives: Processed Edibles

A Menace to Satiety

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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. 

Stripped Carbohydrates: A Primer

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Generally speaking, and with the exception of milk and honey, the carbohydrate in nature virtually always comes with fiber attached. Whether from orchards, meadows, gardens, or forests, and whether as roots, leaves, stems, or fruits, intact—or whole—carbohydrates belong to four major categories (fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains), all of which are rich in fiber as well as phytonutrients, the source of their often vibrant colors. Continue reading →

Nourishing Yourself With Joy

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Joy has been in the news lately, and that’s what I want to talk about today. 

Eating is meant to be a source of joy, as satisfying as the sunrise. Like listening to music. Talking with friends, or sitting together on a bench at the park. The wind at your back. Trading backrubs. Dancing. Stretching. A hot shower. A book that transports you to the other side of the universe. Walking along the shore. 

Eating is deeply satisfying. It speaks to your soul. Eating is sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, umami. Crunchy, soft, toothy, smooth, sticky. Beautiful, colorful, warm, cool, icy, bubbly. Expressive, imaginative. Fun, chaotic, quiet, or peaceful. Continue reading →

Food for Thought

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I once saw a post that said “Eat organic food, or, as your grandparents called it, food.” Only a century ago, nourishing food did not require prefixes like real, whole-grain, pastured, free-range, wild, or grass-fed. That’s what food was. What is happening to the food supply? As you have probably surmised by now, I spend lots of time thinking about the differences between real food and manufactured calories.

One strategy I use is to avoid products invented in the 20th century, like cottonseed oil, or high-fructose corn syrup. Also, I stay away from products that tell me when to use them, like breakfast cereals, lunch meats, and TV dinners. No one needs to tell you when to eat a banana, or scrambled eggs, or oatmeal, or guacamole, or chicken noodle soup. Continue reading →

An Oatmeal Hierarchy (with recipe)

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Like many other messages of its kind, Americans and other consumers of the standard Western diet have internalized the idea that oatmeal is “good for you.” Not all oatmeals are alike, however, and it is no surprise at all that the ultra processed items industry has identified a number of objectionable ways to influence the manufacture of oat-containing edibles. Today’s post provides more information on various kinds of oatmeal and related items available to consumers, beginning with instant oatmeal, the most highly processed product, and ending with steel-cut oats, the least processed form of oatmeal.  Continue reading →

Some Exciting New Developments

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A lot has been happening lately in the field of research into the the health effects of ultra-processed items, and that’s what I want to talk about today. Last month, the results of a huge study, involving almost 10,000,000 (ten million!) individuals, were published in the BMJ [British Medical Journal], “one of the world’s most influential and respected general medical journals,” and they were…shall we say…most informative.  Continue reading →

Disturbing News About Ultraprocessed Products

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My friend Nancy recently asked about a jar of “light mayo” whose first and third ingredients were water and “modified food starch,” respectively. She bought it because, in contrast to the 100 kcal found in conventional mayonnaise, it listed calories per serving at 35 kcal. I would say that it is an expensive way to buy water and flour. Currently, approximately two-thirds of the calories in the standard American diet derive from ultraprocessed items. I would like to discuss the many recent articles connecting illness and ultraprocessed products. Note that I don’t call them “food.”  Continue reading →

A Corn Continuum: From Real Food to Manufactured Calories

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Today I am talking about the difference between real food and manufactured calories. 

When you make a choice about what to eat, the question is this: Is this real food that nourishes, or is it manufactured calories, an invention of the 20th century? Some things in life are black and white, like a coin toss at the start of a football game. But it’s not always so simple. Between black and white may be found a spectrum of grays. That’s what I want to talk about today. Continue reading →

Four Old Friends Share a Treat

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Last weekend I met up with three friends in Philadelphia to enjoy a very long weekend together. Growing up together in the neighborhoods of Levittown, New York, we have been friends since fourth grade. Except for the pandemic, we get together once a year or more from the four different states in which we have made our adult lives. This time we picked a very old house near Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Built in the 1850s, the house’s kitchen was located underground (first floor), with four more floors above it. The entry and dining room were on the second floor (ground level), with a sitting room on the 5th floor, and bedrooms on floors 3 and 4. We quickly became nimble at navigating the extremely steep, winding staircase.

We cooked a lot of our own meals in the updated kitchen and spent at least as much time hanging out as walking through Center City, goggling at the displays in the Reading Terminal Market, admiring the public art — especially near the Art Museum and along the Ben Franklin Parkway, visiting the Liberty Bell, and seeing a play at Walnut Street Theatre, not to mention enjoying the excitement of the local win that sent the Eagles to the Super Bowl. 

I don’t have to tell you that the meals we prepared were nourishing and healthy, with loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, beans, whole grains, nourishing fats, and high-quality protein. Of course they were. And a few days into our visit, one of our happy crew happened to remark that the reduction in the amount of sugar she was eating appeared to have reduced some of the GI symptoms she’s had since forever. I don’t really know if she meant for me to hear, but I did. And I was absolutely not surprised. What passes for food in this country continues to stun me.  Continue reading →

Not a Breakfast for Champions

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Breakfast cereals, generally speaking, are not particularly nourishing, although they do have a praiseworthy origin. They were invented near the turn of the 20th century by health spa owners offering an alternative to the eggs, coffee, and beef, bacon or sausage that constituted the usual breakfast of the time.

Not coincidentally, the invention of breakfast cereal also provided an economical use for the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the bread ovens at the health spas. The word “cereal” itself is a synonym for “grain,” and it is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. We have strayed a long way from that origin. Continue reading →