Getting Ultra Processed Foods Out & Why

Transcript:

LEAH: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. We are a small Minnesota company with the big goal of spreading the real food message through life changing nutrition education, and counseling.

I'm Leah Kleinschrodt, a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, and I have been counseling at Nutritional Weight and Wellness for the last six, almost seven years now. I was a bit of a late bloomer getting into the dietetics field. My undergraduate degree was actually in exercise science. And then I decided to enter the workforce for a couple of years before deciding to go back to school to the University of Minnesota to get my master's degree in dietetics.

And I actually found and joined the front desk staff at Nutritional Weight and Wellness between my first and second years of graduate school. And when looking back now, I know I am forever going to be grateful for that indeed.com posting that I found.

Before I get too much further into the rabbit hole though, and reminisce about it further, I want to introduce my cohost, Teresa Wagner, who is also a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. Teresa's been at this a little longer than I have, and Teresa, you're going to have to remind me just how many years it's been for you.

TERESA: Well, I've been counseling at Nutritional Weight and Wellness for about a decade. But I practiced a little bit before working here. I had a crooked path. You said you were a late bloomer. I wasn't so much a late bloomer into the dietetics degree. I actually knew when I was 12 that I wanted to be a dietitian, but once I had graduated from college, I took a different path and that lasted for a little while. So about 17 years ago is about when I got serious about getting back into the field, and my registration is about as old as my son, because I remember taking the registration exam when I was very pregnant with him.

LEAH: What a mile marker.

TERESA: Yeah. So it's easy to keep track of so in any case, it's been about 15 years that I've been in the field.

LEAH: Yeah, and so again, you've been at this a little longer than me, but we both found Nutritional Weight and Wellness is actually not too far apart from each other. And so while I was brushing up on my biology and my chemistry and learning all the complexities that we learn in school about iron transporters and B vitamin metabolites and lifespan nutrition; I'm sure all that rings a bell for you, Teresa. But in looking back, I honestly feel like I was learning just as much about the simplicity and the healing capacity of real whole foods, just by working my little part time 10 hours a week job that were at what was then the Mendota Heights office.

And so week after week, I would watch class members and counseling clients walk out of their sessions feeling a little lighter, a little brighter, and a little more excited to get into their kitchens. And sometimes it looked like they moved with a little more ease and less stiffness. Sometimes their skin would look a little clearer, and that was just the things that I could see.

Then I would chit chat with people as I was scanning their products or helping them make more appointments, and they would share other changes that they were noticing, like maybe they were breathing a little bit easier, or like this time around they would have fewer allergy symptoms going into the spring season.

Maybe they didn't have any more acid reflux or chronic diarrhea, or their cholesterol numbers were coming down, or maybe they had an improved bone density scan, or they were sleeping through the night for the first time in several years, or they were starting to lose some of that tricky belly fat. And there was so much more that we would talk about as I was helping them.

TERESA: I can see that too, just in thinking of being in the office as there's classes going on and people coming in very quiet, but leaving so loud and chatting and having such a good time.

LEAH: The energy level just changed so much.

TERESA: Yeah. It's just, I feel like people come in maybe just because problems feel very serious. And then they leave with hope and just a can do attitude about, yes, I can do this. And there are solutions to the things that we're working on. And it is, yeah, it's very uplifting to hear.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: So yeah, those are some of my favorite things as well. And it's great when clients come in and are happy that they've lost two pounds or 10 pounds since their last appointment. But when I hear about these other improvements to the quality of their life and their lived experience, nothing beats that. But how exactly does that happen? How can food make such a difference in all these areas?

In today's world where there's an “ologist” for every part of you, it's sometimes hard to wrap our heads around just how broad of an impact our food choices can have. But that's exactly what we want to tackle today. Specifically, we want to discuss the connection between eating ultra processed foods and the ripple effects it has on our health.

LEAH: Yeah. And okay. So I want to start answering that question of how, how can food on the end of our fork have such a broad sweeping effect on the body? And then when I think about this in my head, I often think of it as a shift or a turning of the tide. When we make changes to our food and overall eating patterns, we want to eat more of the foods that help our health while eating fewer of the foods that harm our health.

So that begs the question, which foods fall into which category? So in our classes and in the counseling room, we spend a lot of time helping clients to start to let go of the ultra processed foods in their diet. So these are the foods typically that are going to harm our health, and we want to replace those foods with what we call real food or foods that help our health.

Real food is food that comes from a farm, not a factory, or sometimes I'll say this is food that grandma or great grandma would recognize as being food. And when we can make the shift and tip the scale in favor of these real foods while making ultra processed foods a smaller proportion of what we're eating, the whole body responds in a positive way.

What foods fall into the ultra processed food category?

TERESA: So I think it would be helpful to back up and set the stage a little. Let's talk about what foods fall into the category of ultra processed. Ultra processed food is a relatively new term that started to gain traction around 2016, maybe 2017, and now it's a widely used term, even in the scientific literature. There's actually a formal classification system called the NOVA system that categorizes foods by the amount of processing they've undergone.

It's not a perfect indicator of the healthfulness of a food, but it can get us in the right ballpark. In general, the more that's been done to a food between the farm and your fork, the greater the chance that that food is stripped of its original nutrients, and the greater the chance that there are some extra ingredients. In the NOVA system, group one foods are unprocessed or minimally processed foods. These are what we would refer to as real foods, right, Leah?

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: This would include frozen, chilled, or fresh vegetables and fruits and meats, eggs, plain yogurt and dairy products without added sugars, beans, lentils, potatoes, nuts without added salt or sugar, and whole grains like rice and oats. On the other end of the spectrum, group four foods are the ultra processed foods. They are defined as industrial formulations. Sounds delicious. Doesn't it, Leah?

LEAH: Yeah. I mean, just even that terminology right there just seems like, oh, I really like I can stick a fork in that.

TERESA: Yeah. What's for dinner tonight? Industrial formulation.

LEAH: Industrial formulations. Yep.

TERESA: These typically have five or more ingredients. They often have added sugars, salt, oils, and other “food substances”, whose purpose is to imitate real foods or to disguise undesirable ingredients or tastes in the food. The foods in this category include things like breakfast cereal and breakfast bars, pizza, frozen dinners, packaged breads and buns, ice cream, margarine, candy, soda, sports drinks, sweetened and flavored yogurts, pastries, cakes, crackers, and more.

LEAH: That's a list. That's a mouthful.

TERESA: It is a list.

LEAH: And I know you could have said more. Those were just some of those main examples, and listeners of Dishing Up Nutrition have heard these types of foods before. We talk about them as, again, more processed foods, higher sugar foods, highly refined foods, you know, that terminology can kind of be used interchangeably.

But I want to give an example of illustrating what you just mentioned. As I was preparing for today's show, I went back and listened to an interview that Dr. Mark Hyman did with investigative journalist, Michael Moss. Michael Moss has written several books about how we as a nation are hooked on and marketed to by the junk food industry.

And on this particular podcast episode, Michael Moss was sharing a story about a meeting that he was a part of several years ago at one of the nation's major cereal producers labs, and they put out some samples for people to try of corn flakes that had no added salt in them. Now, the chief spokesperson from that company tried the no salt added cornflakes and was horrified that they tasted like metal. Can you imagine?

TERESA: No.

LEAH: Like, spooning up a spoonful of cereal and having it taste like metal is in your cereal.

TERESA: I can't imagine why it would taste like metal.

LEAH: Right.

TERESA: Except for maybe what we were saying before about being so ultra processed that actually you're not eating a lot of corn.

LEAH: Yep. Yep. And so I remember Michael Moss saying that they also sampled no salt added cheese crackers and they also tasted terrible. And so it was at the time of this meeting, there were some regulations being voted on to try to reduce the amount of salt and other additives in foods.

And so the whole point of the meeting actually was for this company to show just how awful some of their ultra processed foods tasted unless these foods were dressed up with exorbitant amounts of salt, sugar, and oils. It was just, it was a very interesting kind of anecdotal story.

TERESA: Yeah, that's really powerful to think of how much we have to do to our food in order to make it taste good if it's not natural foods.

LEAH: Yep. Mm hmm.

TERESA: But it makes sense. When I've worked with a client for a while who's been cutting out a lot of these processed foods, the ultra processed foods particularly, and a few weeks or a few months later they go back and try some of those foods again, often they say that the food tastes different. They're like, wow, I didn't realize how incredibly sweet or salty that food was until I stopped eating it.

LEAH: Yeah. I had the same experience.

TERESA: Unfortunately, these kinds of foods are everywhere. Ultra processed foods make up about 71 percent of foods in the average grocery store, and according to a 2022 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they also make up 58 percent of the average American's diet.

Even more shocking, at least I think so, is that these types of foods make up 67 percent of the average American kids’ diet. So when we ask clients to start making that shift from ultra processed foods to real foods, we realize that this is a tall order for a lot of people and we see this a lot in all of our classes. But just to note in the sugar challenge we challenge people to get rid of all the ultra processed food and only eat real food.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: And it is a tall order, like we were saying, like this can be very challenging, hence it being a challenge, which if anybody is interested, this challenge is going to be starting again in April. So check out our website if you're interested in joining us in the sugar challenge.

LEAH: We ran this challenge before in the fall, and I think a lot of people had some great successes, even within that 28 days. So I think too, when we can focus in even on 28 days or a couple of weeks worth, it makes it a little bit more digestible or it makes it feel a little bit more doable, which is, I mean, that's the great thing about just even running some of these short challenges like that.

TERESA: Yeah. And it's a lot of fun. And we've really worked on it between fall and spring. We've got a little bit different format and so it should run better. So we're excited.

Sign Up for the 28-Day Break Up with Sugar Challenge

LEAH: Yeah. Yes. Echoing what you said, this is a challenge for many of us to get rid of these ultra processed foods. Many of us have very strong and very logical reasons why we eat these ultra processed foods, even if we know they don’t necessarily help our health. They taste good.

TERESA: Yeah.

LEAH: Depending on the thing, they can be cheap. They're familiar for most people. Maybe there's a fond memory of these foods from childhood, or this is a popular thing that you'll do with your family or that there's some strong family traditions around these foods.

Maybe these are foods that have become a soothing tool for stress or intense emotions. We hear that a lot in the counseling room. Or maybe these are foods that, you know the whole family will eat without complaining. Again, there's a lot of reasons why these foods are out there and why we choose these foods.

Discovering each person’s health goals

So the list goes on and on. So when we have a lot of reasons why we eat these foods, that means we, when we want to make positive changes for our health, we also need to have at least one powerful reason to move away from these foods.

When I meet with a client for the first time, I want to hear from them and get really clear about why they are there and what their goals are for their health. It's actually one of my favorite parts of a consultation, especially those initial consultations is just learning how people came to our doorstep and where they want to go next.

TERESA: Yeah. That's a lot of how I start too, because I really want to know what they want to get done, what they want to accomplish. What is going to make this a successful meeting? So I start classes and consultations with trying to figure out why people are wanting a change. Everyone comes with a different reason and a different back story.

Then our job as dietitians and nutritionists is to help draw the connections between the food choices and health for good or for bad. Many times we have to start with pointing out where some of those ultra processed foods are coming in. And like you said earlier, these foods taste good. And so I never blame or shame people for eating them because I like the way they taste too.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: They've been designed in a lab by food scientists to be irresistible. You eat more, you buy more. It's good for the bottom line of the food companies.

LEAH: Yep, exactly.

TERESA: So we talk to these clients about how these foods, while they're not healthy foods, they also might be creating a slow metabolism or creating more symptoms that they're looking to change. Leah, what would be one of those connections that you feel like you talk a lot about with clients?

The importance of getting adequate sleep & sleep tips

LEAH: Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like one connection that comes up a lot is sleep. Then whenever I see a health questionnaire that mentions issues with falling asleep or staying asleep, I know immediately we have to hunt for foods. Time and time again, I'll find that evening snacking on foods like chips and salsa, on crackers, microwave popcorn, chocolate candies, brownies, and cookies; they create a blood sugar spike early on in the night, and that may make it hard for us to fall asleep.

And then, it creates a blood sugar crash later in the night that wakes us up. So think that two or three or four in the morning time frame where you wake up, and that could, for some people, be a low blood sugar response at that time. I also think about the glass or two of wine with dinner or in the evening.

That's another common culprit that often throws a wrench in our sleep plans. So one strategy we have for clients is finding better choices for an evening snack that keeps their blood sugar stable throughout the night. This is usually a combination of some carbohydrates, some real food carbohydrates and a healthy fat. So some of the common ones we'll throw out there: apple slices and natural peanut butter.

TERESA: So good.

LEAH: Yeah. So good. And so simple. Even a few baby carrots with some guacamole.

TERESA: Also very good.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: Especially if you're the person that wants something a little more savory.

LEAH: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I just taught a class last night where one of the suggestions for that evening or bedtime snack was sauteed pears with either some butter or coconut oil and topping it with some like heavy whipping cream. I was like, oh my gosh.

TERESA: Yum.

LEAH: Yeah. It's those are, that's one of the ones I just, I tend to forget about, but it's still so good. And now there are certainly things that can throw our sleep off that don't have anything to do with food, but this is one great example highlighting that shifting process that we talked about earlier, making the shift from eating ultra processed foods to eating real foods and how that can improve sleep.

And as a mom of two younger kids, I can tell you there's almost nothing a good night's sleep won't fix, or at least make a little bit better. So we do have to take a quick break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. I am Leah Kleinschrodt, along with Teresa Wagner, and we are your hosts for this episode, all about getting ultra processed foods out of our everyday diet. And we'll be back in a moment.

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TERESA: Welcome back. You are listening to our Dishing Up Nutrition weekly podcast. Before we went to break, we were talking about the connection between eating ultra processed foods and sleep, more specifically having troubles with sleep.

The ultra processed foods connection to migraines & headaches

Now, another area where we have seen a clear connection between ultra processed foods and symptoms are headaches and migraines. Sometimes the connection is a specific additive or chemical in the food like MSG or aspartame or the food dye. Sometimes it's the blood sugar spike and dip we get from the sugars and refined flours that make up these foods.

I've noticed that when my female clients eat more ultra processed foods, they have more unstable blood sugars. They tend to have more intense hormonal symptoms like PMS or cramping or hormone related migraines. Better periods and less pain? Talk about reasons to quit the junk food and eat more real foods.

Just like sleep, there are certainly other things that may factor into headaches and migraines, but what we eat or drink can make all the difference in how frequently or how intensely someone experiences a headache or migraine. If this connection piqued your interest, our colleagues, Melanie and Brandy did a fabulous Dishing Up Nutrition show on headaches and migraines just a few weeks ago on March 11th.

LEAH: Yeah, that's, it's such an important connection for a lot of people. I'm personally not prone to migraines, but my mom and my brother were for a long time, and I've met with enough clients to know that a migraine is not an experience that I would be looking for. I'm very happy to avoid those experiences.

Anxiety: the importance of consuming quality fats & oils

One thing I do have personal experience with, and I see this box checked on almost every health questionnaire that comes across my desk these days, is anxiety. Now, according to the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, 19.1 percent of adults experienced anxiety in the last year. And about 30 percent of Americans will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetime.

We're also seeing a dramatic increase in anxiety in our kids and our teenagers. And I know Teresa, you and Monica did an excellent show back in February on this very topic. So I'll just refer people to that for a deeper dive.

But one of the first things you highlighted in that particular show that you did with Monica is looking at the types of fats and oils that we as a nation and our teenagers are consuming on a regular basis. And we want to look at the quality of these fats and oils because our brain is made up of a lot of healthy fat, and good fats at each meal and snack, keep our moods and our energy levels even keel in between those eating events.

Eating the right fats can be an important tool to keep us out of what I call hamster wheel brain, just that anxious spiraling, endless ruminating, like worrying about silly things. But you know, it's worrying about silly things, but at the time it feels very real also. Or even some of that like panicky feeling that starts to bubble up in your chest just when some of those anxiety feelings start to overwhelm you.

TERESA: Yeah. I've got an example of that silly thing, but feels very real. I know someone who gets like a legitimate anxiety when they are around tables that have umbrellas in them, you know, the table umbrellas.

LEAH: Oh, yeah.

TERESA: And causes like panic to the point they have to leave and like cold sweats and like kind of tear up and it just afraid that the, and the anxiety more is that there's going to be a gust of wind that's going to get underneath the umbrella and blow it up.

LEAH: Yeah, and the table's going to overturn and it's going to be a whole thing, right?

TERESA: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's kind of one of those things where has this ever even happened to you?

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: And if it hasn't, it feels silly, but it's very real in the same thing. Like to that person, it feels very real. So yeah, totally get that. And I'm sure lots of people out there have talked to somebody who's got kind of a funny anxiety like that.

Inflammatory oils: another downfall of ultra processed foods

LEAH: Mm hmm. That is the thing about anxiety is this, the feelings behind it is very real. So tying this back into nutrition, thinking about one of those stats that we just shared, when we eat a diet of 58% of it is all those ultra processed foods, guess what kinds of fats they're using in those products. It's not olive oil, and it's not butter from pasture raised or grass fed cows. The food companies typically use refined, cheap, inflammatory seed oils like soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, safflower oil. Those are some of the big ones.

TERESA: They're cheap. They're inexpensive. It's good, once again, for the bottom line.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: Referring back to that Michael Moss interview, Michael mentioned that snack food makers often aim to get about 50 percent of the calories in those foods from fat in order to hit the right flavor and the right mouth field. So I had to look this up. I was like, ah, is for real? So I did and I looked up potato chips: 52 percent of the calories in potato chips come from fat.

LEAH: There you go.

TERESA: If you look at Cheetos, 56 percent come from fat. Chips Ahoy Cookies: 45%. Goldfish Crackers: 32 percent; Club Crackers: 39. So it's all right in that ballpark. And you'd expect the crackers to be a little bit less. Cause they, well, I mean, you can just tell they're not as fat rich, but it's interesting, like that statistic. I was just like, can it be?

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: So just did a little math to figure that out, but when half of those calories come from that food come from those fats and oil, the quality of those fats and oils, it really matters. We have to ask ourselves if at least part of our current mental health challenges have to do with the quality of fats and the quality of the foods that we're eating on a consistent basis.

LEAH: Yeah. So that's so true. And I think there's enough data out there nowadays that does support that connection. There was a study published in the journal, Nutrients, in June of 2022 that stated that “Greater ultra processed food consumption was cross sectionally associated with increased odds of depressive and anxiety symptoms.” I mean, shorter way to say that is eat more processed foods, more likely to have those symptoms of depression and anxiety.

At Nutritional Weight and Wellness, we've been asking this question for a long time. Do you need an oil change? Is it time to sub out those refined seed oils for more healthful fats like olive oil, butter, full fat cream cheese, avocado oil, and whole nuts and seeds. Those are, that's just to name a few.

Usually when the refined seed oils go, that automatically takes a lot of ultra processed foods out with it or vice versa. When we really start to take those ultra processed foods out, a lot of those seed oils tend to go with it. So it's a nice two for one.

TERESA: Yeah, absolutely. So you can watch one or you can watch the other.

LEAH: Yeah. And it takes care of both.

TERESA: Right.

LEAH: Yep.

Connection between excess weight, slow metabolism & ultra processed foods

TERESA: Well, before we close out our show today, I wanted to draw one more connection for our listeners. I'd say it's the number one reason that people come to Nutritional Weight and Wellness. That is the connection between excess weight, a slow metabolism and eating ultra processed foods.

I'll keep it short and sweet. The more ultra processed foods you eat, the greater the chance of putting on the pounds, and the greater chance of slowing any weight loss efforts. It's no coincidence that the rates of overweight and obesity in this country are being closely followed up by the percentage of our diet that is ultra processed food.

LEAH: Yeah. It's an important point. And when it comes to weight loss goals, ultra processed foods are just not your friend. Even from what we've covered so far today, these foods can wreak havoc on our sleep, disrupt how well our brains work and create bigger hormone swings; all of which can create an environment for weight gain.

You mentioned this earlier, Teresa. These foods are engineered to make it hard to stop at just one, and they override our own internal hunger and satiety cues. So in essence, these are foods without a breaking system. How many people open a 10 or a 16 ounce bag of corn chips and eat just one? And just take one out and then put it back on the shelf or put it back on top of the fridge.

TERESA: I don't know if I know that person.

LEAH: Yeah. Or you open a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies and take just one out and put the rest back into the freezer or the fridge or again the pantry. I'm sure there are a few of those people out there. There, there might be some listeners out there that are like that, but my bet is it's not the majority.

If anybody out there is wondering if dietitians were just born to eat healthy, let me assure you my “once you pop, but can't stop” type of foods, especially as a teenager were Cheetos and chocolate mint ice cream. And even today, it's better if I don't bring in the sea salt lime tortilla chips into the house, just because that just means they're going to be eaten by somebody at some point. And it's probably going to be me.

TERESA: Right. And when we were talking about this before the show, I was like, I don't know. I mean, I suppose I could put a list together, but it would be so long. The long and short of it is is that some people are just very susceptible to ultra processed foods, whether they are the savory things like potato chips, or they are the sweet things like cookies or ice cream or whatever.

I tend to be one of those people. It just tends to be very difficult to stop once I start. And so therefore for me, it's not like I never have any of these foods. I'm just very careful about how I do it. And one of those things that I do is I don't keep it in my house.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: And I don't eat it alone. I don't eat in private because you know, it's the food doesn't have breaks and I don't have breaks.

LEAH: Yep. Exactly.

TERESA: Yep. So just to solidify this connection with some science, there was a popular study done at the NIH that was published in the journal, Cell Metabolism, in 2019. They took 20 people and kept them in a ward for four weeks.

For two weeks, these people ate an ultra processed foods diet and then for two more weeks they ate an unprocessed foods diet. The meals that were provided were matched for calories, sugar, fiber, sodium, and macronutrients. But the study subject could eat as much or as little as they wanted, and they could request snacks if they were hungry.

This study found that when participants ate the ultra processed food diet for two weeks, they gained two pounds. When they ate the unprocessed food diet for two weeks, they lost two pounds.

LEAH: Yeah, I, I remember this study making a big splash in the headlines when it first came out, which is, it's kind of an unusual thing for a nutrition related study. And I remember we did a whole Dishing Up Nutrition show around this study. It was released back in October of 2019, if anyone is interested in learning a little bit more.

But, so I think it's fair to say that we have been both the science and also clinical experience to say that making the shift away from ultra processed foods is most likely going to be a smart move for our weight and really any other type of health goal we have.

TERESA: I'd say that's a great summary point. Like I mentioned earlier, making this shift is not easy for many of us for a variety of reasons. In many ways, the deck can seem stacked against us, but this is what we do all day long. We take clients and students where they're at, and we start putting one foot in front of the other.

Maybe the first step is to find a substitution for the three cans of soda per day. Maybe the next step is to eat some turkey sausage with eggs and a piece of fruit for breakfast instead of toast with margarine. Maybe it's figuring out a new Friday night family routine that involves a better pizza option.

If you're feeling stuck in the ultra processed food cycle or overwhelmed with where to go next in your health journey, maybe your next click could be on our website, weightandwellness.com. Or your next call could be to our office at 651-699-3438.

Check Out Our Services & Resources!

LEAH: Yeah, absolutely. We help clients who are looking for an overhaul, but we also work with clients who are just looking to tweak and to maintain what they have. So no matter what, we're happy to help and to be a part of that journey in any way we can.

TERESA: Our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to provide each and every person with practical, real life solutions for everyday health through eating real food. It's a simple, yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for listening, and if you've enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes or your favorite podcast app to leave a review and help others find our show.