After RFK Jr. Attacks Ultra Processed Foods, Time Magazine Publishes a Defense
The timing of the article is shameful, and is completely devoid of science…settled or otherwise.
There was much to note about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.‘s endorsement of President Donald J. Trump last Friday.
The press and Democrats (but I repeat myself) have been in hysterics ever since RFK’s address at the Trump rally, which has been glorious.
One topic caught my eye, and I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss it here: the impact of ultra-processed foods on children and adults in this country.
This is the most important 3 minutes you'll watch today about America's health crisis.
RFK explains how ultra processed food, seed oils, pesticides, and food additives are messing up kids.
"We are mass poisoning all of our children." pic.twitter.com/lobFtocMLX
— Resist Times (@resistupdates) August 23, 2024
About 18% of American teens have fatty liver disease. It’s like one out of every five. That disease, when I was a kid, only affected late stage alcoholics or those who were elderly. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the old.
…One in four American women is on anti-depressant medication. 40% of teens have a mental health diagnosis. 15% of high schoolers are an Adderall and a half-million children are on SSRIs [Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors].
So what’s causing this? I’ll name two culprits. First, and the worst, is ultra processed food. About 70% of American chidrens’ diet is ultra processed food.
…”We are mass poisoning all of our children and our adults.”
Kennedy explains that he believes that the cigarette companies bought food processing companies. Those firms took their chemists and added substances to make the foods addictive. While that may be a bridge too far, the fact is that there is some evidence that additives in the foods are impacting human body biomes, which may be reasonably anticipated to result in adverse health consequences.
An ultra-processed food is an industrially formulated edible substance derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds. The resulting products are designed to be highly profitable, convenient, and tasty, using preservatives, colorings, and flavorings.
As I have said before, food science is the least settled science of all. I think people should be allowed to eat as they wish and feed their kids according to parental preference.
However, I do find the recent defense of ultra-processed foods in a recently published Time piece very concerning. The article features Jessica Wilson, a California dietician who specializes in working with clients from marginalized groups.
Wilson spent a month eating these foods and came out feeling fabulous.
She swapped her morning eggs for soy chorizo and replaced her thrown-together lunches—sometimes as simple as beans with avocado and hot sauce—with Trader Joe’s ready-to-eat tamales. She snacked on cashew-milk yogurt with jam. For dinner she’d have one of her beloved Costco pupusas, or maybe chicken sausage with veggies and Tater-Tots. She wasn’t subsisting on Fritos, but these were also decidedly not whole foods.
A weird thing happened. Wilson found that she had more energy and less anxiety. She didn’t need as much coffee to get through the day and felt more motivated. She felt better eating an ultra-processed diet than she had before, a change she attributes to taking in more calories by eating full meals, instead of haphazard combinations of whole-food ingredients.
And while this may have been published to discredit RFK Jr., it does nothing to refute the many troubling statistics Kennedy cites. For example, here is the accepted data on pediatric fatty liver disease.
Before the turn of the century, there were only a handful of documented cases of pediatric fatty liver disease in the medical literature. Today, millions are affected, and researchers in the journal Clinical Liver Disease estimate that 5 to 10 percent of all U.S. children have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease — making it about as common as asthma.
“It’s the worst disease you’ve never heard of,” said Samir Softic, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Kentucky Children’s Hospital who specializes in fatty liver disease.
There have been studies linking ultra-processed foods to cognitive decline.
Several studies published in the past few years have found an association between eating more ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline. In one study of more than 10,000 middle-aged adults in Brazil, for example, people who consumed 20 percent or more of their daily calories from ultraprocessed foods experienced more rapid cognitive decline, particularly on tests of executive functioning, over the course of eight years.
And there are several food ingredients banned in Europe but not the US.
It also might be helpful to assess the rationale behind the publication of the Time piece and the timing. Wilson is a California dietician who published a book focused on black women’s bodies. Watch the video for her hot take on body size and black identity.
Dietician and author Jessica Wilson joins @LinseyDavis to talk about her new book, "It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies,” which offers Black women a roadmap to reclaim agency over their bodies and health. pic.twitter.com/EpXOe4MYdw
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) February 28, 2023
Kennedy is asking the questions they need to be asked. “Experts” who were supposed to protect the American public from harmful policies have been clearly influenced by wealthy and powerful interests in other health areas, so why should food be any different?
Hopefully, Kennedy will be in a position to get the answers Americans need to make fully informed decisions about what they eat.
Yeah, what if? And what if ultra-processed foods are WORSE than you think? https://t.co/3KAWiV8Dgz
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 28, 2024
The timing of the article is shameful, and is completely devoid of science…settled or otherwise.
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Healthy dietary and exercise habits… How dare he push those those nonsensical things on an unwary public! Instead everyone should stay in their apartment, sit on the couch eating fatty cakes, consuming ultra processed chemical laden foods, playing games, watching Netflix and ordering things online to feed the consumerist economy. Just go get a RX for a weight loss injection at $20K per year and don’t worry about obesity, organ damage, diabetes. /S
Cheetos, donuts, and a Diet Coke.
Post party leftover pizza. Just skip the slices that have cigarette butt on them. Wash it down with stale beer.
The breakfast of champions!
Wait, do you know how much fiber is in a cigarette butt?
This pretty accurately describes my 20s if you add large amounts of Jim Beam. Then one day it got too hard to run it off and work out post party so I stopped being stupid about trying to drink ‘my share’ of the world’s liquor and beer.
Don’t forget “reading blog posts”! 🙂
Corn syrup, seed oils, processed foods. They are indeed killing everyone.
“Obesity is Strength!”
“Heart Disease is Healthy!”
Well if you sit on your opponent.
Just when you think you can’t hate the media more than you already do. I suspect before this election season is over, we’ll see headlines like: ‘Fentanyl, how overblown is the danger?’ ‘There is an upside to heavily armed Venezuelan gangs roaming American cities.’
I can hardly wait to be the first on my block to be a victim of sodomy by a gang of third-world savages.
that was sarcasm, right?
That’s a post requiring /sarc.
There’s a reason that all of Time Magazine Co. once changed hands for $1.
My wife quit all processed foods, and the results read like one of those testimonials for miracle drugs except the results were real. This included cutting out all processed grains like white flour (which are not ultra processed but she cut out any meaningfully processed foods)
– lost a lot of weight
– lowered her A1C from diabetic to 5.0 and same with blood sugar
– scored in the top few percent in AST/ALT levels
She tried and quit Metformin and felt healthier off it while losing the weight
Her primary care person said she would be on statins and metformin and life and could never reverse T2D.
She did it all in less than 6 months.
I’m not a huge overall RFK supporter but he is hitting some themes 100% spot on.
Yup. Good friend was diagnosed with diabetes. She freaked out and told her doctor she did not want to be on any drugs. Completely changed her diet and started exercising daily. Never did have to take a drug, and has continued going on six or seven years now.
Big Pharma and Big Processed Food hardest hit.
Drugs are the “go to” solution for most doctors. Don’t accept their recommendations without exploring alternatives or demanding proof they’re necessary. My “bad” cholesterol was slightly elevated and my doc immediately wanted to put me on drugs. I asked two questions. First, “What was my cholesterol ten years ago?” (When I was cycling thousands of mile a year.) Turns out it was only slightly lower. I took this to indicate that a slightly elevated cholesterol was normal for me. Second, I asked, “What test can I take to show it’s damaging my heart? Because I won’t take any drug unless I know it’s necessary.” She scheduled a special CAT scan (for deposits in the coronary arteries). On a scale of 0 to 5 of increasing coronary artery blockage, I scored “0.” No meds for me, thank you.
Also your cholesterol and blood pressure, triglycerides do increase as you age; that’s natural.
I tried being strict about it for a month. Seed oils, processed foods, whole grains and not many, low carb etc. 7,000 steps a day. Lost 16 lbs
Now I still avoid seed oils, sugar and processed foods. Very little deep fried, no fast food. Feel much better
“Eat More Possum” was a popular tag to put on your truck in 1978 when South Carolina did away with requiring tags front and back.
The South Will Rise Again.
One out of four american women is on anti-depressants?
Kamala leader krazy kat ladies.
18-39: 1 in 10
40-59: 1 in 5
60+: 1 in 4
As you can see, the psycho cat lady syndrome finally kicks in at 40. If I destroyed my life by being a spiteful, angry witch hating half the population I’d drug myself too.
So so dizzy chick who was starving herself on alfalfa snacks started eating regular, ready made, whole meals and says she feels better. Well, that’s proof. She should get a Nobel Prize.
yeah – her “ultra-processed foods” that she ate are hardly indicative of the highly processed foods eaten by the majority of American children, especially those in poor, urban communities, or those eaten in my poor rural community – Trader Joes? Costco? pupusas (I am not even sure what that is!)? Cashew-milk? yeah – not exactly the standard American diet there….
From what I’ve seen out of the Nobel committee as of late, maybe she should.
High fructose corn syrup is the “point person” in the diabetes invasion.
They load this up in soft drinks, and it spikes your blood sugar.
You have to buy Mexican or EU drinks to get pure cane sugar, no prize in itself, but far superior to high fructose corn syrup.
And then the artificial sweeteners! Aspartame, related to the amino acid phenylalanine, can cause neural developmental issues in children.
My wife says I should stop putting my half teaspoon of turbinado sugar in my coffee, but soft drinks my kids like have 13 teaspoons of sugar in them! I find them cloyingly and disgustingly sweet. I guess that is why there is beer….. 😉
Corn syrup is ubiquitous thanks to government incentives/breaks for corn producers (I hesitate to use the term “farmers”) that corn is over-produced and a use for it had to be found. Enter corn syrup. The production of corn syrup keeps the price of corn stable by consuming what would otherwise be surplus crop. If the use of corn syrup stopped tomorrow, the price of corn would drop so much it would put many corn producers out of business.
Try Stevia, not a blend, pure 99% Pure Stevia extract. It works well in drinks, not well in things that depend on caramelization. I use it in iced green tea, sometimes with added flavors.
SodaStream is not quite as “satisfying” as Sprite, but it’s good enough, and much less expensive and better for you.
https://sodastream.com/
Thanks for the intro. I have passed this on to my dear wife, the most disciplined food economist I know. She has been known to exit supermarkets with a cartful of food and MORE money than when she went in.
You have to buy Mexican or EU drinks to get pure cane sugar, no prize in itself, but far superior to high fructose corn syrup.
Announced that they are moving to corn syrup also. I’m going to brainstorm a little. Maybe don’t make soda your main source of liquid. Just throwing it out there.
Why let your kids drink soda pop at all? I never would stand for it with mine. And from there they will graduate to driving around with those sickeningly sweet “coffee” drinks in their car …
Another cheap fake ‘black’ ‘woman.’ Rachel Dolezal better step up her game.
Why do we allow sub-zero IQ frauds like these to vote?
I would caution people not to get fully on board the “RFK for a better life” bandwagon.
Remember, he is an attorney, not a scientist. A scientist will read/listen to what he’s putting forth, most especially within that scientist’s point of expertise, and say “wait just a cotton pickin’ minute here.”
I have no issue addressing legitimate public policy issues but let’s not automatically embrace the views of a zealot.
These ‘scientists’ you want to seek guidance from wouldn’t happen to be part of.the same public health system that wanted lock downs, mask mandates, jab mandates school closures and shut down places of worship would they?
You don’t need a specialized PhD to understand that eating food out of your own garden or much closer to the farm without chemical additives is gonna be better for overall health than eating a Big Mac or a frozen dinner.
Why not ask those ‘scientists’ to explain why obesity rates have skyrocketed over the past couple decades? Be sure to find ‘scientists’ that are not on the payroll or get funding from Big AG, the Pharmaceutical industry, the food conglomerates and the restaurant industry.
or getting funding from the government
which is now so intermingled with “private” business that one could say the takeover of america has happened and now they have us fighting each other
Exactly.
“Our food is safe and nutritious” sounds a lot like “The vaccines are safe and effective.” The reaction to complaints about food safety is also nearly identical – limit, control, or simply avoid conducting the research necessary to determine the truth, and silence critics.
I’d say our food is more safe and nutritious than 90% of the planet. Could it be better? Absolutely and as the dangers of seed oils, corn syrup etc become more widely known the choices of products without them have become more available. Take a look at ketchup for example. Along with the selection of ones with corn syrup are many all natural, no sugar added ones. Education is where the key is.
Science is wonderful! Scientists, not so much.
I think nearly half of what RFKJ says is moonbattery, but I just love the opportunity to spotlight the immediate kneejerk opposition of the Communist “mainstream” press.
Really? Any reasonably intelligent person can become well versed in dietary health. Do you advocate following only government guidelines such as the fake food pyramid they foisted on us for decades by scientists bought off by the food companies?
but why should the government care?
oh thats right
b/c they force us to pay for others health care
but to shut up about that fact
This is the issue with Mr. Kennedy: he speaks about lots of issues that interest him. On some of these he is clearly the most sensible person in the room, and on others, he is bat-guano cray-cray.
And you’re left with figuring out which is which.
Like Mr. Kennedy, you’re not a scientist (I am a scientist and I can’t keep track of what he says). Like most normal Americans, you don’t have the time and knowledge base to interpret what someone else says about a particular topic outside your own experiences.
This is why Mr. Kennedy, and all other politicians, celebrities, media people, and academics need to be kept on a short leash — you can’t figure out when they’re right and when they are just bonkers.
Unfortunately, our government and govt-sponsored health experts recently demonstrated conclusively that they’re not really on the side of public health, they’re on the side of manufacturers. Of late, this was exposed with respect to Big Pharma. The experts didn’t get anything wrong. Guessing would have given them a better track record during the pandemic. They lied. They lied about literally everything related to the pandemic.
Big Ag is next, because the public is now aware of the capture of our regulatory agencies. The silver lining of the pandemic was a better understanding of the level of dysfunction in our governments (State and federal). We must keep that momentum going to expose, and hopefully crush (I’d say “correct” if I thought it could be corrected), as much dysfunction as possible.
https://img.ifunny.co/images/f8eb4ea4c0e40c48bdcf6885e278a4f96535ffb36cb8bb53cb57d102774cf46a_1.jpg
“On some of these he is clearly the most sensible person in the room, and on others, he is bat-guano cray-cray.”
On the other hand, that’s what people were saying about Ron Paul 25 years ago. And almost all of his “conspiracy theories” are now revealed fact. Always remember that real life is often crazier than you can imagine.
I love ultra processed foods and have been in pretty good shape my entire life. I grew up on fast food – back when it was actually fast and cheap. I loved it.
It isn’t about the food so much as about what activity people take part in or not. A sedentary person is going to be unhealthy no matter what he eats.
“She felt better eating an ultra-processed diet than she had before, a change she attributes to taking in more calories by eating full meals, instead of haphazard combinations of whole-food ingredients.”
The person who wrote that is a “California dietician?”
What do you cal a “dietician” who habitually eats meals put together from “haphazard combinations of whole-food ingredients?”
QUACK!
“She felt better.” A single data point, collected from a new “food crack” addict. So much new energy — like chorizo meth!
“I felt better” is not a data point. I want to see pre and post dietary change blood pressure, blood work, weight gain or loss, stress test results etc.
A dietician is say she felt better eating more calories? Was she starving herself? When she points to women like Lizzo as healthy I’m just going to have to not take anything from her seriously.
From the article (speiang of children and women on psychiatric drugs): “So what’s causing this? I’ll name two culprits. First, and the worst, is ultra processed food.”.
I didn’t catch the second culprit, maybe you forgot about it.
So I try to fill the void: the malpractice if not outright corruption of the medical estabilshment in America, especially in psychiatry and child medicine, and I say this as a neurologist and the son of a pediatrician mother.
Some diseases are definitely overdiagnoses, like depression and autism; other are simply invented altogether, like ADHD or chronic fatigue.
And don’t get me started on transgenderism and its “life-saving therapies”.
Speiang = speaking, I can’t find the edit button, sorry.
Y0u forgot about “estabilshment “. You probably meant to write “overdiagnosed” instead of “overdiagnoses”. And my keyboard doesn’t have an “edit button”.
The MSM are scum. They are leftist partisans, all pretense is a shredded leftover from years gone by. I rejoice when the Time’s of the world fold and the NYT loses billions
RFK is a leftist kook.
No amount of ‘endorsing’ Trump will change that.
If you compare the Fruit Loops they sell in Germany to what is sold in the USA you would be disgusted. In Germany they use wheat, oats and corn cereal grains and natural flavors from actual fruits. In the USA they use a processed corn flour and hydrogenated oil and a list of chemicals a mile long. It’s poisonous.
Doctors have been saying for years and years to eat less processed foods, prepare your own meals, cook fresh whole food. I also wish that they’d stop pushing the idea that sunlight is bad for you; it’s the lack of sunlight that’s bad. They (whoever they is) want us to live in a dark cage with a hamster wheel, eating shitty gruel and bugs.