September 27, 2022, 2:44 PMIn many households, ultra-processed foods are mainstays at the kitchen table. They include products that you may not even think of as junk food such as breakfast cereals, muffins, snack bars and sweetened yogurts. Soft drinks and energy drinks count, too.
Yet in dozens of large studies, scientists have found that ultra-processed foods are linked to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer. A recent study of more than 22,000 people found that people who ate a lot of ultra-processed foods had a 19 percent higher likelihood of early death and a 32 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with people who ate few ultra-processed foods.
In a rigorously controlled clinical trial that was carried out by the National Institutes of Health, scientists compared what happened when they fed a group of people a diet of ultra-processed foods for two weeks and, on a separate occasion, a diet of matching meals that were mostly made from scratch.
Some experts argue that ultra-processed foods hook our brains and overwhelm our biology because they contain unnatural combinations of fat and carbs along with sodium and other flavor enhancers.
It Michelle gave us that new pyramid.