Photo: Kamekichi Photos, Unsplash
Somebody Please Cue-Up The Frozen Pizza Remix Of “Sabotage”!:
Stock traders and investors will often call a good company in a challenged sector, “The best house in a bad neighborhood.”
This should be an idea we all memorize because even in the developed world, consumption of Ultra-Processed Food is going up.
With about 74% of the US population being either obese or overweight, that’s a genuine problem.
For some reason, it seems like UPFs live in an +/- “Iron Triangle of Business”: Cost, Quality, Convenience; Pick two.
And even though a team of British nutrition researchers tried to pick the “best” UPFs they could out of that minefield, they still didn’t do that well…
The Short Answer:
- Great Britain has the Eurozone’s highest rate of obesity.
- So researchers had a good reason to try this study.
- 50 overweight subjects went through 2 8-week programs; one with UPFs and another with Minimally-Processed-Foods.
- There were no quantity restrictions on any plan.
- The MPF group lost 2% of their body weight in 8 weeks.
- This compounds up to almost 13% across a year.
- The Best UPF group only lost 1% of their body weight in 8 weeks.
- The MPF group also lost fat & water without losing muscle!
- They also had fewer cravings and 2-4x better control over them.
- Few people in the UK or US follow the government healthy eating guides.
- The high-quality food argument gets even stronger because of that.
- The numbers actually show it is harder to “OD” if you’re not getting the bad stuff to begin with.
Read on to find out the details…
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Chips And UPFs Make Britain The Eurozone’s Fattest Country:
The team had a great reason to investigate our dietary arch-enemy, too!
Because Great Britain has become the Eurozone’s fattest country, overtaking Germany a few years back.
Their percentage of overweight or obese is about 64%, which is catching up to the US, with UPF consumption is on the rise too.
So they probably had the idea to try finding the “best” ones they could to make a study most people could think of applying practically.
The Study. 50 Subjects Try Two Very Different Plans In 8 Weeks:
So 50 overweight subjects went through 2 structured plans that were separated by 1 break-period of temporarily going back to their standard way of eating.
One plan consisted of Ultra-Processed Foods selected by the dietitians and provided to the subjects.
The other was one using minimally-processed foods.
The plans each lasted 8 weeks and more-interestingly, the subjects were not given Any guidelines at all on how much or how little to eat.
The Weight-Loss Results & Wacky Government Diet Plans:
And across those 8 weeks, subjects on the Minimally-Processed diet lost 2% of their bodyweight.
But those on the best possible selections from Ultra-Processed foods only lost half of that.
What’s interesting about the plans is they were matched across all macros, sodium, and saturated fat,
This, according to the UK’s version of the USDA Food Pyramid (now MyPlate).
And that’s not exactly the most aggressive plan in the world, as it seems to recommend about 35% of calories from bread, pasta, rice, grains,
It also recommends only 12.5% from Protein; where the USDA recommends it at 20% of calories.
The Stealthy Benefits Of Minimally-Processed Food Diets:
Here are some of the real highlights of the MPF plan:
1) Total fat mass was reduced
2) Total body water was reduced
2a) (probably because of lower sodium, so less retention)
3) Amazingly, muscle-mass did not decrease
4) Neither did other non-fat lean mass
So the subjects on the MPF diet basically changed their body-composition from fatter to leaner!
At the very least, these results are another confirmation of The Quality Argument for anyone who wants to lose weight.
Increase the quality, reduce the processing, and you’ll not just lose weight but lose fat! (which is what “weight loss” is really about anyway)
Weight-Loss And Self-Control Bonuses Add-Up Across The Year:
Also, it shows how powerful seemingly-inconsequential changes can be.
Because if they sell UPFs in a grocery store, it must be okay for you to eat, right?…
And a 2% reduction in body-weight may not seem very big, but that’s only across 2 months!
So across a whole year, that’s more like 13% of body-weight lost.
-All done without weird injections or their kooky side-effects and risks.
And here’s a BONUS ROUND! note that pertains very strangely to drugs like Ozempic.
5) Just like this other article would suggest, they also had fewer total cravings!
5a) 4x the control over their cravings for savory food
5b) 2x the control over total cravings
5c) 2x the control over cravings for their main “cheat foods”
-All without meds!
Less And Less People Follow The Healthy Eating Guides:
As we hinted before, the big problem is that even though the UK has their own healthy-eating guide,
The stats say less than 1% of their people follow all the recommendations on that list.
With most of them sticking to 50% or less of them.
And since the US has a higher % of overweight and obese people, maybe the problem’s even worse here for the USDA MyPlate [calories + macro servings] calculator.
(that being said, the MyPlate site is not easy to use, shows no simple graphic, and you have to scroll past 50% of the page to use the calculator in the previous link)
One More Thing. MPF Dieters Accidentally Achieve Pro-Level Results:
So perhaps that makes The Quality Argument even stronger?
If you’re starting-out with better foods, maybe you have a chance to avoid a lot of problems even without the perfect UK, USDA, or even healthier Paleo, Slow-Carb, MIND, or Mediterranean Diets!
-And you know for SURE that non-dietitian-civilians would choose the worst UPFs if they weren’t going for that quality!
Note: To save the best for last, those UK average joe subjects also managed a nearly pro-level 290 cals/day deficit on the MPF plan!!!
This was more than 2x the UPF plan, and represents about 13% for someone on a standard diet!
So do yourself a favor and go for minimally processed foods as much as you can, no matter how you eat!
References & Links:
• Source: UCL
• More Coverage: NHS Eatwell [PDF] | USDA MyPlate
• Source Study: NatureMed – Ultraprocessed or minimally processed diets following healthy dietary guidelines on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, crossover trial
