Here ’s What Eating Processed Foods for Two Weeks Does to Your Body

Ultra-processed foods—the kinds made irresistible by sugar, fat and salt—are ubiquitous in the U.S., making up as much as 60% of the average American diet. But a small, intensive new study published in the journal Cell Metabolism shows that their low price and convenience comes at a cost to health. When people ate a highly processed diet for two weeks, they consumed far more calories and gained more weight and body fat than they did when they ate a less processed diet—even though both diets had the same amounts of nutrients like sugar, fat and sodium. It wasn’t a shock to find ultra-processed foods weren’t healthy—other research has linked them to a higher risk of cancer and obesity. What was unexpected was that sugar, fat and salt didn’t seem to be what was driving people to overeat. “I was surprised by the results,” says Kevin Hall, lead author of the study and senior investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. “It’s the first trial that can actually demonstrate that there is a causal relationship between something about ultra-processed foods—independent of those nutrients—that cause people to overeat and gain weight.” In the study, 20 healthy adults lived for a month in a lab, where all of their meals and snacks were prepared for them. The two meal plans were either highly processed or unprocessed, and everyone...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Diet/Nutrition embargoed study Source Type: news