How the ‘food’ we eat causes harm by not really being food at all
Chris van Tulleken has a medical degree from Oxford and a PhD in molecular virology from University College London. He is a practising infectious diseases doctor and an associate professor at University College London. His new book isIn the spring of 2019, a paper was published in the medical journal The Lancet with an unremarkable-sounding title: “Health Effects of Dietary Risks in 195 Countries, 1990–2017.” Itassociations between food and health from most countries on Earth.
To understand how this new food is harming us, we need to look at the history of eating from a biological perspective. After all, living organisms have only two projects: reproduction, and the process of extracting energy from the world to fuel that reproduction Everything else merely serves those agendas.Let’s go back to the very beginning. The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, but life emerged much quicker than was previously thought.
The auroch’s world didn’t contain handy nutritional information labels about energy and minerals. They had to chase the rain, avoid the carnivores and eat the right amount of, for example, the mineral selenium, all whilst precisely maintaining body weight. How did they do it? Through a system of such staggering complexity that we are only just beginning to understand it.
But most of the humans in Canada have entered what I call the Third Age of Eating. Starting in this era, a single species started to eat food products that were manufactured using novel molecules and previously unknown industrial processing techniques. These molecules created ultraprocessed foods, a category that has become so dominant in the modern food system that most of our calories now come from food products containing synthetic molecules that are never found in nature.
Almost every aspect of these foods is harmful to the body and the planet. The destruction of the food structure by processing means that UPFs are, in general, soft – think supermarket bread or a doughnut. UPFs are also dry, which prolongs their shelf life and often means they are calorie-dense. This combination of calorie density and softness means that you can eat far more calories per mouthful than the internal regulatory systems from the Second Age of Eating can keep up with.
Philippines Latest News, Philippines Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
‘Poor Things’ Teaser: Emma Stone Comes Back To Life In Eccentrically Enchanting FilmAn eccentric and captivating new teaser for director Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Poor Things' has just been unveiled. Based on the 1992 novel by Alistair Gray, the upcoming film centers around Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, who produced the movie), a young woman brought back to life in a Frankenstein-like fashion by unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem…
Read more »
Trevor Hargreaves: Current approaching to policy-making is failing usOpinion: The problem is a lack of process when the government is crafting policy.
Read more »
Opinion: Inadequate housing provides a foundation of sand for Vancouver's most vulnerableOpinion: The question after the tent encampment takedown in Vancouver is \u0022what next?\u0022
Read more »
Opinion: Are the rich and powerful becoming irrelevant?Our current oligarchs are facing a choice. They can either begin to serve the common good, or they will have to accept that no one is following them.
Read more »
50 Times People Disrespected Food In The Worst Ways And Were Shamed On This Online PageThese dishes could even be considered “cursed” in the parlance of our time, and the “Cursed Food” Facebook gathers the best (or worst) examples out there.
Read more »
Stalwart Toronto health food chain shutting down after acquisitionA go-to health food store in Toronto will have all its locations permanently closed by the end of June. Focused mainly on supplements, personal car...
Read more »