Pod Insights Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee BITESIZE | Why You Can’t Stop Eating Ultra-Processed Foods (And What To Do Instead) | Dr Rupy Aujla #630 About this episode Why has nutrition – something that should be so simple – become so complicated? With 70% of our diet now consisting of ultra-processed foods and conflicting advice everywhere we look, is it any wonder we’re confused about what to eat?
Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests.
Today’s clip is from episode 520 of the podcast with medical doctor and nutritionist, my good friend Dr Rupy Aujla.
In this clip, Rupy explains why ultra-processed foods often lead to overconsumption, and we discuss the power of single-ingredient foods to transform our health.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:20 Rangan Chatterjee? See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 520 of the podcast with medical doctor and nutritionist, my good friend, Dr. Rupi Orjala. Rupi is an author and the founder of The Doctor's Kitchen and someone who's on a mission to make healthy cooking accessible and enjoyable for all. In this clip, we discuss sustainable weight management, why ultra-processed foods often
2:05 Rangan Chatterjee? lead to overconsumption, and we discuss the power of single ingredient foods to transform our health.
2:15 Rangan Chatterjee? So if someone's listening, group, and they're like, what on earth should I do then?
2:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:19 Rangan Chatterjee? You've shared some of the science with me in terms of what it says about how one technically loses weight, but you mentioned that term real world. That's the key thing, isn't it? There's what the science shows, there's what we can control in people in a laboratory setting, but what actually happens in real life?
2:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:37 Rangan Chatterjee? Busy people with busy lives faced with constant temptation. What do you suggest they do?
2:43 Speaker 01 So I think there are strategies that as a side effect, like you suggested earlier, will put you into a mild calorie deficit, but importantly, ensuring that you don't have to think about it. And you're also creating something that is sustainable, that you can maintain consistency around. So instead of you like pushing yourself to maintain calorie deficits, which I think are just inherently very, very hard, these practices, I think, will make it super simple, such that you don't really have to think about, okay, I need to restrict myself by not eating that.
3:21 Rangan Chatterjee? And possibly more enjoyable.
3:23 Speaker 01 A hundred percent.
3:24 Rangan Chatterjee? Before we get to those food practices that you recommend, I just want to really emphasise this point that we're talking about, which is what can be really helpful for many people is this idea that we focus on wellbeing in a variety of different ways. And the side effect is that we consume less calories. And you're going to talk us through it from a food perspective. Let me just bring something in to really help people think about that point from another perspective, sleep. We know from certain studies that if you sleep five hours a night compared to eight hours, you eat on average 22% more calories the following day.
4:02 Speaker 01 Totally.
4:03 Rangan Chatterjee? Right, so let's just really think about that for a moment, about this concept that we're talking about. You're saying that technically you need to eat less calories per day than your body is burning if you want to lose weight. But what we're trying to say is that there are many ways to get to that endpoint without actually trying. So I have had patients in the past who I've helped them lose weight, actually not by focusing on food, by getting them sleeping eight hours a night. Because when you sleep for eight hours a night, or let's say you can't manage that, you improve your sleep, right? You're less hungry the next day. You feel fuller earlier and your ability to resist temptation is much higher when you've slept well. Right?
4:46 Rangan Chatterjee? So it's something that I don't think people think about enough. Like, just because the food is important, there are other upstream levers that you can turn, which means that naturally you will make better food choices. Like, when you're less stressed, you make better food choices and all those sort of things. And so, yeah, I just wanted to sort of double click on that point, because I think it's really important for people to understand.
5:07 Speaker 01 I completely agree. And I think we need more longer term strategies for weight, rather than quick fixes, which are being offered to us in the form of medications and diets and all the rest of it. But as part of that long term strategy are non nutritional strategies. It's not just about the food. I know we've just talked about calories and in and out, and this is the scientific way to lose weight. And yes, that's absolutely true. But what you're a big fan of, and so am I, are the other upstream effects that actually lead to behaviour change in the real world.
5:43 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
5:44 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
5:45 Rangan Chatterjee? So let's get into food. Shall we get into these four strategies?
5:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. So I think the four things that people should really anchor any nutritional strategy around are unprocessing your diet, and we can talk about these in a lot more detail, adding more fibre to our diet, eating protein, particularly at breakfast. I think protein is a bit of a controversial area, but it's definitely something that I've changed my mind on, and eating an earlier dinner. I think these are the four very, very simple strategies that people could align their 24 hours of eating around that can certainly help with improving their gut health, improving their metabolic health and staving off weight gain.
6:32 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah. I love those four.
6:36 Rangan Chatterjee? I'd call them principles. I think we share very similar philosophies on health because we understand that different things work for different people. There's a lot of validity to the science on lots of different diets, but let's try and bring it together instead of making it complicated. Let's try and simplify. I think those four principles, unprocess your diet, increase your fibre intake, protein at breakfast and having an early dinner are really interesting. I definitely want to delve into them in a very practical way so that people can actually take something and start applying.
7:12 Speaker 01 So I think if there's one thing that you can do, it is to unprocess your diet. What does that mean? Okay. I think the way you've described it in your, one of your books on weight loss really packs so much information into a very simple strategy, which is focus your diet on one ingredient foods. And where do you find these one ingredient foods? Well, you find it on the outside of the aisles. You find it in the supermarkets with ingredients that you recognise without the need for labels. It's a very easy thing for people to remember. It's a heuristic, a rule of thumb. I know there's going to be some nutrition scientists shouting that down, down at the podcast.
7:57 Speaker 01 I understand there is an over classification. I understand that it's not as simple as saying if you don't recognise the ingredients on the back of a packet, then just put it back on the shelf. I think this is actually a good strategy for most people because it's understandable.
8:11 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, it's like, what is the goal? If the goal is to help people, we need, we need to communicate these ideas in a way that actually resonates with them, that they can apply. I, although I understand it doesn't fit in every situation, I still believe that actually that concept of if it's got more than five ingredients on it, just think twice before you put it in your mouth. I still stand by that.
8:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:38 Rangan Chatterjee? Right, because I can't say it works 100% of the time. No, I can't say that. But is it a useful framework to think about as you're going through life? I found it very helpful. And I know many of my patients in the past have found it helpful as well. So I'm still going to go, I think it's helpful for most people.
8:56 Speaker 01 I agree.
8:57 Rangan Chatterjee? Let's connect this, this first principle, unprocess your diet. Let's connect that to this concept of calorie deficit. Right? So again, the principle being that we're trying to engage in practices that are fun, that are enjoyable, that naturally lead to us consuming less calories without focusing on the calories. Right? So, you know, how does unprocessing your diet fit in with us consuming less calories?
9:28 Speaker 01 So the mechanisms that exist that explain why ultra-processed foods are damaging for our health are multifactorial. One of the key things, I think, and probably the simplistic explanation, the Occam's razor approach, if you like, is that it actually leads to overconsumption of these foods. Because they're so hyper-palatable, because they light up the reward systems within our brain, we generally overconsume calories. And this is a bit of, this is a bit of a conundrum for folks like us, right? Because on the one hand, we understand the reasons and the biological reasons as to why this leads to ill effects like weight gain.
10:12 Speaker 01 But on the other hand, it kind of gives food companies a bit of a way out. It gives food companies a narrative that says, well, as long as you don't consume these foods, as long as you maintain willpower not to consume as much of these chips and cookies and whatever, then these are perfectly safe for you. They are safe within the context of someone's motivation. And I think that's incorrect because what's happening is a hijacking of our senses that leads to the overconsumption in the first place. And so you could also argue that ultra-processed foods displace healthy foods from our diet. The matrix degradation of the food leads to a lack of ingredients for our microbiome.
10:57 Speaker 01 And we know, and you've spoken during your podcast many times, that anything that supports our microbes' health is super important from the perspective of inflammation, sugar balance, but also weight maintenance as well. And unfortunately, the marketing of these foods tend to be those of the most vulnerable in society. And this sort of availability and convenience of ultra-processed foods leads to what we see in the studies being the reason as to why it makes up so much of a population's diet, particularly in the West, in the US and UK, and it's growing in other countries as well. And I think if you look at the stats around the number of processed foods that we have
11:41 Speaker 01 in our grocery stores, it's around 70%. I mean, 70% of the UK and US's diet is processed, ultra-processed foods. So these are foods that are really far removed from the original intended ingredient. They've had added salts, added emulsifiers, other additives to ensure its sweetness.
12:02 Rangan Chatterjee? What's an emulsifier?
12:04 Speaker 01 An emulsifier is something that changes the texture of food to make it a lot more palatable. There are other additives that are used to ensure that the shelf life is preserved. And there are other things that we also do to food to preserve shelf life, like dehydration. So all these things collectively have been shown in a number of different studies to be linked with poor health, independent of the calories that they consume.
12:31 Rangan Chatterjee? And independent of weight loss.
12:32 Speaker 01 Exactly, independent of weight loss as well.
12:34 Rangan Chatterjee? Which is why, going back to what we said before. Even if you could technically lose weight by eating junk food. Because I guess you could say, I could literally have soft drinks and french fries. But as long as it's in a calorie deficit, I will still technically lose weight. You may not be improving your health at the same time. Or you may, you know, on one hand be helping a little bit, but on the other hand, be causing a whole host of other issues for you.
13:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, and there are stories that have done that as well.
13:03 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, exactly.
13:04 Speaker 01 I mean, they're pretty impressive and you look at it and you're like, okay, yeah. I mean, the energy balance theory does work, absolutely. But, you know, what are the long-term ramifications? You can't do a study for more than a couple of years at most. Like, what are the implications of this kind of habitual eating over decades? And the only evidence that we have around that are observational, essentially. No one's going to put someone on a randomized control trial between ultra-processed and less processed foods. We look at natural experiments. And so this is the strongest evidence that we have. I know you've spoken to Chris Valantilikin on the podcast about the subject. Everything he says is true. And I think it's on us as health communicators to not only give people the information around
13:47 Speaker 01 ultra-processed foods and the mechanisms and all that kind of stuff, but give people simple strategies and simple ways in which they can depressurize. I think one of the most like, I mean, there's so many things about Doctor in the House that are like buried into my brain. But one of the best things, and I think it's controversial to a lot of people today, but when you went into a family's house and you opened up the cupboards and you were like, take all of this out. And it was cereals, it was marinades, it was sauces, all these different elements.
14:15 Rangan Chatterjee? And that's going back some time now, almost 10 years. I remember doing that.
14:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:20 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, I mean, you say it's controversial, right? And I agree it is.
14:27 Rangan Chatterjee? One of the most useful strategies I've found with patients over the years, and frankly, myself, is this idea to not use up willpower in your house. One of the last times I posted about this idea on Instagram, there was a small section who were like, this is ridiculous. We should be able to have unhealthy, let's say, ultra-processed foods in our house and we should be in tune enough with our bodies to not consume it. Now, I don't disagree that that would be a great aspirational state to be in. I just don't think many of us are in that state. And I feel that a lot of the time, we're making our life really difficult if we're using it willpower in the house.
15:12 Rangan Chatterjee? So I genuinely do not bring food into my house that I don't want to be consuming. I don't tend to keep sweets, chocolates, cakes. I don't keep them at home because there will be an evening when I'm feeling tired and a bit stressed. And I will start opening the covers and look for something a little bit sweet. And all I can see at the moment are whole nuts and olives. And sometimes I'm like, ah, I'm not sure I feel like that at the moment. That's not really what I wanted.
15:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:40 Rangan Chatterjee? That's what I don't eat.
15:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:41 Rangan Chatterjee? Because it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted that little hit from something sweet.
15:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:45 Rangan Chatterjee? So again, in terms of what is practical for many people, and my bias is the patients I've seen over the years. I think not using your willpower in your house is a great tool. And also thinking back now to that family who I helped to doctor in the house. I think a lot of these principles depend, they depend where you're at on your journey. Right? If you're used to having loads of ultra-processed foods and that's, you know, making up 70% of your diet, as it is for many people.
16:16 Rangan Chatterjee? Actually, to reset, maybe for a few months, you don't want that stuff anywhere near you. So it can, it can help you reset your taste buds.
16:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:25 Rangan Chatterjee? And I know you know all the studies on, and maybe we can talk about them, about how we, we tend to overconsume ultra-processed foods. Most people listening will know the advert, you know, Pringles, once you pop, you can't stop. Well, I think most of us know that feeling. Once that packet opens, it doesn't take long before it's empty.
16:44 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I think. To your, to your point about the folks who are saying, you know, it's lunacy to take all the ultra-processed foods out of your kitchen and that we should have willpower to, and, and the self-control, I think that's honestly antithetical to the science. And just one study, I mean, there's so many different studies, but there was one study that was performed in a metabolic ward. So that's where you have a very accurate idea of calories in, calories out. It was done in 2019. They looked at just 20 adults and they consumed ablibidum. So whatever they wanted, they were able to consume of two
17:25 Speaker 01 weeks of a minimally processed diet. And then it was crossed over with another two weeks, again, ablibidum, so whatever they want, of an ultra-processed diet. And the participants who were on the ultra-processed diet arm, when they were on the ultra-processed arm, they consumed on average 500 calories a day more than on the minimally processed diet. So let's put that into context. Going back to the lady at the start, the, the sort of example of 2,000 calories, you're going to be consuming another 500 calories, an extra 25% more energy. What do you think that's going to do to fat, visceral fat?
18:08 Speaker 01 And that's just after two weeks. What's that going to do over time? So this idea that we can be, that we can exercise self-control in an environment where we have food, that clearly is something that we overconsume when given in a free-living environment, is something that I think needs to be addressed by having some guides, some sort of rails around. So we don't use up the willpower when we're in our kitchen, when we're at our home, because outside, we don't have a control of that.
18:40 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
18:41 Speaker 01 In our houses, we do.
18:43 Rangan Chatterjee? Let's just think about it through this wider point, which is to improve our health, to reduce the harmful levels of fat that are on many of our bodies, right? Even if we're just a little bit overweight, but have that dangerous visceral fat, the fat around our organs, the pro-inflammatory fat that's increasing our risk of chronic disease.
19:07 Rangan Chatterjee? The point we're trying to land in this conversation, I think, is this idea that we want to help people generally eat less. But we want to help them do that by not necessarily focusing on eating less. We recognize that some people actually probably do okay by focusing on eating less. And you mentioned some people in certain industries, very motivated, they like to track calories, they like to measure how much they're having. Okay, great. I don't think either one of us is saying for that individual to stop. We're saying if that's working for you, brilliant. We want the same outcome. We want people's health to improve, right? If that's your way of doing it, wonderful. But so far, there's two specific things I think people can grab their heads around, right?
19:51 Rangan Chatterjee? What you just said about ultra-processed foods. If you are eating ultra-processed foods regularly, you're probably going to be consuming more naturally. So if you can, and we recognize it can be tricky, and there are cost implications, but if you can go to more whole, unprocessed foods, these one-ingredient foods, as much as you can, it's likely that you're naturally going to consume less, right? So you're not trying to consume less, you're just choosing different foods and you're naturally consuming less. And we also mentioned with sleep. If you can improve your sleep a little bit, let's say you're sleeping six hours a night, you can even get that to six and a half hours a night to make it, instead of black or white,
20:35 Rangan Chatterjee? perfect or nothing, it's not, no, no, even 30 minutes extra, it's going to have an impact on your hunger, your satiety, you're going to naturally be consuming less the next day. And you're going to naturally be able to resist temptation a little bit more. These are two kind of relatively simple levers to turn, simpler for some than others, of course, that will naturally lead to you consuming less calories.
21:02 Speaker 01 Yes, exactly that, exactly that. And I think it's a nice framework that you've, you've done like throughout this part of Getting people to understand that you're going to naturally consume less energy. We can explain it through the energy balance model, absolutely. But I think it's important for people to actually think about the tangible activities that they can do every single day. And it can be explained by the science, but just get people to do these practices of swapping your crisps for nuts or swapping the marinade for something that you make yourself at home. These little things, even reducing the amount of ultra-processed foods in your diet is still better than completely eradicating it as well. It comes down to what our ancestors would have eaten, what our grandmothers would have
21:46 Speaker 01 told us. This is why I'm a big fan of simple messaging of like one ingredient foods as much as possible, shop in the outskirts of your supermarkets and be realistic about whether something is processed or not. If it comes from a packet, just think twice, like you said, read the back of the ingredient label.
22:05 Rangan Chatterjee? And also be realistic. There's ideal and optimal, and then there's realistic, right?
22:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:11 Rangan Chatterjee? You may not be able to get to 100% of minimally processed foods. I mean, sure, that would be amazing, but I think for many people, they feel that's a little unrealistic, but they perhaps don't need to.
22:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, totally.
22:24 Rangan Chatterjee? You can still get, even if you reduce it and change the balance by 10 or 20%, you're still going to get those benefits or you're going to start to get those benefits.
22:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's very easy to be puritanical about this stuff. And I'm certainly not a fan of being puritanical of this, to the point where I make a point on social media of highlighting processed foods that I love, chili oil, love it. Gotchichang, love it. There's a Korean fermented paste that gives beautiful depth of flavor and color and heat to whatever it might be. It could be something that I add to beans. It might be something that I add to cauliflower to make a one ingredient food that much more delicious and palatable. And I think there are ways in which we can use some processed ingredients into our diet and still have very holistically a healthful diet that will ultimately lead to.
23:20 Speaker 01 Better weight maintenance and even weight loss. Flavor is really, really at the forefront of what I'm passionate about. And I think it's really important to maintain this perspective on food being life. Food is life. Everything is geared around the enjoyment of food. It's the real bond that people share. It's how we celebrate other people's cultures. It is so much to me and I think it's so much to.
23:47 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, and I think that's one of the things people really love about your approach, Rupy. So you're trying to bring back the fun and the joy.
23:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:54 Rangan Chatterjee? Hope you enjoyed that bite sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.
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