Publishers Weekly
04/17/2023
In this scathing takedown, van Tulleken (Secrets of the Human Body), a doctor of infectious diseases, studies how ultra-processed foods harm the body and how the corporations that make them put profits above consumer health. He suggests that “UPFs”—which can be identified by their use of such heavily modified ingredients as “stabilisers, emulsifiers, gums, lecithin, glucose”—contribute to heart attacks, high blood pressure, and weight gain because they short circuit the body’s system for regulating consumption. Because UPFs tend to be soft and “essentially pre-chewed,” they’re digested so quickly they don’t “reach the parts of the gut that send the ‘stop eating’ signal to the brain.” Van Tulleken catalogues the misdeeds of the corporations that make UPFs, telling how Nestlé’s aggressive door-to-door marketing of their products in rural Brazil played a part in the skyrocketing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes there, and detailing Coca-Cola’s covert financing of dubious scientific studies that refute the link between soda and obesity. The science puts into easily understandable language the toll that junk food takes on the body, and van Tulleken’s interviews with industry insiders illuminate (“It’s all about price and costs. Those ingredients save money,” says a biochemist who worked for the British food company Unilever). This impassioned polemic will make readers think twice about what they eat. (June)
Dr. Michael Mosley
"A wonderful and fascinating exposé of ultra-processed food, edible substances with strange sounding ingredients which are manufactured by some of the wealthiest companies on the planet and which, worryingly, form an increasing part of our diet. As Chris van Tullken shows, not only have these foods been formulated to ensure that we eat them constantly and without thought, but they hijack our ability to regulate what we eat, primarily by affecting our brains. And he backs up his claims with a powerful self-experiment, along with lots of rigorous and often shocking research. Reading this book will make you question what you eat and how it was produced."
Hannah Fry
"Packed with ‘I never knew that’ moments, Ultra-Processed People is a wonderfully playful book that changed forever how I think about what I eat and why."
Atlantic - Helen Lewis
"Before reading van Tulleken’s work, I felt pretty confident that junk food was bad. That didn’t stop me from eating it, however. Learning about UPF is a different experience—you begin to realize that some of this stuff is barely food at all."
Telegraph - Sue Quinn
"[A] slice of packaged supermarket loaf is more than likely a dietary devil than a time-saving treat. And thanks to Dr Chris van Tulleken, author of the bestselling book Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food, it’s a term now popping up everywhere."
The New Yorker - Adam Gopnik
"[Ultra-Processed People] is persuasive and scary.… [A]s van Tulleken rightly insists, there is simply something creepy about eating things whose composition we can’t comprehend."
Giles Yeo
"The past ten years has seen an inflection point in human history, where more people in the world are now dying of eating too much, than of eating too little. This urgent and captivating read digs deep into one of the huge reasons, the rise and rise of ultra-processed food."
Alice Roberts
"Mindblowing. You’ll never see food—or your body—the same way again."
Toronto Star - Vincent Lam
"Eye-opening.… Ultra-Processed People is a tremendously important book that will help readers choose less processed, better food."
Economist
"There is much to cheer about calories being cheap and abundant, when for most of human history they were neither. But as Chris van Tulleken’s new book, Ultra-Processed People, explains, that cheapness and abundance come at a cost."
Natalie Grice
"For Dr Chris, an infectious diseases specialist at University College London, the problem is not the people but the social and commercial environment they are surrounded by. His new book, Ultra Processed People, looks at the forces promoting the ultra-processed food."
Wall Street Journal - Matthew Rees
"In Ultra-Processed People, a persuasive mix of analysis and commentary, [Chris van Tulleken] shows how [ultra-processed] foods affect our bodies and how their popularity stems in part from shady marketing and slanted science."
Bee Wilson
"If you only read one diet or nutrition book in your life, make it this one. It will not only change the way you eat but the way you think about food. And it does all this without a hint of finger-wagging or body shaming. I came away feeling so much better informed about every aspect of ultra-processed food, from the way it affects the microbes in our gut to why it is so profitable to produce to why it’s so hard to eat only a single bowl of Coco Pops to why any food that is marketed as ‘better for you’ is almost certainly not."
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Dave Hage
"[Ultra-Processed People] is highly readable and van Tulleken…writes with the confidence of a doctor who has a reassuring bedside manner."
Jacob E. Gersen
"Van Tulleken is at his best when using his own scientific expertise to help readers through otherwise unnavigable science, data and history, explaining with precision what we are actually eating."
GQ - Ashwin Rodrigues
"Ultra-Processed People makes the case that corporate interests have given rise to highly addictive ultra-processed foods.… [A] brisk and engaging read, though it might piss you off. That’s kind of the point."
Chris Packham
"Incendiary and infuriating, this book is a diet grenade; the bold and brutal truth about how we are fed deadly delights by very greedy evil giants."
Grocer - Adam Leyland
"The book is ‘scholarly’.… Yet it’s also witty, pacy and (despite a lot of academic stuff) approachable."
Express - Diana Buntajova
"Whether it’s a creamy chocolate bar or readily salted crisps, everyone has a go to unhealthy snack. However, ultra-processed foods are not only limited to things you eat occasionally.… Dr. van Tulleken explain[s] the impact this type of [ultra-processed] diet has on your body and just how bad it can be."
Evan Kleiman
"Additives, preservatives and artificial colorings in food are America's gateway drugs to overconsumption and obesity. Professor Chris van Tulleken, the author of Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food, explores the effects of ultra-processed food in a world where profit is the goal and purposeful addiction is part of the recipe."
Rob Delaney
"An engrossing, infuriating read! UPF makes most fictional villains look quaint. You’ve got a diabolical product that scientists and capitalists have literally got into our bodies (even mine?!) profoundly affecting our health and even our thoughts. Chris van Tulleken has written an astonishingly well-researched book on a plague that most of us aren’t even thinking about, but one whose architects are most certainly thinking about us, with ill intent. Read it and fight back!"
Guardian - Rachel Dixon
"In his bestselling book, Ultra-Processed People, Chris van Tulleken…would simply like people to know what they are eating and be equipped to make a conscious choice."
New Statesman - Sophie McBain
"Deeply researched and persuasive."
Adam Rutherford
"A devastating, witty, and scholarly destruction of the food we eat and why."
Tim Spector
"Everyone needs to know this stuff."
Sunday Times - Ben Spencer
"An unsettling examination of the food we eat [and] a fascinating, but frankly horrifying, investigation into our industrialised food system."
Mariella Frostrup
"A fascinating, forensically researched and ultimately terrifying expose of the food we consume. Van Tulleken leaves no stone unturned, shining his spotlight into the dark corners of what masquerades as nutrition these days. Read it; your diet will never be the same again!"
Financial Times - Anjana Ahuja
"Ultra-Processed People [is] a fearless investigation into how we have become hooked on ultra-processed food . . [It] is more than just a great science book: it breaks down a complex issue of cultural, social, economic and political importance with clarity and sensitivity but without moralising; it competently evaluates the scientific literature; and it roams the globe in search of answers."
Economist
"There is much to cheer about calories being cheap and abundant, when for most of human history they were neither. But as Chris van Tulleken’s new book, Ultra-Processed People, explains, that cheapness and abundance come at a cost."
Financial Times - Harriet Fitch Little
"Another year, another reason to be fearful of the food we eat—although van Tulleken would counter that 'food' is too kind a name for the synthetic, stabilised products that increasingly sustain and addict us. His prescription not to eat anything you wouldn’t recognise in a home kitchen is reassuringly grandmotherly."
Kirkus Reviews
2023-03-21
A fact-filled, discouraging attack on the modern diet.
Van Tulleken, an infectious disease doctor and TV and radio commentator, rocks no boats by agreeing that our convenient, highly refined, additive-rich, chemically enhanced food is making us unhealthy. He has no kind words for “junk food,” but he also reveals the distressing details behind many of the organic, ultra-processed foods (UPFs) that tout their relative healthiness. “Almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF,” he writes. Unfortunately, as van Tulleken shows, denouncing unhealthy food (containing too much sugar, salt, fat, and calories and too little fiber) hasn’t worked. People in nations where calorie consumption has dropped, including in the U.S., continue to get fatter. The author defines unhealthy food not for its ingredients but for how it’s processed. Generally soft and energy-dense, UPFs are literally addictive. The author also devotes generous space to obesity, the world’s leading dietary disorder. Most writers of this genre give advice on dieting, but van Tulleken, sticking to the science, admits that diets’ success rates are close to zero. It’s proven (but widely disbelieved) that obesity is not the result of weak will power, gluttony, or indolence but rather a mixture of genetics and environment. UPFs are cheap, so being poor is a risk factor. Delving into immersion journalism, the author tests the effects of spending a month on a diet containing 80% UPFs. At the end, he gained 13 pounds, and his appetite grew, but the food became unpalatable. Realistic to the end, van Tulleken maintains that UPF manufacturers will never make better food because it’s designed to be consumed in the largest possible quantities. Healthy food, made to be consumed less, will never sell as well as food that’s consumed more. Everyone, including food industry professionals, agrees that only stronger government regulations will improve matters. Unfortunately, in most countries, especially the U.S., that’s unlikely to occur.
A painfully eye-opening study of food and health.
