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panorama - UPF

36 replies

OttoGraph · 09/06/2023 14:10

Having watched this program 5/6/2023 to think it proves not all calories are the same. The twins eat the same meals, but one eat fresh and the other ultra pressed foods of the same protein, size etc but one twin lost a kilo and the other gained a kilo in 2 weeks

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OttoGraph · 14/06/2023 11:51

BarbaraofSeville · 14/06/2023 06:45

Just bumping this thread to let people know that the book is £1.99 on kindle today.

Thanks, I’ve ordered this book from the library

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BarbaraofSeville · 14/06/2023 06:45

Just bumping this thread to let people know that the book is £1.99 on kindle today.

paulmccartneysbagel · 10/06/2023 08:59

MsMoody · 09/06/2023 22:10

I think the industry that manufactures these UPFs has a well-deserved shitstorm coming its way. They have been pushing this message for years that obesity is down to “personal responsibility” when their products override all mechanisms of self control and hunger regulation.

And now the NHS has to pick up the tab whilst these companies pocket their profits.

I couldn't agree more

MsMoody · 10/06/2023 08:27

Scientists are meant to move with the times and incorporate the latest research into their work.

canigetitmyself · 10/06/2023 07:30

@JumbleAndKitchen

I understand what you're trying to say

LizziesTwin · 10/06/2023 07:26

The trouble with calorie counting & eating junk food is that you end up malnourished causing long term problems. It might work, but it doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Goal is to have a healthy old age.

canigetitmyself · 10/06/2023 07:21

It may not be a great scientific experiment but Tim Spector's work is. This is just a snapshot of wider studies that have been done on twins

Ponoka7 · 10/06/2023 07:06

Just to add, I've found Michael Mosley's advice works for me. I'm also post menopausal and when I tried eating rubbish, but calorie counting, I was knackered. When I started intermittent fasting and fairly clean eating, I hadn't felt so alive since my 20/30's.

Ponoka7 · 10/06/2023 07:04

I used UPF to reset my hunger levels and to get out of the habit of snacking, in the form of Exante and Shake the weight products. Those plans work for many obese people. Which is why I think the new NHS initiative of having weight clinics for those with a BMI over 35 (with co morbidities) and 40 without was very much needed to give a personalised weight loss plan. For a long time poverty and obesity has been linked and the common factor was cheap UPF. We know, as a fact the effects of the brain from eating sugar, fat and carbs combined. If you cook with ingredients that our great grandparents would recognise and only eat fresh, then you'd barely buy a third of what's for sale. The cheaper the tinned veg etc, the more sugar is in them. We needed the food industry to be regulated thirty years ago. In a COL crisis this isn't going to be consumer led and I doubt that it will be government led.

Selfesteem23 · 10/06/2023 06:45

Lots of nutritional people I follow. Actual experts with many qualifications in nutrition, diet and knowledge of much research are very sceptical of this big push against UPF and more so Tim Spector. Apparently he is a bit of a band wagon jumper. They aren’t pushing UPF by the way but are looking ant the bigger picture objectively, socially, financially not just at the negative.

Im not qualified either way, I’m very interested in health research and do follow a mix of people. I just try and eat natural and home made foods as much as possible because of nutrition but I hold my hands up I do eat UPF EG I love crisps! A UPF free diet is difficult in a modern society. It can be done yes but not so easy for all.

OttoGraph · 10/06/2023 06:32

And now the NHS has to pick up the tab whilst these companies pocket their profits.

so those in charge will make NHS private so people pay…

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JumbleAndKitchen · 09/06/2023 22:21

@LakeFlyPie Grin - I haven’t seen the Panorama but Panorama has always annoyed me so I’m not surprised!

LakeFlyPie · 09/06/2023 22:14

Just caught up on this on iPlayer, interesting topic, but bloody hell, it was almost unwatchable: The suspenseful muzak and slo-mo videos of general public walking around town interspersed with 5 mins of science strung out over half an hour. Has Panorama always been this crap?

MsMoody · 09/06/2023 22:10

I think the industry that manufactures these UPFs has a well-deserved shitstorm coming its way. They have been pushing this message for years that obesity is down to “personal responsibility” when their products override all mechanisms of self control and hunger regulation.

And now the NHS has to pick up the tab whilst these companies pocket their profits.

JumbleAndKitchen · 09/06/2023 21:49

@OttoGraph

I’d really recommend reading Ultra Processed People . Im listening on Audible. It’s been the press associated with the recent release of this book, and associated TV programmes, podcasts etc that is why everyone is talking about UPF at the moment.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Processed-People-Stuff-That-Isnt/dp/1529900050?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-am-i-being-unreasonable-4823926-panorama-upf

OttoGraph · 09/06/2023 21:19

@JumbleAndKitchen the link to the study is interesting - they stayed in the center for a month so a very controlled study on food

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jannier · 09/06/2023 20:44

ChocolateCoveredCookie · 09/06/2023 14:17

But overall calories still count.
Post menopausal but still able to lose weight eating Family sized bags of minstrels/M&M’s & malteasers, a bag of crisps and cake each day because I do so whilst sticking to a calorie deficit.

Yes my diet is now appalling, but I’m a size 10 as opposed to the size 14 I was when eating healthy, home cooked meals!

How is your cholesterol, BP and liver function? Now they are saying evidence of diabetes and dementia linked to UPF as well..

Busbygirl · 09/06/2023 20:25

Thanks for clarifying Jumbleandkitchen. Makes sense now.
link to Chris Van T is interesting too

JumbleAndKitchen · 09/06/2023 20:16

@Busbygirl sorry - I think I worded my post badly. I completely agree with you.

What i was (clumsily) trying to say was that research seems to suggest that UPF disrupts the systems that regulate hunger. So people over eat when they eat UPF as the mechanisms in our bodies that tell us we’re full don’t work properly when we eat UPF.

The Kevin Hall study I linked to earlier is the most impactful study on that so far. It’s also worth taking a look at the charges to Chris van Tullekins brain after a month eating 80% UPF.

UK doctor switches to 80% ULTRA-processed food diet for 30 days 🍔🍕🍟 BBC

Subscribe and 🔔 to the BBC 👉 https://bit.ly/BBCYouTubeSubWatch the BBC first on iPlayer 👉 https://bbc.in/iPlayer-Home When Dr Chris van Tulleken embarked ...

https://youtu.be/T4PFt4czJw0

Busbygirl · 09/06/2023 20:08

JumbleAndKitchen · 09/06/2023 15:54

The problem with UPF is that it disrupts the systems that regulate your hunger which makes sticking to a low calorie diet really hard in the long run. Sure, you can lose weight, but you’ll always be hungry. This is exacerbated by the face that consistent calorie counting is really onerous but made lots easier by eating UPF because you don’t have to do calculations that you would with home made food.

Sorry but that’s rubbish. I don’t eat UPF foods and I’m not hungry all the time, in fact it’s more filling eating foods you’ve made from scratch. And as for it’s easier to calorie count with UPFs and therefore easier to lose weight, I’ve heard it all now.
If you eat sensibly you don’t need to calorie count all the time.
Funnily enough UPFs weren’t largely available 70 years ago and you don’t see many pictures of fat people.
Not eating UPFs has massive health benefits.

OttoGraph · 09/06/2023 19:55

Blueberrylemoncake · 09/06/2023 16:31

It was very interesting, but more research is needed. I've been suspicious of aspartame and other sweeteners for a long time. I didn't know about the emulsifiers. It's certainly made me look at the food I eat more carefully and I'm going to switch from mass produced bread because that's quite an easy switch for me.
But it depends on what your long term goal is - if it's purely weight loss then you might turn to UPFs such as diet foods, low cal varieties. If you goal is to eat healthy and natural then cut out UPFs, but that doesn't necessarily equal weight loss unless you are in a calorie deficit. Overall, I think reducing UPFs is a good thing.

The rest of Europe has banned the higher levels and UK hasn't - so like the USA will allow this until its proved to be harmful. Id rather our nationals weren't;t experimented upon and with 50% of UK food from UPF whilst the rest of Europe is at 25% its a ticking time bomb for health

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chessica · 09/06/2023 16:32

I have not touched aspartame for years. I’m ok with some UPFs but prefer to stay away from artificial preservatives and sweeteners.

Blueberrylemoncake · 09/06/2023 16:31

It was very interesting, but more research is needed. I've been suspicious of aspartame and other sweeteners for a long time. I didn't know about the emulsifiers. It's certainly made me look at the food I eat more carefully and I'm going to switch from mass produced bread because that's quite an easy switch for me.
But it depends on what your long term goal is - if it's purely weight loss then you might turn to UPFs such as diet foods, low cal varieties. If you goal is to eat healthy and natural then cut out UPFs, but that doesn't necessarily equal weight loss unless you are in a calorie deficit. Overall, I think reducing UPFs is a good thing.

Curiosity101 · 09/06/2023 16:13

This isn't a scientific study. You can't point to exactly what the differences are that caused the effect because their are too many variables and a sample size of 2.

If the calories were the same then the 'weight' they lost or gained won't long term changes.

My initial guess is that it's likely to be water loss on the 'healthy' twin who probably cut down on salt. And an increase in water retention on the twin who had UPF (which I suspect will have also been a higher salt diet).

I'm not commenting on whether ultra processed foods are good or bad. Just hate when this sort of report is cited as though it's equivalent to actual research. It doesn't prove or show anything other than that a set of twins ate a different diet which contained the same calories and weighed different amounts at the end.

Real weightloss (particularly thinking fat loss) is driven by a calories deficit. It doesn't matter what you eat - the speed at which you lose weight is entirely down to the deficit you're at. Fluctuations are almost always down to either fibre/physical food intake, water retention/loss or miscalculation on the deficit.

This is often why people often lose loads initially and then it slows. You overhaul your diet - often meaning you drop calories and salt. So you lose weight and water weight. Then it slows and people don't adjust for their new BMR and wonder why their weight loss is slowing. Or they vastly under eat and their BMR drops but they don't account for that.

Me and DH are serial yo-yo dieters. I lose weight consistently week to week based on my BMR and calories deficit. Ie. For every 3500 deficit I lose 1lb and it comes off at the exact rate you'd expect. This is because I'm very restricted on what I eat/drink, what time of day I eat and drink and when I weigh myself. I'm super consistent. DH is no where near as consistent so whilst he trends perfectly at the exact rate you'd expect for the deficit his actual weigh ins vary massively so his graph is all over the place from week to week.

JumbleAndKitchen · 09/06/2023 15:59

Sissynova · 09/06/2023 14:54

I don’t think that’s a particularly scientific experiment, they are twins not the same person. Their entire routine would need to be the exact same, down to fidgeting which just isn’t possible.

I agree with other posters, if I ate garbage but still kept it calorie controlled I would lose weight.

My diet varies, I eat a big proportion of healthy food but if I want a ‘treat’ I’m not going for some sort of fake healthy version, I just eat the real thing. So I have chocolate, biscuits and sweets pretty much most days but very portion controlled.

Equally you can a gain weight only eating ‘whole’ foods if you eat too much.

Theres a growing body of evidence that people don’t overeat whole foods in nearly the same way that they overeat UPF.

You’re right that a study of 2 doesn’t make for great science. I think Kevin Halls larger trial provides much better evidence https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/newsletter/2019/summer/story-01.html

First randomized, controlled study finds ultra-processed diet leads to weight gain | Clinical Center Home Page

https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/newsletter/2019/summer/story-01.html