My Rant Against Processed Foods (an Update)

At the end of January, I sent out a rant against processed foods and the food companies who make them in Cook Smarts’ Tuesday newsletter. If you missed it or want to revisit it, I’ve re-shared it below. If you want to skip straight to the updates, click here.

Today is going to be a fiery-Jess-on-her-soapbox email, so settle in folks.

When I think about our meal plan service, I don’t consider our competitors to be other meal plan services or even meal kit providers. All of us are trying to accomplish the same goal of helping people cook more. What we’re all fighting against are food corporations marketing the benefit of convenience in exchange for our health; they make more money when they find ways to make the food they sell to us cheaper.

I do not see the world as black and white. I realize we need some level of convenience foods. Most of us do not have time to make everything from scratch. I recognize that for so many people, especially those in lower-income and remote areas, processed foods are all that they have available to them. But I also think we’ve reached a point where food companies have taken advantage of consumers’ lack of resources and awareness, and our best form of protest is to just cook as much as we can.

I work in the food industry. I cook most of my meals. As a result, I thought I didn’t really have to read ingredient labels because I didn’t buy too many packaged goods. Plus, I also assumed the ones I did buy were fairly harmless. Like shouldn’t packaged bread just be made of flour, yeast, salt and water? Shouldn’t tortillas be similar, minus the yeast? Shouldn’t cartons of ice cream really just be cream and sugar, maybe eggs? 

I did not realize how wrong I was until I listened to the book Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken, a British doctor, last year (affiliate links to Amazon | Bookshop.org). Shortly after that I came across this Business Insider article titled, Giant Food Companies are Quietly Ruining Your Favorite Snacks -- and Hoping You Don’t Notice, that echoed similar themes.

Food companies are putting more additives into our packaged foods for a variety of reasons; here are just a few:

1. To save on more expensive ingredients. I grew up eating Edy’s ice cream and looking at the ingredient label for its vanilla ice cream now, it contains (in addition to milk, cream, and sugar): corn syrup, whey, guar gum, carob bean gum, monoglycerides, natural flavor (I’m assuming that’s some version of vanilla but where exactly is the vanilla?), and annatto color. A lot of these ingredients are used to create a creamier texture without more milk and cream, which have gotten more expensive, and also to prevent it from melting as quickly, which just seems weird to me -- ice cream is meant to melt. 

2. To make the food softer and easier to chew. This makes it so that we eat it faster and therefore eat more of it. Like we could easily just gulp canned soup without taking any bites (and chewing is an important signal for your body!). 

3. To make the food last longer. I get this one. Spoiled food wastes resources but I’m not sure if our bodies were meant to ingest so many artificial preservatives.

I used to think that we didn’t have to worry about food additives because the FDA would make sure anything truly bad would be banned but it turns out the FDA is just another overextended government agency; hence a loophole was created for companies. While the FDA is supposed to approve food additives, they also allow companies to do their own self-certification to deem a substance “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS), which skips the rigor of any FDA testing.

Clearly many food companies go the GRAS route and hire their own experts. The FDA doesn’t approve of everything through this secondary process, but there is so much less accountability when the company gets to hire their own team to conduct the safety evaluation. Clearly it’s in their best interest to make everything appear just fine for people to eat.

Instead, more and more concerned scientists are now doing studies to figure out if many of these newer food ingredients are indeed safe, as we see a significant uptick in metabolic and gastrointestinal issues and allergies across so many populations over the last few decades. 

I have spent the last couple of months reading many of these studies, going deep on Google searches that start with, “is x food additive safe for you,” and the problem is well, it’s the internet -- you can always find support for all the possible answers and still not know which one is the right one.

I think the answer is, we just don’t know for a variety of reasons -- many studies are done in mice; very few humans want to volunteer to be experimented on with foods that may do harm. So you’re probably wondering why I’ve written you this long email when we still just don’t know.

My argument is that probably many of these ingredients in small amounts are fine, but the problem is that they are now in so many products that it all adds up. Many of us are probably eating well beyond the amounts that these additives were studied at (if they were studied by a government body at all) because when you start looking at ingredient labels, it’s shocking the number of non-food ingredients hiding in your sour cream, your cottage cheese, your bread, your chocolate bar, the snacks you buy your kids, etc, etc.

For example, there is an additive called carrageenan. It’s an emulsifier, which is a group of additives that are used to thicken or create creamier foods. They are very commonly found in bread products, salad dressings, and dairy products. Carrageenan is derived from seaweed and therefore deemed “natural.” When I started reading labels, I found that it’s in the Costco soy milk we buy and also our favorite sour cream brand. It is in a lot of foods but scientists now urge food companies to stop using it in products after animal and human cell studies have linked it to a whole host of problems including (but not limited to) inflammation, diabetes, colon cancer and other GI issues.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve thrown away all the packaged goods in my house but it has made me a much more aware grocery shopper and also a much more frustrated one. I get so pissed that for so many people, these are the only choices due to accessibility and budget. While I can swap out for more expensive brands (that’s usually what it comes down to though there are plenty of pricier brands who still use lots of additives), that’s not an option for everyone.

I hate being an alarmist because we live in a world where there are so many things to be alarmed about but I do think this is an issue that concerns all of us but it’s one that very few people are aware of. Packaging and branding are used to distract us; and we have a government agency that’s simply not performing one of its biggest responsibilities.

My hope is that we read labels and vote with our dollars, write to food companies asking why they use these additives, and that everyone just cook more, even when it’s not the most convenient solution but selfishly, it will be the best one for your body long-term. And I highly recommend listening or reading Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (affiliate links to Amazon | Bookshop.org), especially if you or someone you love have experienced mysterious, unexplained GI issues or allergies. More and more studies are exploring the link of these ultra-processed ingredients in our diets to what’s happening (and not happening) in our guts.

The one big change I’ve made since sending this out is using the app Yuka, which was recommended in our Facebook group by a CS member after I sent out the note above. Yuka scans barcodes and gives food products a score based on a variety of factors: additives, sodium, calories, sugar, and fat. It also does beauty products but I haven’t used it too much for that though my husband’s Pantene 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner got a score of 0 — he still has a head of hair so it’s not complete poison. 😂

The app of course isn’t perfect and there are plenty of critics. At the same, for what I’m interested in, it works pretty well. My main concern is additives, so I can easily see what additives a product contains and how Yuka rates those additives (hazardous, moderate risk, limited risk, risk-free). I take all digital information these days with a grain of salt and recognize that Yuka has to apply a large degree of subjectivity for how a score is arrived at but overall, it gives me enough direction to decide whether to buy a product or leave it out of my cart. 

Since Bowie was on an elimination diet of 6 food groups (dairy, gluten, eggs, peanuts, soy, and corn, oh my!) last month, we ended up buying a lot of new products such as gluten-free breads and pastas and plant-based yogurts and milks. I had just downloaded Yuka and was scanning products with the zeal of a bride-to-be who had just been given a scan gun to add items to their wedding registry (or does that not happen anymore in the age of digital shopping?). 

Most of the gluten-free breads came back with good scores but it was hard to find one that was egg-free. Most plant-based dairy products contained thickeners and gums, which even with the help of Yuka and my own research, I’m still unclear whether they’re fine, not great or possibly bad but we just don’t know yet? 

I scanned a lot of products with very bad ratings. I left most but not all behind because well, I am human and a package of instant ramen (despite its score of 7/100) will always bring me back to my childhood. My kids love Annie’s boxed mac ‘n cheese. Unfortunately it scores a 28/100 on Yuka, but it is our go-to Monday thermos lunch (“Mac ‘n Cheese Mondays!” they cheer) so we haven’t weaned ourselves off of it yet.

Two items that have been the hardest to find “clean” versions of have been flour tortillas and plant-based milks. Apparently, it’s very hard to keep flour tortillas fresh and soft without a lot of preservatives and stabilizers, which is why the ingredient list for most flour tortillas is full of scientific words that don’t sound like food. We have tried making our own at home but I am flour-impaired and will need to train under a Mexican abuela for at least a year before I make something resembling a flour tortilla instead of a ball of colorless Playdoh. I did just learn about Rise and Puff, which makes a 4-ingredient tortilla that’s available in the refrigerated section, so I’ll be on the lookout for those.

As for the plant-based milks, most are full of texturizing and emulsifying agents to make them thick, creamy, and easily stirred into a cup of coffee or tea. I was hoping to find one without these additives but also fortified with some vitamins. So far, I’ve come up empty. I can find additive-free plant-based milks (but it will cost you a pretty penny — it seems that the fewer ingredients a product contains, the more it costs) but none are fortified with additional nutrients. 

I know that my family’s overall health does not depend on what tortilla or plant-based milk we buy but I’m angry that it’s so easy for food brands to turn foods people consume into science experiments with what feels like very little oversight. I know awareness is growing — and that was the goal of my original note. When I see brands explicitly marketing that they are additive free, it’s a signal that there are enough consumers who are aware of these issues to drive new product sales. Just like we’ve seen a huge rise in gluten-free, paleo, and vegan options over the last decade, I sense that we’ll see the same with a new category of additive-free foods.

I could drive myself crazy with this; instead I just do my best but it’s definitely time for food brands to do better. We are so very lucky that most of our food intake comes from the perimeter of the store, where there is no packaging to scan. Perhaps you could score cabbage better than zucchini, but in the end, you know it’s all food that you can recognize and it doesn’t require an ingredient list.

Read previous post: February Book Roundup