I may live under a rock in more ways than one, but capitalism’s irresistible gleam blinds me, too. Most unavoidably on Vinted, where every item I sell is a stroll past hundreds of items a lot like the stuff I’ve clicked on—and sometimes bought—in the past. What a killing they make—monetizing instant gratification and the addictive contradictory highs of decluttering and bargain hunting, the two balled up into one false promise of sustainability, likely a laughable conceit given the digital and shipping footprints involved. How about I don’t even mention the bot-led customer “service”?
Am I recommending a book by first griping about Vinted? Yes, I am. See, I first came across Tulleken’s book while using the platform and I kept seeing it there while administering to the sale of many a non-joy-sparking item. The clever cover art and terrific title immediately caught my attention, so eventually I wound up on American Amazon, reading a sample (because the other Amazons rarely offer one and the dot-com rarely doesn’t). It was clear this was at the very least a book with a gripping and well-written introduction. And while I didn’t feel it would have much to teach me—who buy and eat even less ultra-processed-food now than has already been the case for decades—I wanted to offer this fast-paced thriller of a case against Big Food to my impressionable teenage son.
I kept my eye out for a sensibly priced used copy on Vinted, but eventually went with the wonderful online shop of Libristo because of the risk—both on Vinted and on Amazon—of ordering a fulfillment-center reprint on reprehensible paper. (“Printed in Poland by Amazon fulfillment” such a copy might discreetly announce at the bottom of the last page, next to the flimsy plastic-coated back cover.) At the time I had no words for this, but now I simply refer to such knockoff books as ultra-processed. I’ve seen reviewers on Libristo criticize the time it takes for an order to be fulfilled—but I actually honor the wait, because I know they’re about to send me the real deal from the actual publisher. The paper quality, the print layout, the cover texture, even the smell—all this should come with a certificate of authenticity nowadays, or with a warning
When Tulleken’s book arrived I dug in promptly, expecting to read a bite or two, skim the rest, and hand things over to Anker. Instead, I had in my hands a true page-turner, one thoughtfully written and filled with insights applicable not just to eating habits in the modern era but also to matters of health and fitness and the ever-growing category of disease, as well as to the universal drama of consumer choice under global capitalism. (Or is it technofeudalism? I have another book on the way to sort that.) Even the parts I expected to find unpalatable—pertaining to the author’s own “scientific” course of eating only UPF—were warranted and illuminating, cautionary tales each and all.
I mentioned one way I might compare a book to UPF. Here is another: many books now are little more than a good idea neatly marketed. This has been true for years, but it’s gaining momentum as AI-based writing infiltrates even the “real” writing of non-fiction books. Hollow inside and repetitive, books of this sort offer such promise that sometimes you read the whole thing before realizing none of it was worth the effort except for those shiny sample chapters. I’m talking about books that should have been Instagram carousels (and likely were). I recall a buzzy book from a few years ago that was like this—something about breath, accordingly titled. The author there also did things to himself in order to boost his authority. So when I was ordering the Tulleken book this was the risk I was taking. Finding a nourishing, satisfying—healthy?—read instead was delicious irony and apt metaphor and golden luck. And to discover that book, too, ties in to my recent Kujawa-reading experience? Icing on the cake, I’m telling you.
Originally I was going to extract some sample excerpts, as I did with A General Theory of Love, but Tulleken’s book is off traveling with my son and all I managed to get before he left was the photo. For an excerpt you can visit the “UPF of the web” that is the original dot-com Amazon site, but if you’re interested in the points and themes I found most transformative and interesting (spoilers, some of them), read on.
What is UPF? How is this even defined? This turns out to be a fascinating analysis that right away sets up the anchoring themes of nutrition and policy—and the indivisible connections among them. The body versus culture, nature and nurture, it’s all in the ring. Here’s an example of the complexities involved: even though refined seed oils are—in terms of processing and digestibility—pinnacle UPF, in population studies the purchasing and use of these “foods” in the household counts as evidence for non-UPF dietary patterns, since clearly actual cooking is taking place.
Are calories simply calories? Apparently not. Whole foods are metabolized very differently than isolated and manufacture substances or the products assembled from such “ingredients.” The author describes how the body reacts to not just apple juice versus a whole apple, but even to the same whole apple mechanically transformed into a smoothie for immediate consumption. I expected there might be a minor difference, but it turns out the difference is decisive.
By the same token, are nutrients simply nutrients? Nope. It turns out that the supplements we so diligently take along with our minimally processed organic meals are leaving their UPF footprint on our eating habits and on our bodies. According to research cited by Tulleken, even probiotics are suspected of doing nothing beneficial. Since reading Tulleken I’ve pretty much quit all supplements, some that I’ve been taking regularly or sporadically for years—vitamins D and K, vitamin B12, things like that. For the first time in a long time I have zero numbness and tingling in my hand (I suspect it was the B family messing with the nerves it was theoretically supporting). And when about a month later I though to myself that it might be time for some magnesium at bedtime, I woke up with puffy eyes and brain fog on the three mornings following my dose. (Just sayin’. Tulleken eloquently lays out how causation can almost never actually be proven—and how judicious extrapolating from correlations is highly encouraged. And I have been TILT-ed—medication gives me paradoxical effects and apparently this includes “innocent” supplements.)
In fact, the book seems to confirm that my totalitarian approach to avoiding UPF is both visionary and reasonable. What even I used to think might be some kind of orthorexia now seems wise and actually quite soft and certainly invites me to put even more faith in my intuition—while spending less than ever on supplements and “superfood” isolates.
Tulleken describes an improbable study performed over many months one century ago, in which small children were offered, at every meal, a choice of dozens of natural freshly prepared separate foods in every category—a range of raw and cooked fruit and vegetables, grains and starches of all kinds, edible fats, a selection of meats and organ meats, dairy options, and so on. This was “baby-led weaning” at its most extreme and Tulleken marvels at how it was even possible to sequester so many children for so long and apparently not wound them relationally in the process. Anyway, the takeaway is that all these kids cured themselves of practically every ailment they had at the onset of the study. One pre-verbal boy cured his rickets by slamming cod liver oil by the shot glass over a course of weeks. Of note was a tendency to what the experimenters (devoted defenders of baby’s right to choose?) termed “jags”—periods of concentrated consumption of a single food that seemed to be urgently needed for healing.
How about those food choices, then, are we to be trusted with our cravings? Not where UPF is involved, because the disconnection between flavor signal, food texture, branding power, and macros delivery is deleterious. But if a food is a whole food and we’re embodied enough to recognize what we want—there may well be no better “dietary guideline” or “food plan” than to follow these urges. I’m on a hulled hemp seed jag as I write this, though in the past I would have been overriding the urge with a rational-sounding “nah, I already had that yesterday.”
What about exercise, metabolism, and eating for fitness? There’s lots on this, too. What stayed with me was a thought experiment about a place for faking the activities of office work. A fun read, it was the setup for considering gym workouts and organized sports as simulacra of savannah life—the UPF equivalent of living mostly outdoors in community and in nature. The implications this has for my lifestyle are explosive.
I feel that I’ve shared quite a lot of what I found riveting, yet I haven’t even gotten to the bones of Tulleken’s book—the matter of industry, marketing, profit, corporate interest, and the tragic predicament that ensues when regulators have conflicts of interest. I won’t compress the enormity of all this into key takeaways, but I do want to emphasize that Tulleken’s evidence is impressive here, as well as applicable to other industries that make “good for you” claims about practices, products, and precedents that are terrible for bodies, societies, and ecosystems. Before I read Tulleken I was stumped by a question I had come across on a fragrance-free advocacy forum: can (should?) an organization for chemical sensitivity accept a named donation from a scented products manufacturer’s fragrance-free subsidiary brand? Having read Ultra-Processed People I understand it’s better not to: activism can quickly get quashed or discredited by an entity that’s paying the bills while sitting on a potential conflict of interest.
For the author’s impressive abundance of sources there’s the book, which I recommend reading in the updated version, since the two chapters added in 2024 include a recursive look at the book’s initial impact and proposals for policy change.
That’s all. My third book recommendation, which I again hesitate to call a review. I hope I’ve been able to convey the way Tulleken manages to blow the whistle on terrible things while giving the reader a reason for hope and optimism. I also hope that many, many people read this book.