Adrian Albert

“It’s soft and typically calorie dense, so you eat it at a rate that your body can’t keep up with when it comes to feeling full. Things like protein isolates, refined oils and modified carbohydrates are absorbed so quickly they may not even reach the part of the gut that sends the fullness signal to the brain. They’re not things you have evolved to eat. Some of the additives are well known to cause harm – be particularly aware of emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners. Emulsifiers can thin the mucus lining of the gut, allowing faecal bacteria to leak into the blood stream and inflaming your whole body. The non-nutritive sweeteners that tell your body sugar is coming but don’t supply any calories seem to cause metabolic stress and changes to the microbiome. Other additives that affect the microbiome are maltodextrins, modified starches and lots of the gums and thickeners. Flavour enhancers (glutamate, guanylate, inosinate and ribonucleotides on ingredient lists) drive excess consumption. Again, they tell your body a lie about the nutritional content of the food you’re eating when they’re added out of context.”
― Chris van Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food… and Why Can't We Stop?

“We are ultra-processed people not just because of the food we eat. Many of the other products we buy are engineered to drive excess consumption; our phones and apps, our clothes, our social media, our games and television. Sometimes these can feel like they take much more than they give. The requirement for growth and the harm it does to our bodies and our planet is so much part of the fabric of our world that it’s nearly invisible. You may find that abstinence from some of these other products is helpful too.”
― Chris van Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food… and Why Can't We Stop?

“(Someone who is repeatedly touching his neck is more often an indicator of a liar.)”
― Thomas Erikson, Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business

“Ostrowski found that xanthan gum is actually a food for a new bacterial species. From looking at population data, it seems that the gum has driven the colonisation of this bacteria into billions of people. It’s completely absent from populations who don’t eat it – whom Ostrowski could only find in remote groups of hunter-gatherers. Moreover, if you have this bacterial species, then you may also have another novel species that eats the breakdown products made by the first one. The effects of these bacteria are not understood, but it’s clear that xanthan gum creates a food chain in the human gut and, since the bugs it feeds can colonise infants at an early age, it may be having profound effects on immune system development.”
― Chris van Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food… and Why Can't We Stop?