Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food... and Why Can't We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken

BATB score: 6/10 🍜

*reader discretion advised* you must get past the first part, first 100 pages, and then you’re good; it only gets more tolerable, interesting, and relatable from there

Best as: this is not a book, this is a white paper research thesis circling around this one premise “ultra-processed food (UPF) is the cause of our over-eating, obesity, and other health problems” and thus why current FDA is inadequate, why blaming lack of exercise, a low-nutrients, high-carb, high-fat diet, lack of self-control is inaccurate, and why you get addicted to diet cola more than OG cola

Best to: be prepared for scientific terms (inosinate, guanylate, glutamate) and research style writing; a lot of argument, rebuttals, experiments, over-details 🥴

BATB lingering thought: love the Coca Cola and Pringles short case study; tl;dr FMCG brands engineers foodie addiction

Best for: if you want to know why you’ll lose control and devour a whole family size crisp; in all seriousness, only read this book if you are in the food industry

Best quotes: “Its purpose was not to supply food but to create a market. Once you’ve had ice cream and KitKats you can’t go back.”

“Until everyone is drinking at least one Coke per day, there will be an opportunity for growth - and even then it would turn out that one Coke wasn’t enough.”