Why are ultra-processed foods so irresistible and how they have come to dominate our food culture?
Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating is an authored documentary by medical doctor and academic Dr Chris van Tulleken which airs this coming week on BBC Two.
We now eat an extraordinary range of ultra-processed foods, which are the product of brilliant advances in industrial chemistry and scientific research. Created by ingenious scientists and sold to us by clever marketeers there’s a lot to love about them: they’re hyper-delicious, super-convenient, have long shelf-lives and are extremely cheap.
But a growing body of evidence is linking these products to our declining health. There is increasing evidence that pre-prepared, industrially processed foods are linked to some cancers, dementia, inflammatory bowel disease and to early death from all causes.
The programme – a personal view on the subject by Dr Chris van Tulleken – features interviews with former food industry insiders who talk openly about the way in which popular foods have been designed to be irresistible. Food companies go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their products connect with consumers – from using brain scans to assess the deliciousness of ice cream to carefully engineering the sound of a crunch.
As our consumption of these foods has soared, producers’ profits have sky-rocketed.
But there’s now a growing movement demanding controls. Some Latin American countries have been successful in introducing more stringent regulation of these popular goods. In this exploration of the darker side of the food industry, Dr Chris van Tulleken asks, can we change our food environment for the better and improve our health? And, if we find ultra processed foods irresistible, is it really our fault?
Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating, BBC Two on 25 November at 9pm
