Several ultra-processed foods were actually created through a process called pre-digestion. This makes the food more addictive and less filling.
Pre-Digested Ultra-Processed Food
Several ultra-processed grain-based foods were made in a way that is similar to a mother bird pre-chewing the food of her baby. However, in this case, it is as if the mother digested it prior to regurgitating it for her young.
According to a video of the European Starch Industry Association, the majority of what gets extracted comes as starch slurry, which is a milky combination of water and starch. Fibers and proteins are also able to be extracted. The video notes that around half of the slurry goes to make sugars that are starch-based, along with other types of derivatives. These are produced through hydrolysis, which is a process that resembles that of human digestion.
While starch slurries are not odd in the culinary arts world, what makes these ones particularly unique is that, rather than making use of cornstarch or other similar ingredients, manufacturers of mass-produced food make theirs through the breakdown of given raw food to the molecular level. It is then pounded with emulsifiers, food coloring, and fake flavors with the help of industrial machines.
Virology expert Chris van Tulleken, who is also an associate professor from University College London and the author of a book regarding ultra-processed foods that was published in 2023, explains that this gives the illusion of food.
It is extremely difficult and expensive for a food company to make real, whole food. It is also cheaper for food companies to destroy foods that are real, convert them into molecules, and then reassemble them to make whatever these manufacturers want.
ALSO READ: Why Is Ultra-Processed Food So Unhealthy? Unraveling Its Impact on Health and Food Systems
More Addictive, Less Filling
As these pre-digested foods do not need the same gastrointestinal breakdown that takes place when whole foods are consumed, they go down more easily. Some experts argue that this is not how digestion is supposed to take place.
David Katz, a preventive medicine expert who founded the nonprofit "True Health Initiative," explains that such kinds of foods essentially bypass the stomach's stretch receptor effect. This function supposedly tells a person when they feel full.
Katz explains that even before these stretch receptors send a message of fullness, one may have already ingested twice as much as their needed calories.
This shows that there is a scientific mechanism that explains the mindless daze one experiences while consuming a whole bag of chips in just a single sitting. These ultra-processed foods were designed to induce such a feeling.
According to estimates made by researchers of Northeastern University, almost three-fourths of food in the US are processed. This figure sheds light on the quantity of pre-digested food that people consume each day.
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