Researchers found that every 10% increase in ultraprocessed food intake linked to measurable declines in attention performance, even in adults without dementia.
According to the most recent studies, the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) is highest in high-income Anglo-Saxon countries, where these products represent more than half of daily caloric intake.
United States: Approximately 58%–60% of daily calories come from ultra-processed foods. United Kingdom: Very close, at 57%. In children, this figure can reach up to 65%.
Canada: Exceeds 50% of the average diet.
Australia: Around 42%–44%. South Africa: Approximately 39%.
Latin America: Chile and Mexico lead the region with close to 30%.
Childhood chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, anxiety, and depression are on the rise; nearly one in five American children is obese, and one in seven teenagers suffers from mental health disorders. The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was formed to address children's health. The Commission identified four main drivers of childhood chronic illnesses: poor diet, exposure to toxic chemicals, lack of physical activity combined with chronic stress, and overmedication through unnecessary prescriptions.
We must fight to win a battle that only leads to illness and death. Practical Strategies:
--- The 5-Ingredient Rule: When reading a label, if the product has more than five ingredients or includes names you wouldn't recognize in a home kitchen (maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, refined vegetable oils, artificial colors), it's an ultra-processed food.
--- Prioritize the "Market" over the "Supermarket": Foods without labels (fruit, vegetables, bulk grains) are the foundation of a protective diet. Shopping at local markets drastically reduces exposure to packaged products. More difficult in cities.
-- Batch Cooking: Most people resort to ultra-processed foods due to lack of time. Spending a few hours cooking legumes, whole grains (like quinoa or basmati rice), and steamed vegetables allows you to have real food ready for busy days. Replace processed snacks with raw nuts or seeds.
-- Most name-brand bags are made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and are BPA (Bisphenol A) and phthalate-free. However, this doesn't make them completely inert:
Recent studies suggest that the opening, closing, and friction of flexible plastics can release microscopic plastic particles directly onto food. Plastic is lipophilic. Storing foods with oils or fats in plastic bags for extended periods promotes the absorption of certain compounds from the material.
Unlike rigid plastics, thin bags fragment more quickly into microplastics that end up in the global food chain (water and soil). Although polyethylene is recyclable, many recycling plants don't accept bags because they get tangled in the machinery.
There are chemically and environmentally more stable options: Food-grade silicone. Reusable, it withstands high temperatures without degrading. Ideal for freezing vegetables and fruits, and for transporting snacks.
"[M}odern screen habits feed the same reward pathways" A double whammy. The Ultra Processed Foods hit one side of the addiction center while the flash card filmed Movies and Shows excite the other side. Also, the never ending commercials of enticing treats to feed the hunger for the Ultra processed fare. Fertilizer for cravings and couch potato growth.
Very accurate, JUST.👍 What you describe is exactly the perfect ecosystem for creating cravings, a kind of dopaminergic hothouse where everything is designed to make the brain crave more, faster, and more often.
Imagine this: you're staring at the screen, motionless, while ultra-processed content hammers your reward pathway like a sweet and salty hammer. At the same time, pre-recorded images—fast, bright, perfectly edited—trigger the other side of the circuit, the one that loves novelty and constant stimulation. And just when your brain starts to slow down, an ad pops up with a glistening donut, dripping ice cream, a bubbling pizza. It's not a coincidence: it's the engineering of desire.
And a larger overview of it all from an article on Dr Zack Bush with a Rogan interview with him to boot...maybe just me but I give it a thumbs up, spot on.
The inversion runs across every branch of medicine. Two specialties demonstrate it with unusual clarity.
Psychiatry invented the diseases it treats. The chemical imbalance theory of depression, offered as biological fact to millions of patients, was never demonstrated in the research literature. Kenneth Kendler, coeditor of Psychological Medicine, wrote in a 2005 editorial that the search for neurochemical explanations of psychiatric disorders had failed to produce the biological markers the field had promised.³⁶ Robert Whitaker’s investigation of American disability data found psychiatric disability rose sixfold between 1955 and 2007 — a curve that inverts what any real treatment would produce. Martin Harrow’s fifteen-year NIMH follow-up of schizophrenia patients found 40 percent of those who stopped taking antipsychotics were in recovery at fifteen years, against 5 percent of those who remained on medication. The FDA’s 2004 meta-analysis of pediatric antidepressant trials found children on the drugs showed twice the rate of suicidal thinking and behavior compared with placebo.
Dentistry runs the same inversion on the mouth. No dental school in the United States has a preventive specialty; the American Dental Association has been asked to establish one and declined. Weston Price, who chaired the ADA’s research section from 1914 to 1928, documented in the 1930s that fourteen isolated populations on traditional diets showed decay in less than one percent of teeth examined, and that the same populations one generation after the introduction of refined flour and sugar showed decay in thirty to sixty percent. Ralph Steinman’s laboratory work at Loma Linda established that teeth are hydraulic systems governed by an endocrine signal from the hypothalamus, and that sugar reverses the fluid flow, pulling debris inward through microscopic tubules. The bacteria on the tooth surface are not the cause of the cavity; they are pulled in by the reversal of the flow that should have carried them out. Silver amalgam fillings are approximately fifty percent mercury by weight and release vapor for the life of the filling. Ninety-two percent of American adults have had caries. The specialty that could prevent it does not exist because the profession that repairs it cannot fund itself by graduating dentists who advise patients to eat liver and pastured butter.
According to the most recent studies, the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) is highest in high-income Anglo-Saxon countries, where these products represent more than half of daily caloric intake.
United States: Approximately 58%–60% of daily calories come from ultra-processed foods. United Kingdom: Very close, at 57%. In children, this figure can reach up to 65%.
Canada: Exceeds 50% of the average diet.
Australia: Around 42%–44%. South Africa: Approximately 39%.
Latin America: Chile and Mexico lead the region with close to 30%.
Continental Europe: Countries like Spain have seen a rapid increase, reaching 32%, while Italy maintains lower levels (approximately 18%) due to greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ultra-processed-food-consumption-by-country/ (2025)
Childhood chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, anxiety, and depression are on the rise; nearly one in five American children is obese, and one in seven teenagers suffers from mental health disorders. The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was formed to address children's health. The Commission identified four main drivers of childhood chronic illnesses: poor diet, exposure to toxic chemicals, lack of physical activity combined with chronic stress, and overmedication through unnecessary prescriptions.
https://www.malone.news/p/the-maha-report
We must fight to win a battle that only leads to illness and death. Practical Strategies:
--- The 5-Ingredient Rule: When reading a label, if the product has more than five ingredients or includes names you wouldn't recognize in a home kitchen (maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, refined vegetable oils, artificial colors), it's an ultra-processed food.
--- Prioritize the "Market" over the "Supermarket": Foods without labels (fruit, vegetables, bulk grains) are the foundation of a protective diet. Shopping at local markets drastically reduces exposure to packaged products. More difficult in cities.
-- Batch Cooking: Most people resort to ultra-processed foods due to lack of time. Spending a few hours cooking legumes, whole grains (like quinoa or basmati rice), and steamed vegetables allows you to have real food ready for busy days. Replace processed snacks with raw nuts or seeds.
-- Most name-brand bags are made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and are BPA (Bisphenol A) and phthalate-free. However, this doesn't make them completely inert:
Recent studies suggest that the opening, closing, and friction of flexible plastics can release microscopic plastic particles directly onto food. Plastic is lipophilic. Storing foods with oils or fats in plastic bags for extended periods promotes the absorption of certain compounds from the material.
Unlike rigid plastics, thin bags fragment more quickly into microplastics that end up in the global food chain (water and soil). Although polyethylene is recyclable, many recycling plants don't accept bags because they get tangled in the machinery.
There are chemically and environmentally more stable options: Food-grade silicone. Reusable, it withstands high temperatures without degrading. Ideal for freezing vegetables and fruits, and for transporting snacks.
https://foodpackagingforum.org/news/report-links-food-packaging-to-consumption-of-millions-or-even-billions-of-plastic-particles (2026)
"[M}odern screen habits feed the same reward pathways" A double whammy. The Ultra Processed Foods hit one side of the addiction center while the flash card filmed Movies and Shows excite the other side. Also, the never ending commercials of enticing treats to feed the hunger for the Ultra processed fare. Fertilizer for cravings and couch potato growth.
Very accurate, JUST.👍 What you describe is exactly the perfect ecosystem for creating cravings, a kind of dopaminergic hothouse where everything is designed to make the brain crave more, faster, and more often.
Imagine this: you're staring at the screen, motionless, while ultra-processed content hammers your reward pathway like a sweet and salty hammer. At the same time, pre-recorded images—fast, bright, perfectly edited—trigger the other side of the circuit, the one that loves novelty and constant stimulation. And just when your brain starts to slow down, an ad pops up with a glistening donut, dripping ice cream, a bubbling pizza. It's not a coincidence: it's the engineering of desire.
And a larger overview of it all from an article on Dr Zack Bush with a Rogan interview with him to boot...maybe just me but I give it a thumbs up, spot on.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/we-have-a-metabolic-collapse-joe-rogan-zach-bush-state-of-human-health/?utm_source=cc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=defender&utm_id=20260724
I also find this article interesting.
The Specialties
The inversion runs across every branch of medicine. Two specialties demonstrate it with unusual clarity.
Psychiatry invented the diseases it treats. The chemical imbalance theory of depression, offered as biological fact to millions of patients, was never demonstrated in the research literature. Kenneth Kendler, coeditor of Psychological Medicine, wrote in a 2005 editorial that the search for neurochemical explanations of psychiatric disorders had failed to produce the biological markers the field had promised.³⁶ Robert Whitaker’s investigation of American disability data found psychiatric disability rose sixfold between 1955 and 2007 — a curve that inverts what any real treatment would produce. Martin Harrow’s fifteen-year NIMH follow-up of schizophrenia patients found 40 percent of those who stopped taking antipsychotics were in recovery at fifteen years, against 5 percent of those who remained on medication. The FDA’s 2004 meta-analysis of pediatric antidepressant trials found children on the drugs showed twice the rate of suicidal thinking and behavior compared with placebo.
Dentistry runs the same inversion on the mouth. No dental school in the United States has a preventive specialty; the American Dental Association has been asked to establish one and declined. Weston Price, who chaired the ADA’s research section from 1914 to 1928, documented in the 1930s that fourteen isolated populations on traditional diets showed decay in less than one percent of teeth examined, and that the same populations one generation after the introduction of refined flour and sugar showed decay in thirty to sixty percent. Ralph Steinman’s laboratory work at Loma Linda established that teeth are hydraulic systems governed by an endocrine signal from the hypothalamus, and that sugar reverses the fluid flow, pulling debris inward through microscopic tubules. The bacteria on the tooth surface are not the cause of the cavity; they are pulled in by the reversal of the flow that should have carried them out. Silver amalgam fillings are approximately fifty percent mercury by weight and release vapor for the life of the filling. Ninety-two percent of American adults have had caries. The specialty that could prevent it does not exist because the profession that repairs it cannot fund itself by graduating dentists who advise patients to eat liver and pastured butter.
https://www.unbekoming.com/p/doctors-are-dangerous?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=355417&post_id=208306583&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ue9x3&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email