Three decades later, nearly half of the calories consumed by an average American or a British citizen comes from ultra-processed food. Published in 1990, Berry’s essay hit the shelves much before the world took notice of the dangers of processed food, let alone define UPF. That they do not yet offer to insert it, pre-chewed, into your mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so.' They will grow, deliver and cook your food for you and just like your mother, beg you to eat it. “The food industrialists have persuaded millions of consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. The passive modern consumer sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared or fast food confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived, wrote agriculturalist, poet and writer Wendell Berry in an essay titled The Pleasures of Eating. Something that nutritionists have been saying for years while pinning the blame on ultra-processed diets for the global surge in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
The randomized controlled trial was the first to demonstrate causality: that a diet rich in UPF makes people eat more and gain weight.