How Highly Processed Foods Are Throwing Off Your Hunger

By: Bri Siegert 

Highly palatable and processed foods are designed to make us eat more. First, let's get it out of the way that most food is processed in some way. We can't avoid it and the word "processed" isn't necessarily a bad thing. If a food undergoes any type of change while it's being made it's technically "processed." Here, we are talking about foods like chips, sweets, cereals, breads, juices, etc. 

Before we dive deeper here, it is important to note that competitive athletes calorie needs are so high that some processed foods are fine and generally recommended around training periods. The purpose of this post is not geared towards the competitive athlete, but our general population who’s focus should be more on day to day eating. 

Whether you’re an athlete or not, being educated on nutrition is helpful because one day those double training sessions will be in your past and you will need this information. 

You see, there is a big difference between eating a whole orange and eating a serving of dried fruit. 

One is going to leave you feeling satiated, it's going to make your digestion work a little bit (calorie burning, aka, "thermic effect of food") and the other lacks satiety. Neither are unhealthy, but one will probably fit your needs/goals better than the other. If over-eating is your problem, we should take a look at the amount of processed food in your diet and try our best to limit it as much as we can. 

And before you say, "Wait, that's not me. I can totally eat chips in moderation. That's not why I can't hit my goals." Let's just spin it in this perspective. How many of you can eat more than a serving of Dorito's ? A serving is 28g by the way. Barely 10-12 chips. Most people eat triple that in a serving. 

NOW, what if I asked you to eat three baked potatoes that equated to the same amount of calories? Most people probably couldn't eat 3 servings of potato’s that tied the same amount of calories as 3 servings of chips. It's not as enticing because it's so filling and more bland. When a potato is so processed and covered in flavorings that make it addictive it's easy to overeat. Even if you don't overeat the chips, per say, you will be far hungrier than the person who eats the potato. 

For example, this study took a group of people and had them eat mostly processed foods in comparison to another group eating whole foods to study their behavior and weight gain/loss. Their exercises were kept consistent. They found that in the ultra-processed diet, people ate about 500 calories more per day, ate at a faster rate, and gained weight. On average, participants gained 2 pounds while they were on the ultra-processed diet and lost an equivalent amount on the unprocessed diet.

https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/newsletter/2019/summer/story-01.html#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20that%20people,volunteers%20for%20one%20continuous%20month.

Processed foods are highly cravable, immediately gratifying, fun to eat, and easy to over-consume quickly AND cheaply. 

Why are they so addictive? They are usually full of ingredients that make it hard for us to only eat a true serving size. Through processes like:

-Extrusion where they take grains and turn them into a paste. The extrusion process also destroys nutrients and enzymes, denatures proteins, and changes the starch composition of a grain. This lowers the nutrition and increases the glycemic index of the product. 

-Emulsifiers

These are used to improve the “mouth feel” of a product, emulsifiers smooth out and thicken texture, creating a rich, creamy feel. Although there are natural emulsifiers, like egg yolk, the food industry often uses chemical emulsifiers like Polysorbate-80, sodium phosphate, and carboxymethylcellulose (yeah, we can’t pronounce it either) They are often found in creamy treats like ice cream products and processed dairy foods like flavored yogurts or neon orange cheese spreads "products" (aka, why Kraft cheese isn't considered real cheese, but a cheese product)

-Flavor enhancers

Flavor additives like artificial flavorings or MSG allow food companies to improve taste without adding whole-food ingredients like fruits, vegetables, or spices. This is useful because artificial flavoring agents are cheap and won’t change a product’s texture. Even "natural flavorings" can trigger overeating. It's impossible to stay away from, but it's better to be aware of.

-Food coloring and dyes

Color strongly affects how appealing we perceive a food to be. No one wants to eat gray crackers; add a toasty golden hue and suddenly that cracker is a lot more appealing. Coloring agents, like Yellow #5 and Red #40, are added for the look of food—they don’t add nutrition.

Recently, many large food corporations have been switching to natural food dyes, like beet powder or turmeric, to color their food products after some correlations emerged linking artificial coloring agents to behavioral problems in children. Doritos and Cheetos have taken part in this. In some European countries they even have warning labels on food with Yellow #5 as a link to autism and behavioral disorders in kids. 

-Oil Hydrogenation

Natural fats eventually go bad, changing their flavor and texture. In order to keep fats longer, food companies use low quality and highly inflammatory vegetable or seed oils. Food companies use hydrogenated oils because it means their products can stay on the shelves for longer without changing flavor or texture. However, the consumption of hydrogenated fats, or trans fats, has been linked to increased rates of heart disease and are terrible for your gut health. 

Processed food companies also trick us into eating more than we are meant to (revert back to the study above) with marketing techniques by labeling things as "healthy", "keto", "no sugar", etc. 

They also increase portion size for less money with less quality ingredients to make us feel like we are getting a good deal. Most of us in the millennial or older generations have  been brought up with the rule of not wasting food so our behavior patterns tell us to eat all of what's presented to them. This is why we recommend portion control and a balanced plate approach. This is: a protein, carb, fat, and fiber on your plate.

The flavor profile that salt + sugar + fat add in one food item makes it irresistible. Think of a cookie, chips, donuts, pastries.... What do your behavior patterns look like after consuming these? This is called "stimuli stacking" or, combining two or more flavors to create a hyperpalatable food. Food companies KNOW that when it comes to getting people to overeat, two flavors are better than one. They actually have a term for it called, "The BIG 5": 

1. Calorie dense2. Intensely flavored3. IMMEDIATELY delicious 4. Easy to eat5. Melts down easily (in the mouth)

Whole foods require about 25 chews per mouthful, which means that you have to slow down. When you slow down, your satiety signals keep pace with your eating and have a chance to tell you when you’ve had enough. Which is probably why you’ve never overeaten baked potatoes.  

This also forces our body to work a little harder. Processed food companies aim to have you finish your bite in 10 chews or less. Start chewing your food and make a point to see how many bites it takes you to finish your food. It should take you 25+ bites for Whole Foods and 15 or less for processed foods.

Food companies spend BILLIONS of dollars to figure out how to make their food more irresistible. This is why America has an obesity problem .

 So how do we practice moderation with foods that are designed to make us over-consume?

Step #1- Create awareness. When do you usually want/eat/crave this food? What does your BEHAVIOR AFTER eating this food look like? Do you eat donuts on a Sunday morning only to have your whole day go to shit? It's because they want of sugar is high after eating highly palatable foods making us crave more and not feeling satisfied.

Step #2- Eat it in a way that doesn't allow you to overeat later. Pairing these foods with a protein source will help stabilize your blood sugar so you don't have a spike and then crash afterwards. I also recommend having them WITH a meal. If you are eating a donut that is high in carbs and fat then you need protein and fiber so some egg scramble would be perfect with that or some Greek yogurt with berries.

Step #3- Remove yourself from the situation. If it's a box of donuts, don't stand by it or keep it for later. We don't buy things not to eat them. Don't let it sit around "just in case". There's no emergency in which you'll NEED a donut.

Step #4- Give yourself permission to have these foods. It sounds backwards, but when we give ourselves this freedom, often, the thought doesn't sound as enticing and if it does we are able to moderate it better. Moderation really is key.

A few strategies to minimize your processed food consumption:

1. Learn your labels. Read them. It takes a couple minutes, but it's worth it. Food companies are tricky and label sugar as other names because they know that people are looking for added sugar. There's over 200 different names for it so if you are unsure. Usually if it ends in "ose" it's just another name for sugar.

2. Evaluate your pantry. Get rid of any trigger foods. Create a larger barrier between you and your trigger food. The people with the most success with their diet, health, and fitness don't necessarily have the best will power, but they set their surroundings up in ways that allow them to say "no" more often.

3. Know your patterns and behaviors. What is your behavior and emotions before indulging on these foods? During? After?  Knowing the behaviors you have AFTER eating certain foods helps you create an action plan to improve those behavior patterns. It's not usually the food itself that will make us gain unwanted weight, but the behaviors these foods create that lead us to overeating. 

If you need some guidance with your nutrition or training, contact admin@blacklistedhq.com