How To Quit Eating Ultra-Processed Foods

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

When you eat nutrient-depleted food, you want more food. And this is the body's natural intelligence trying to accommodate for looking for nutrients, but they're looking in the wrong places. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. And one thing I look at with every patient is possible nutrient deficiencies. And I'm actually finding them all the time, making them a key focus area for us to work on. Nutrients are the little instructions our bodies need to function properly. Without the right kinds in the right amounts, we're limiting our energy production, hormone balance, our gut function, our neurotransmitters, our brain chemicals, and so many other things, leaving us feeling tired, moody, bloated, confused, and worse. We can really feel the consequences of even just one nutrient deficiency. Now, most people don't realize that medications are one of the leading causes of nutrient deficiencies, depleting specific vitamins, minerals, and other things like good bacteria, which we really need for optimal health. So they might be solving one problem but causing another one. There's actually even a special name for this, Medication Induced Nutrient Depletions, or MIND mine. I don't know, that's a good one. Anyway, I was recently introduced to this company called Even that provides personalized nutrition for medication users. Their products are created by physicians, nutritionists, and pharmacies who have identified the exact recipe to rebalance nutrient levels in biochemistry while taking certain medications. They currently have products specifically designed for complementing birth control, antidepressants, and statins. Right now, you can schedule a complimentary consult with an Even expert to figure out the right nutrient companion for you. Plus, you can get 20% off your first order. Just go to feel even.com, Dr. Mark, that's Dr. Mark, use the code Dr. Mark 20, that's Dr. Mark 20, that's feel even, F-E-E-L-E-V-E-N.com backslash Dr. Mark with the code Dr. Mark 20, that's D-R-M-A-R-K-20.

Now, let's get back to this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, I'm Koa, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy Podcast. Most of us know what it feels like to eat sugary, processed foods and feel stuffed, only to find yourself feeling hungry again after just a few hours. And not only hungry, but wanting more of the same food that left you feeling stuffed and miserable in the first place. This is largely because the trillion-dollar industrial food industry has hijacked our taste buds, hormones, brain chemistry, and metabolism. Dr. Hyman spoke to his colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Boham, about how these foods lead.

Us to be overfed yet undernourished. And they've done controlled trials with this where they'll take people and say, eat as much as you want of nutrient dense food, like eat 14,000 avocados or 10 pounds of broccoli or 20 chickens, whatever, you can eat as much as you want. And then they say, okay, another group, you eat all this other food, which is the typical American diet, which is more processed food. and you can eat as much as you want. And what they found was that the people who ate the processed food were hungrier and they ate 500 calories more a day, which is interesting that when you eat nutrient-depleted food, you want more food. And this is the body's natural intelligence trying to accommodate for looking for nutrients, but they're looking in the wrong places. So we remember there's this thing we learned about in medical school called pica. which is where kids will eat dirt if they're iron deficient, right? Just like animals will go to a salt lick or a lick. I mean, I remember being in Bolivia and Peru on the beach and there was this mineral rich like deposits on the beach and the birds and the animals just were flocking to go get these minerals and nutrients which they knew they needed. Well, we try to do the same thing, except when we go to get the Twinkies or we get the Doritos or we get the whatever, Coca-Cola, there's nothing in there. And so we keep looking and looking and looking. We're looking in the wrong place for the nutrients that we need to optimize our health.

It's really sad just to see the level of malnutrition that we are seeing. And I think that because our food is so processed and devoid of nutrients and people are just eating more and more of it to get what their body needs, that's why we're seeing so much obesity. So, you know, the first thing we always focus on with people is to say, Make sure that everything you are eating is as nutrient-rich as possible. Because, you know, unfortunately, like you mentioned, our mineral deficient soil and the farming practices and everything, it's really stacked up against us. So we really need to think about it. You don't want to waste your calories on food that doesn't have all the nutrients that your body needs, because that's just going to help you feel better and help everything work better. and help our skin look better and help make it easier to maintain a healthy weight and have better energy and be able to go out for a run and be able to focus in school. I mean, it's impressive what we see when we just clean up somebody's diet.

Dr. Hyman also spoke with biohacker Dave Asprey about how they stopped craving unhealthful foods.

We are talking about eating foods that are more satisfying, more delicious and more tasty, to the point that if someone puts a piece of big pharma or big food birthday cake from some commercial bakery versus something that you would recommend or I would recommend. You'll look at that and say, that one's pretty, but I want to eat the thing that tastes really good and nourishing and satisfying and your body will actually guide you to the good stuff.

Yeah, I've noticed that. I mean, over the years, I used to eat more junk and crap when I was younger. And now if I walk through like, you know, a Starbucks case full of all this stuff, or I go in some restaurant, it doesn't look like food to me. It's like, why would I eat that? It's like a rock. I'm not gonna eat a rock or a piece of wood, but it doesn't actually look like food to me anymore. And I don't crave it. I don't want it. It's not like I'm depriving myself. I just literally don't actually have an interest in it, and it doesn't actually look appealing to me, and it doesn't even I don't even think it'll taste good. And if I do taste it, it's.

Like, Ugh, I'm gonna eat that. I'm with you there and people think it's a little bit crazy because I remember when I weighed 300 pounds, I would have the worst cravings and you'd see those scones or whatever in the case at the coffee shop and you're like, oh, I really want that and you walk past it, it would just call to you. Those are your damaged mitochondria, desperate for energy, going, Please, please eat that, please eat that. And same thing now. In my pattern matching system, those don't register as food anymore because they're actually not food for humans. And now that my pattern matching system is right, I just, like you said, if it could be a rock, it could be a cactus, but you wouldn't put it in your mouth. So therefore, the willpower it takes to.

Do it is not a willpower thing anymore. Not at all. Once you rewire your hormones and rewire your brain chemistry, your body will actually want the right stuff.

It actually will like it. Dr. Hyman also spoke to behavioral ecologist Fred Provenza about how to reclaim our.

Body'S innate nutritional natural wisdom. We really lost our natural wisdom of what to eat. And one of the studies that you wrote about in your book, Nourishment, which everybody should get a copy of, is this study that was done in the 20s by a woman, I think in Canada, who took kids from an orphanage. And I don't know if you can get this through an ethics committee today, but she took these kids from an orphanage and she fed them an array of foods. She offered them these foods so they could naturally select what their bodies wanted. And these kids would eat stuff that you wouldn't even think they would. Like, for example, dinner might be orange juice and liver and, you know, some weird thing and brains. And so talk about the study, what was learned from it, and how as humans living in a world with a disconnection from our food supply and a disconnection from the kinds of foods that helped us maintain our nutritional wisdom, how it's led to all this chronic disease. So this study really informs a lot of the thinking about why we are all so sick and overweight.

Yes, Clara Davis was the scientist who did the studies. She obviously had this belief in the nutritional wisdom of the body, but wanted to study that and see what happens. So she had 15 children that were given up for adoption or put in an orphanage. And she ran the study over a six year period. And they had 34 different foods that were offered seasonally. And some of the things like you mentioned. And then they simply recorded what each child ate, meal in, meal out, day. Can you imagine that amount of data?

They just got to pick whatever they wanted.

Yeah, the kids could pick whatever they wanted. they had pediatricians that were involved in that study, and they wrote papers about it, and they said they'd never seen a healthier group of kids ever in their careers. And the kids did things. And this was interesting.

So there's no nutritionist telling them what to do.

No dietary guidelines, no nutrition facts, labels with all the right stuff.

And Clara made it clear. She told the people who were helping on the study, you're not to give any indication to those children of something to eat. put it on that and put it in front of them. And it was interesting. When they first started, started this study, they said the kids sampled everything. Everything went into their, into their mouth, the napkins, the silverware, the, you know, anything that was on there. But given a little bit of time, each child would figure out what, what worked for its body. And I just love this because she said, no child, no two children ever selected the same combination of and no child ever selected the same foods from day to day. But they all selected diets that met their needs. And they knew when some of the kids would come in with deficiency symptoms, they paid particular attention to what they would select, you know, and they would select things that they needed.

So they're vitamin A deficient, they'll go for the liver.

That's right. That's absolutely the case. If they come in with rickets, they're going to go for vitamin D. Yeah. they documented all of that. And it's just amazing to think. And that's where, if you're eating wholesome foods, it works. The system is as solid as it can be. But if you get on the ultra process, you, it gets hijacked. And the food, people in the food industry have really learned how to do that well. And then to put not, you know, not wholesome herbs and spices, let's say, as a flavoring agent, it's all these 600 million pounds a year or whatever.

600 million pounds of artificial flavorings are added to our food every year. That's frightening. Yeah, it's caused this disconnect between our natural inclinations to eat foods that nourish.

Us.

With our ability to sort of pick those foods and we tend to eat foods that are associated with these artificial flavors because they've scientifically figured out how to hijack our brain chemistry and our hormones and our metabolism. And so we tend to crave all the wrong stuff. So basically we've gotten this predicament of.

A food system that's producing food in.

A way that depletes the plants of the phytochemicals and the nutrients that it's needed to feed animals and humans in ways that destroy the soil microbiome in a way that has hijacked our own ability to Know it's good for us or not good for us because our innate nutritional wisdom has been hijacked by these industrial chemicals and starch and sugar and food that has completely disconnected us from our ability to have any nutritional wisdom. And for anybody listening, you know, if you've ever done a detox or an elimination diet where you get rid of all the junk, all the processed foods, even like my 10-day detox diet, you'll very quickly start to reclaim your natural wisdom. You start to crave the things that are good for you. Like, I don't crave starch or sugar or processed food. In fact, I can walk by the candy aisle and, I mean, it just looks like a rock to me. I'm like, why would I eat that? It doesn't even look like food or a muffin or something. It's like, I was, I was at a coffee shop today in Ennis, here in Montana, and, and it was getting some coffee. Although coffee is the richest source of phytochemicals in the American diet, which is not a good thing, by the way, because you just drink coffee and don't eat flashes, but they had this, like, sugar cookie and this banana bread and lemon bread. And it was like, I was like, oh, I want to eat that. But I was like, no, I actually don't. Like, I looked at it. It sounded good, but then I looked at it. I was like, no, that doesn't look, like, edible to me anymore. And, and I think I used to eat wanting that stuff. I think if we can kind of.

Reclaim our own bodies, it doesn't take.

Long to do that.

That stuff's really hard to resist when you're on it, right? I mean, you don't have a lot of, they're home. Once you start, it's hard to stop.

Yeah.

And sugar can be addicting and all those things. So we say the place to stop is at the grocery store. It doesn't go into the basket.

Dr. Hyman also spoke with Dr. Aseem Malhotra who shared his tip for eliminating ultra-processed foods from your diet.

Right now the big issue of our time, you know, what's responsible for more disease and death globally than physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol combined is poor diet. and ultra-processed foods really are the low.

Hanging fruit that we need to concentrate on. You've used that term a number of times. I don't know if people know what it is.

What is ultra-processed food? Let's define it. So it comes from something called the NOVA classification, which came from Brazil. It's an internationally recognized classification of different types of foods from minimally processed to ultra-processed. Group 4 is the ultra-processed, the worst type of foods that is really linked to chronic metabolic disease, heart disease, cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes. And before I define it, what's really interesting about it, it appears these sorts of foods also encourage overconsumption. So Kevin Hall, a scientist in the States last year did a very interesting, what was described as a land mark randomized control trial, that just within two weeks of people eating ultra processed versus millenary processed foods, there was a two kilogram difference. So they were just encouraged to eat till fullness, and people who have the ultra-processed food end up consuming more and end up gaining more weight. What is ultra-processed food? Well, overall general term is usually mass packaged food that is deficient of nutrients and fiber and is high in sugar, in starch, and unhealthy oils, additives and preservatives, and mostly, you know, most of the time, quite often it's five or more ingredients. So what I tell my patients in very simple terms, so it's not a whole food. And it has five or more ingredients, it's ultra processed, don't eat it. Very simple, very simple. So if you go into the grocery store, the supermarket, whatever, and you're thinking about what to buy, pick up even bread, modern packaged bread. If you pick it up and you can count five or more ingredients and.

You can't recognize some of them, they're preservatives or additives, don't eat it. It is much easier to control what you eat than how much you eat. and it is the quality of the food and the composition of your meal that matters most in creating health. We know that sugar, starch, and ultra-processed foods are biologically addictive. This is why Dr. Hyman recommends eliminating processed carbs and refined sugars from your diet for 10 days to reset your biology. During this time, focus on eating plenty of fiber, healthy fats, and clean protein. This means loads of non-starchy veggies, good fats like avocado and olive oil, and healthy protein like grass-fed meat, and organic meats, fish, chicken, as well as plant-based sources of protein like gluten-free tempeh. He also recommends making your kitchen a safe zone by removing all ultra-processed foods. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store first, where you're going to find the healthiest foods with the fewest unhealthy ingredients. And remember, eating food that is good for you is not about feeling deprived. You can finally get off the cravings roller coaster and reclaim your freedom from sugary, processed foods that hold you hostage. If you'd like to learn more about any of the topics you heard in today's episode, I encourage you to check out Dr. Hyman's full-length conversations with Dr. Elizabeth Boham, Dave Asprey, Fred Provenza, and Dr. Aseem Malhotra. If you have people in your life who could benefit from this information, please consider sharing this episode with your community.

We need each other to create a healthier us.

Until next time, thanks for tuning in. hi, everyone.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.

Don't forget, there's a way to listen completely ad-free. With Hyman Plus on Apple Podcasts, you can enjoy every episode without any breaks. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap Try Free to start your seven-day free trial.