Dr. Jessica Knurick explains how 70% of American food is ultra-processed and designed for profit, not health. The food system drives chronic disease, and most people don't realize what they're actually eating or how it affects their bodies.
I want to, I want to start off with a question which is around the food system in America. I am curious, based on your research as a science based dietitian, is our American food system setting us up to be healthier or more sick currently as it's set up?
Yeah. So I always, I always talk about this. You can set systems up in order to see the most people succeed or the most people fail. And our food system is set up very much so for the most people to fail.
Really?
Yeah.
Why is that? Why wouldn't the system be set up for us to succeed?
And when we, let's define what we mean by succeed and fail. We mean health. Right. Be healthy.
Yeah, yeah.
Not be the most profitable because it is set up for the most people to succeed financially. But if we're talking about our health, it's certainly set up for the most people to fail. And the reason is because we've built the entire system from the food we grow to the food we market and sell for profitability at the expense of health. Not necessarily to make people unhealthy. That's not really the goal. The goal is just like eh. Well, it may or may not make you unhealthy. Right. But that's not really our primary goal. Our primary goal is profitability.
From all of your research in the last few years, what have been some of the shocking stats you've seen around our health system or around chronic disease and the health system?
Yeah, I mean so what got me into this field was chronic disease. So my grandpa was really close to me. He lived a mile down the road and he was in his early to mid-60s and you know, was early 60s and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And then in his mid-60s he was snow blowing. We lived in Michigan and he had a heart attack and passed away. And I mean that's quite young to, you know, die of a heart attack. And so it just really. And he was over £400 at that time. And when he got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes we were basically told, and I was a kid, so I don't exactly know what we were told, but this is what was relayed through telephone to me that like he just needed to decrease his sugar intake. And so what we did was we just kind of started buying anything we could find that was sugar free. You know, they had like sugar free candies and sugar free donuts and these. And we always thought like we were so excited anytime we'd see those like in a grocery store.
It's healthy.
Yeah. And perfect for him like they were made for him, so they'll get him healthier. And obviously that's not what happened and that's not how that works. But I think that for me, that's what really got me interested in chronic disease. And you know, it's. When you look at the stats of chronic disease, over half of Americans, over half of American adults right now are living with some sort of chronic health condition. Many are living with three or more chronic health conditions. Because a lot of times, like my grandpa right there, you have multiple. And if you look at what plays into chronic disease, I mean, you have to look at our food system, you have to look at physical activity, you have to look at all these different factors that impact people's chronic disease. If you look at our food system, by Some estimates it's 70% ultra processed food. And we can talk about what ultra processed food actually means and the definition of that. But the vast majority of those are low nutrient ultra processed foods. And they're built because they're shelf stable. We don't have a great local food system or we don't have great local food systems. And so we rely on these heavily prepackaged, ultra processed foods to kind of like feed the country. And again, all of that is kind of setting us up for a situation where over 90% of Americans meet vegetable intake guidelines, over 90% of Americans don't meet fiber intake guidelines, over 50% of Americans eat too much added sugar. You know, so when you're looking at the dietary patterns of Americans, we're not eating the dietary patterns that are what evidence would recommend that we should be consuming to decrease risk of chronic disease. And it's the same with physical activity. If you look at physical activity levels, over 80% of Americans don't meet physical activity recommendations. Right. So you're kind of pairing those two things. People aren't meeting dietary recommendations, they're not meeting physical activity, and we're seeing record rates and growing rates of lifestyle related chronic disease.
Wow. What is the root cause then of chronic disease? Is it, what is it?
I guess, yeah. So when I tell, when I talk about it, I usually talk about it from a systems approach. Right. So biologically there's root causes, right? And that can be like insulin resistance and, you know, high blood sugar levels. And it depends if we're talking about cardiometabolic disease, which is what I predominantly study. But if we look at a system perspective, which is what I like to look at as the actual root cause, you have to look at our food system. Right. You have to look at our built environment. You have to look at things that we call the social determinants of health, which are these non medical factors that directly impact people's health. So they're things like the built environment. So do people have sidewalks? Are there parks that people can go to? Because if you just build in physical activity, like think if you've ever gone to Europe, right. And you've been in a city and you're, you're walking 20,000 steps or more, like you don't even notice it. Yeah. Just like, because you're, and obviously you're on vacation as well. But if you live in a city like you go to New York, you're walking everywhere, you know, and so because that's just built into your life. Whereas most of America is built very much for the automobile industry. Right. So for cars. And so we don't have a lot. Most of our cities and towns are not very walkable and bikable. And so because of that our physical activity is lower. So trying to think about like, how can you design these systems, Things like education, access. Because you know, you have to help us from like a nutrition perspective, you have to start educating young about like, what are some of these good choices, how can I improve my fiber intake, you know, those sorts of things.
Sure.
So all of those from a systems perspective are like the root cause. Essentially it's building systems for profitability at the expense of people's health.
They took 50 year olds that were sedentary. They went from not exercising to five to six hours a week. After two years, their hearts looked 20 years younger.
Holy crap.
Unbelievable.
They probably transformed.
Look what exercise can do.
One of the premieres.
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