I eat a wide mix of fresh whole foods and garbage.
I need my Red Hots/Polish Sausages/Wursts, etc, full of nitrates and other things put into commercially made sausages. Plus a lot of whole/unadulterated stuff like cauliflower, tomatoes, beef, chicken, onions, cucumbers and sea salt. Cans of sardines and mackerel probably fall somewhere in between as they are healthy foods but possibly packed in questionable oils?
So both ends of the food spectrum. The bad and the good.
I like that the author didn't use some fancy definition of Ultra-Processed but rather simply said, if I can't pronounce the ingredients or can't find it in a normal household kitchen, then she wouldn't buy it for the next month during her experiment.
So I found this article from he science writer at the Wall Street Journal very interesting. I am thinking of sorting through the pantry and dividing up our food into low processed -vs- ultra processed. Obviously the freezers are full of mostly un-processed foods, but there are some snacks in there.
I am thinking of trying this.
I need my Red Hots/Polish Sausages/Wursts, etc, full of nitrates and other things put into commercially made sausages. Plus a lot of whole/unadulterated stuff like cauliflower, tomatoes, beef, chicken, onions, cucumbers and sea salt. Cans of sardines and mackerel probably fall somewhere in between as they are healthy foods but possibly packed in questionable oils?
So both ends of the food spectrum. The bad and the good.
I like that the author didn't use some fancy definition of Ultra-Processed but rather simply said, if I can't pronounce the ingredients or can't find it in a normal household kitchen, then she wouldn't buy it for the next month during her experiment.
So I found this article from he science writer at the Wall Street Journal very interesting. I am thinking of sorting through the pantry and dividing up our food into low processed -vs- ultra processed. Obviously the freezers are full of mostly un-processed foods, but there are some snacks in there.
I am thinking of trying this.
My Family Went Off Ultra-Processed Foods for a Month. The Results Surprised Me
Aug. 29, 2025 8:00 pm
When it comes to the dire effects of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) on health, the scientific evidence is “incontrovertible,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian at the Tufts Food Is Medicine Institute. He points to studies linking UPFs to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Alarmingly, around 60% of children’s calories come from UPFs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What’s less clear is which UPFs cause harm, why they do so and what the federal government should do about it.
Amid this debate, I decided to launch a bold experiment with my then 8-year-old daughter: We would try to stop eating all UPFs for one month. Could we do it? Would our bodies and brains notice a difference?
The results proved transformative. Removing UPFs dramatically altered my daughter’s eating habits. It changed mine even more. These effects persuaded my husband, who began the experiment as a skeptical observer, to wean himself off ultra-processed foods, too.
First, we agreed on a simple definition so that my daughter, Rosy, could easily identify UPFs at the store. Scientists have yet to agree on an easy way to classify these foods but generally agree that they consist of ingredients like preservatives and emulsifiers that aren’t found in home kitchens. We decided that if a food had an ingredient that we don’t use or could barely pronounce (e.g., maltodextrin, soy lecithin, guar gum), then we wouldn’t buy it.
This eliminated all foods with artificial flavors and anything with refined flours, including most store-bought crackers, cereals, breads, pretzels, granola bars and the baked goods at our local coffee shops. It meant giving up a bunch of our favorite foods: Cheez-Its, Ritz Crackers, Pirate’s Booty, bagels, pita chips, milk chocolate and flavored sparkling waters.
We stocked up on whole and minimally processed foods, including oatmeal, plain yogurt, fresh cheeses, beans, nuts, canned fish, popcorn, fruits and veggies, fresh and frozen.
We decided that without UPFs in the house, we could eat as much as we wanted of the other foods. If we craved a sweet, then we would bake it. After a month, we would assess how we felt. We found, however, that the changes came much sooner.
About 10 days in, I noticed a striking shift: I wasn’t constantly thinking about food. Before, I carried around what some call food noise. I had persistent, nagging thoughts about what to eat next. Chocolate? Banana bread? A salty, crunchy snack? Without UPFs, my cravings faded.
I learned I’m not alone. A randomized, controlled eight-week trial involving 50 adults, published this month in Nature Medicine, found that participants who switched to a minimally processed diet lost weight and saw their cravings decline. “I was surprised by these findings,” says Samuel Dicken, who led the study at University College London. “When people lose weight, typically their appetite or cravings increase, but we found the opposite.”
My snacking duly plummeted. My daughter’s eating habits followed suit. By the third week, she did something I hadn’t seen in years: She ate a homemade dinner with gusto.
It was turkey meatballs, wild rice and sautéed bok choy. Rosy would usually pick at the meat, poke at the rice and ignore the bok choy. She’s just a picky eater, I thought. But that night, she popped a meatball into her mouth, scooped up the wild rice and even tasted the bok choy.
About 10 days in to Doucleff’s experiment, she noticed a striking shift: She wasn’t constantly thinking about food. As her enthusiasm for homemade meals climbed, I started to wonder: Do ultra-processed snacks undermine children’s hunger for whole foods?
“Absolutely,” says Ashley Gearhardt, a psychologist who studies compulsive eating at the University of Michigan. She explains that because ultra-processed snacks, such as crackers, granola bars and gummies (even organic ones), are packed with refined sugars or other carbohydrates, they prompt children to keep snacking.
“After you eat a big hit of crackers or pretzels, two hours later, you’re getting this blood-sugar crash, and you’re craving more snacks that contain refined carbohydrates,” Gearhardt says. “It’s hard to have the hunger for real food if you’ve already eaten so many energy-dense foods throughout the day.”
Studies have found that repeated exposure to unhealthy snacks shifts our preferences away from healthier foods. One randomized controlled study, published in Cell Metabolism in 2023, found that participants who ate a high-sugar, high-fat yogurt every day over eight weeks were more interested in unhealthy foods than those who had a low-sugar, low-fat snack instead.
Hearteningly, studies show eating healthy foods can reverse these cravings. “If you normally don’t eat high-calorie foods or UPFs, then eating a fresh carrot is rewarding because it tastes sweet,” says psychologist Eric Stice at Stanford University.
Research suggests that reducing UPFs may also improve people’s mental health. A randomized study of 95 adults with depression, published in Nutritional Neuroscience in 2017, found that those on a three-month diet rich in vegetables, fruit, nuts, legumes and whole grains had a greater reduction in depression and better mental-health scores than participants who took part in a regular social group instead.
After a month without UPFs, I felt so much better, mentally, that I found I no longer needed willpower to resist them. I simply didn’t want them.
For Rosy, the experiment was trickier. Throughout the month, people gave her UPFs nearly everywhere she went—at parties, friends’ houses, the pool, the farmers markets, church and even softball games. After a few weeks, resisting all the UPFs around her became nearly impossible and quite stressful. We decided we needed a new set of strategies to sustain our low-UPF life.
First, we created what Gearhardt at the University of Michigan calls a context-setter. We chose specific times and places that we could keep UPF-free. For us, it was our home and cars. “I do something similar with my kids,” Gearhardt says. “We have UPFs only on special occasions.”
Context-setters help reduce children’s cravings for UPFs. “It’s like a smoker being on a plane,” Gearhardt explains. They know they can’t smoke so their brains eventually stop craving nicotine while flying.
If this sounds drastic, Gearhardt recommends cutting out ultra-processed snacks that are made primarily from refined carbohydrates, such as crackers, breads and cookies.
“Eating them just makes me want to eat more of them, which leads me to snack all day,” she says. “Then I’m not hungry for meals, and I eat nothing nourishing.” For snacks, she and her family mainly stick to nuts, vegetables, fruit and minimally processed popcorn.
On the recommendation of Dr. Agnes Ayton at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, we are also teaching Rosy how to cook. “I have grandchildren, and I’ve been thinking, ‘How on earth are we going to protect them from UPFs?’” Ayton says. “I think it’s really important to teach children to cook and that cooking is pleasurable.”
Yes, preparing homemade meals takes more time than buying premade ones. To save time, Ayton recommends investing in some kitchen gadgets, such as a slow cooker or air fryer. Our family uses a bread machine to bake minimally processed bread and a pressure cooker for stews and beans.
After cutting back on UPFs, you might realize something quite surprising, says Tufts’s Mozaffarian: “Foods that are better for you often taste better as well.”
Michaeleen Doucleff is a science journalist. Her book “Dopamine Kids: A Science-Based Plan to Rewire Your Child’s Brain and Take Back Your Family in the Age of Screens and Ultraprocessed Foods” will be published by Avid Reader Press in 2026
