How Tobacco Giants Engineered the Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods
How the Tobacco Industry Drove the Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods
In 1963, R.J. Reynolds bought Hawaiian Punch, marking the tobacco industry's entry into food. Over the following decades, R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris acquired major brands like Del Monte, Nabisco, and Kraft, producing hyperpalatable, chemically engineered foods now known as ultra-processed foods (UPFs). In a Berkeley Talks episode, UCSF professor Laura Schmidt explains how these products, marketed heavily to children, fueled the obesity epidemic. She notes that about 60% of calories in American diets now come from UPFs, and obesity rates began rising sharply in the mid-1980s as tobacco-owned food companies scaled up production.
In the mid-'80s, when we see ultra-processed foods starting to scale up in the American food supply, we also see obesity starting to really rise.
- tptacek
> “About 60% of the calories in Americans’ diets are from ultra-processed foods,” says Schmidt, who spoke at a UC Berkeley event in May. “In the mid-’80s, when we see ultra-processed foods starting to scale up in the American food supply, we also see obesity starting to really rise. That is the moment when some of the largest food companies are owned by tobacco companies.”
A reminder here that while there's an important directional claim behind stuff like this, "ultra-processed food" is an extremely silly category that does violence to the argument.
UPFs include:
* Whole wheat bread (most supermarket bread is stabilized, which you might not like aesthetically, but it isn't doing anything to your health)
* Almost all yogurt products, flavored or otherwise
* Literally all baby formula
* Any kind of plant-based meat replacement
* Many supermarket hummus brands (again: stabilizers and emulsifiers)
You get to "ultra-processed" simply by making things shelf-stable, and shelf-stability isn't an actual health problem (kind of the opposite).
You get to problematic through hyperpalatability, which is another, different target of modern food engineering. Hyperpalatable foods are almost always UPFs, but the other direction doesn't hold at all.
- pir8life4me
Japan has ultra processed foods and they don't seem to have an obesity epidemic.
They do have a strong education system that teaches cooking and food budgeting and related.
They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.
- guilhermeasper
I recently discovered just how much food engineering goes into products like potato chips and similar items, not only in the flavor, but also in the texture and even the sound it makes.
There's someone at the factory who basically spends their time eating samples from new batches to ensure they're exactly as expected.
- robotnikman
Not sure why this comment by KurSix is marked dead:
>What stands out to me is that the real transfer wasn't a specific ingredient or recipe, it was institutional knowledge: how to engineer repeat consumption and then market the hell out of it
But this really is the gist of it. The execs from the Tobacco industry saw the writing on the wall, and moved over to the food industry where the knowledge of making things addictive to consume was applied to food.
- nopurpose
Is Huel ultra processed food too? They promote themselves as healthy meals and I am long time subscriber. I keep telling myself that even if it is not like cooking from raw ingredients, it is still far from a greasy junk food at kebab shops and McDonalds.
- ahmedhossamdev
We eat engineered low-quality material, not real food.
- amelius
Companies should be required to provide the full supply-chain of the ingredients. On the packaging. With addresses. And no PO-boxes.
- adolph
Reading through this and thinking about the problem in a blame-free way leads me to see the tobacco companies as a through-line for product packaging optimization that transcends any specific use. "The first patented cigarette-making machine was invented by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno of Mexico in 1847." [0] This puts high volume manufacture of cigarettes right at the cusp of the second industrial revolution with improvements in "steel-making processes, mass production, assembly lines, electrical grid systems, large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and use of advanced machinery in steam-powered factories." [1]