The 150 key nutritional components that are tracked in nutritional databases are only a tiny fraction of the more than 26,000 compounds present in our food.
How Ultra-Processed Foods Could Cause Disease: Loss of Phytonutrients
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Ultra-processed foods don’t only negatively impact nutritional status through a relative lack of micronutrients, like essential vitamins and minerals, but also by lacking phytonutrients, the thousands of plant nutrients that aren’t listed on the ingredients labels that may benefit our health––for instance, polyphenols. They aren’t technically essential in that they are not necessary for life, but they may be necessary for a long life. So, they’re considered “lifespan essentials.”
Our primary understanding of how diet affects health is limited to the 150 key nutritional components that are tracked and catalogued in nutritional databases. But these represent only a tiny fraction of the more than 26,000 distinct, definable compounds present in our food—many of which have documented effects on health, but remain unquantified in any systematic fashion across different individual foods. There are 8,000 kinds of polyphenols alone!
When brown rice started to be polished into white rice, people started to die en masse from a nutrient deficiency disease. Beriberi became one of the most common diseases in Asia, because the germ and the bran that got removed from the rice were where the B vitamin thiamine was. So, millers started fortifying the polished white rice by adding back the thiamine that had been removed.
But what about all the other phytonutrients that are lost? And that’s just going from brown rice to white, which is considered a moderate level of processing. Think how much is lost when rice is turned into an ultra-processed product like brown rice syrup. Or, if you take a whole soybean and end up with just soy lecithin, for that matter.
The outdated view of nutrition and public health is we just have to tick off all the basic boxes to prevent deficiencies. That allows food manufacturers to boast that their marshmallows aren’t just brighter, but fortified with not one, not two, but nine essential vitamins and minerals. So, eat up, kids. Oh, and now, 33% healthier—up to 12 vitamins and minerals. Hey, we are told to eat the rainbow. But I’m afraid these berries are not going to provide the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, prebiotic, and cell-protecting effects of polyphenols in actual berries.
Compared to whole foods, industrialized foods lack the complex milieu of phytonutrients, one of the things that sets whole foods apart from processed foods. Now, those with ties to candy bar companies may argue that ultra-processed foods have essential nutrients, but the essential nutrients are just the tip of the iceberg as it relates to the number and variety of compounds in whole foods.
Consider garlic. Look in nutrient databases, and it has like manganese, vitamin B6, selenium. However, a clove of garlic contains more than 2,000 distinct components, which are presumably responsible for the cancer protection associated with eating garlic family vegetables and beneficial cardiometabolic effects when garlic is actually put to the test. But when the amount of garlic in the food we eat is less than the amount of MSG, we’re probably going to miss out on the benefits.
The studies come out exactly as you would expect. Take flavonoids, for example, a subset of polyphenols found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, herbs, and tea. That may help explain why these foods may have protective effects against some of our leading killers like cancer and Alzheimer’s. And, of course, those who eat the most ultra-processed foods get significantly fewer flavonoids in their diet. Might that help explain the association between ultra-processed foods and several chronic diseases?
Flavonoids are part of the so-called “dark matter” of nutrition. Ultra-processed foods may be fortified with specific nutrients in a vain attempt to make up for all the nutrition that’s been stripped from whole foods. But those few nutrients are just drops in a bucket. If we’re tracking only 150 components, and there are more than 26,000 different compounds in foods, then that means more than 99% of the compounds stripped from whole foods to make ultra-processed products may be gone for good, and who knows what impact that has on our health. What we do know is that these products are evolutionarily novel.
Just like our bodies are not used to all the new stuff added to our foods, our bodies may also not used to having all the old stuff like fiber subtracted from our foods. Just like it’s difficult to tease out the long-term consequences of the cocktails of new food additives; we don’t know what critical combination of phytonutrients we may be missing. Until Big Food figures it out and can add a lucky 13, maybe it would be best to try to stick to whole foods.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Wiss DA, LaFata EM. Ultra-processed foods and mental health: where do eating disorders fit into the puzzle? Nutrients. 2024;16(12):1955.
- Williamson G, Holst B. Dietary reference intake (Dri) value for dietary polyphenols: are we heading in the right direction? Br J Nutr. 2008;99 Suppl 3:S55-58.
- Barabási AL, Menichetti G, Loscalzo J. The unmapped chemical complexity of our diet. Nat Food. 2019;1(1):33-37.
- Meccariello R, D’Angelo S. Impact of polyphenolic-food on longevity: an elixir of life. An overview. Antioxidants (Basel). 2021;10(4):507.
- Kwon TW, Hong JH, Moon GS, et al. Food technology: challenge for health promotion. Biofactors. 2004;22(1-4):279-287.
- Lanska DJ. Chapter 30: historical aspects of the major neurological vitamin deficiency disorders: the water-soluble B vitamins. Handb Clin Neurol. 2010;95:445-476.
- Kelly OJ. Ultraprocessed food is not a replacement for whole food. Adv Nutr. 2023;14(5):1244-1245.
- Pap N, Fidelis M, Azevedo L, et al. Berry polyphenols and human health: evidence of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, microbiota modulation, and cell-protecting effects. Curr Opin Food Sci. 2021;42:167-186.
- Assaf S, Park J, Chowdhry N, et al. Unraveling the evolutionary diet mismatch and its contribution to the deterioration of body composition. Metabolites. 2024;14(7):379.
- Wan Q, Li N, Du L, et al. Allium vegetable consumption and health: An umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. Food Sci Nutr. 2019;7(8):2451-2470.
- Leitão AE, Roschel H, Oliveira-Júnior G, et al. Association between ultra-processed food and flavonoid intakes in a nationally representative sample of the US population. Br J Nutr. 2024;131(6):1074-1083.
- Warner JO. Artificial food additives: hazardous to long-term health? Arch Dis Child. 2024;109(11):882-885.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Ultra-processed foods don’t only negatively impact nutritional status through a relative lack of micronutrients, like essential vitamins and minerals, but also by lacking phytonutrients, the thousands of plant nutrients that aren’t listed on the ingredients labels that may benefit our health––for instance, polyphenols. They aren’t technically essential in that they are not necessary for life, but they may be necessary for a long life. So, they’re considered “lifespan essentials.”
Our primary understanding of how diet affects health is limited to the 150 key nutritional components that are tracked and catalogued in nutritional databases. But these represent only a tiny fraction of the more than 26,000 distinct, definable compounds present in our food—many of which have documented effects on health, but remain unquantified in any systematic fashion across different individual foods. There are 8,000 kinds of polyphenols alone!
When brown rice started to be polished into white rice, people started to die en masse from a nutrient deficiency disease. Beriberi became one of the most common diseases in Asia, because the germ and the bran that got removed from the rice were where the B vitamin thiamine was. So, millers started fortifying the polished white rice by adding back the thiamine that had been removed.
But what about all the other phytonutrients that are lost? And that’s just going from brown rice to white, which is considered a moderate level of processing. Think how much is lost when rice is turned into an ultra-processed product like brown rice syrup. Or, if you take a whole soybean and end up with just soy lecithin, for that matter.
The outdated view of nutrition and public health is we just have to tick off all the basic boxes to prevent deficiencies. That allows food manufacturers to boast that their marshmallows aren’t just brighter, but fortified with not one, not two, but nine essential vitamins and minerals. So, eat up, kids. Oh, and now, 33% healthier—up to 12 vitamins and minerals. Hey, we are told to eat the rainbow. But I’m afraid these berries are not going to provide the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, prebiotic, and cell-protecting effects of polyphenols in actual berries.
Compared to whole foods, industrialized foods lack the complex milieu of phytonutrients, one of the things that sets whole foods apart from processed foods. Now, those with ties to candy bar companies may argue that ultra-processed foods have essential nutrients, but the essential nutrients are just the tip of the iceberg as it relates to the number and variety of compounds in whole foods.
Consider garlic. Look in nutrient databases, and it has like manganese, vitamin B6, selenium. However, a clove of garlic contains more than 2,000 distinct components, which are presumably responsible for the cancer protection associated with eating garlic family vegetables and beneficial cardiometabolic effects when garlic is actually put to the test. But when the amount of garlic in the food we eat is less than the amount of MSG, we’re probably going to miss out on the benefits.
The studies come out exactly as you would expect. Take flavonoids, for example, a subset of polyphenols found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, herbs, and tea. That may help explain why these foods may have protective effects against some of our leading killers like cancer and Alzheimer’s. And, of course, those who eat the most ultra-processed foods get significantly fewer flavonoids in their diet. Might that help explain the association between ultra-processed foods and several chronic diseases?
Flavonoids are part of the so-called “dark matter” of nutrition. Ultra-processed foods may be fortified with specific nutrients in a vain attempt to make up for all the nutrition that’s been stripped from whole foods. But those few nutrients are just drops in a bucket. If we’re tracking only 150 components, and there are more than 26,000 different compounds in foods, then that means more than 99% of the compounds stripped from whole foods to make ultra-processed products may be gone for good, and who knows what impact that has on our health. What we do know is that these products are evolutionarily novel.
Just like our bodies are not used to all the new stuff added to our foods, our bodies may also not used to having all the old stuff like fiber subtracted from our foods. Just like it’s difficult to tease out the long-term consequences of the cocktails of new food additives; we don’t know what critical combination of phytonutrients we may be missing. Until Big Food figures it out and can add a lucky 13, maybe it would be best to try to stick to whole foods.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Wiss DA, LaFata EM. Ultra-processed foods and mental health: where do eating disorders fit into the puzzle? Nutrients. 2024;16(12):1955.
- Williamson G, Holst B. Dietary reference intake (Dri) value for dietary polyphenols: are we heading in the right direction? Br J Nutr. 2008;99 Suppl 3:S55-58.
- Barabási AL, Menichetti G, Loscalzo J. The unmapped chemical complexity of our diet. Nat Food. 2019;1(1):33-37.
- Meccariello R, D’Angelo S. Impact of polyphenolic-food on longevity: an elixir of life. An overview. Antioxidants (Basel). 2021;10(4):507.
- Kwon TW, Hong JH, Moon GS, et al. Food technology: challenge for health promotion. Biofactors. 2004;22(1-4):279-287.
- Lanska DJ. Chapter 30: historical aspects of the major neurological vitamin deficiency disorders: the water-soluble B vitamins. Handb Clin Neurol. 2010;95:445-476.
- Kelly OJ. Ultraprocessed food is not a replacement for whole food. Adv Nutr. 2023;14(5):1244-1245.
- Pap N, Fidelis M, Azevedo L, et al. Berry polyphenols and human health: evidence of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, microbiota modulation, and cell-protecting effects. Curr Opin Food Sci. 2021;42:167-186.
- Assaf S, Park J, Chowdhry N, et al. Unraveling the evolutionary diet mismatch and its contribution to the deterioration of body composition. Metabolites. 2024;14(7):379.
- Wan Q, Li N, Du L, et al. Allium vegetable consumption and health: An umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. Food Sci Nutr. 2019;7(8):2451-2470.
- Leitão AE, Roschel H, Oliveira-Júnior G, et al. Association between ultra-processed food and flavonoid intakes in a nationally representative sample of the US population. Br J Nutr. 2024;131(6):1074-1083.
- Warner JO. Artificial food additives: hazardous to long-term health? Arch Dis Child. 2024;109(11):882-885.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
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How Ultra-Processed Foods Could Cause Disease: Loss of Phytonutrients
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Content URLDoctor's Note
If you missed the previous videos in this series, check out:
- What Are Ultra-Processed Foods?
- How Bad Are Ultra-Processed Foods?
- Which Ultra-Processed Foods Are the Worst in Driving the Association with Death and Disease?
- Do the Health Impacts of Ultra-Processed Foods Apply to Plant-Based Meat Alternatives?
- How Ultra-Processed Foods Could Cause Disease: Food Additives
- How Ultra-Processed Foods Could Cause Disease: Industrial Contaminants
- How Ultra-Processed Foods Could Cause Disease: Packaging Chemicals
Stay tuned for the rest of this extended video series on ultra-processed foods, coming out over the next several months.
If you don’t want to wait for each video to be released, we’ve compiled all the information into a brand-new book, Ultra-Processed Foods: Concerns, Controversies, and Exceptions.
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