{"id":19438,"date":"2025-01-07T01:04:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T02:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19438"},"modified":"2025-01-07T02:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T02:26:17","slug":"the-healthier-eating-challenge-why-you-crave-ultraprocessed-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19438","title":{"rendered":"The Healthier Eating Challenge: Why You Crave Ultraprocessed Foods"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is Day 2 of the 5-Day Healthier Eating Challenge. To start at the beginning, <\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a Gen X-er, so ultraprocessed foods have been a mainstay of my diet since I was a kid. I was raised on bowls of sugary cereal, mac and cheese and instant ramen. I still crave them.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s by design, said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Gearhardt\u2019s research<\/a> suggests that some UPF ingredients, like added fats and sugars, can activate the brain\u2019s reward centers in ways similar to those of addictive substances<\/a> like alcohol and nicotine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more you have, the more you want,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s logical that we might prefer them to some less-processed foods. But when you stop to think about how different some seem from their whole-food counterparts, the temptation diminishes a little. Many of us don\u2019t pay close attention, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost UPFs aren\u2019t designed to be eaten mindfully,\u201d said Arielle Johnson, a flavor scientist and the author of \u201cFlavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor.\u201d A small 2019 study<\/a> monitored people on both whole-food diets and ultraprocessed food diets. When they were on the UPF diet, subjects consumed more \u2014 an average of 500 extra calories a day \u2014 and ate the food more quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you are like me and find ultraprocessed foods irresistible, today\u2019s challenge may help reduce their allure.<\/p>\n

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This is Day 2 of the 5-Day Healthier Eating Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.I\u2019m a Gen X-er, so ultraprocessed foods have been a mainstay of my diet since I was a kid. I was raised on bowls of sugary cereal, mac and cheese and instant ramen. I still crave them.And that\u2019s by design, said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Gearhardt\u2019s research suggests that some UPF ingredients, like added fats and sugars, can activate the brain\u2019s reward centers in ways similar to those of addictive substances like alcohol and nicotine.\u201cThe more you have, the more you want,\u201d she said.So it\u2019s logical that we might prefer them to some less-processed foods. But when you stop to think about how different some seem from their whole-food counterparts, the temptation diminishes a little. Many of us don\u2019t pay close attention, though.\u201cMost UPFs aren\u2019t designed to be eaten mindfully,\u201d said Arielle Johnson, a flavor scientist and the author of \u201cFlavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor.\u201d A small 2019 study monitored people on both whole-food diets and ultraprocessed food diets. When they were on the UPF diet, subjects consumed more \u2014 an average of 500 extra calories a day \u2014 and ate the food more quickly.If you are like me and find ultraprocessed foods irresistible, today\u2019s challenge may help reduce their allure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19440,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19441,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19438\/revisions\/19441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}