02/08/2025
“Eating this ultraprocessed food may be good for you and the planet,” says CNN.
Right. And drinking Diet Coke is hydration.
Let me explain what’s actually happening when you ingest these products:
A Beyond Burger contains ~20+ engineered ingredients: pea/soy protein isolates (often extracted with solvents like hexane), methylcellulose (the same thickener used in wallpaper paste that your body can’t digest), “natural flavors” (a catch-all for lab-created compounds companies don’t have to disclose), cultured dextrose (a fermentation product that can include MSG-like compounds), and modified starches (chemically altered fillers).
Impossible adds soy leghemoglobin, a GMO yeast–derived “bleeding” agent that wasn’t in the human food supply before 2019.
When these hit your system, your body responds like it does to any ultra-processed food: inflammatory cascades, blood-sugar dysregulation, and gut-microbiome disruption. Your metabolism doesn’t magically treat a plant patty differently because the label says “plant-based.”
Quick label check: If it needs a lab to make it, a paragraph-long ingredient list to explain it, or words like isolates, modified starches, gums, or “natural flavors,” it’s ultra-processed. Real food reads like a recipe, not a chemistry set.
Don’t believe every headline. These are still ultra-processed foods… they hit your metabolism like a Cheeto with better PR.
If you’re plant-based, stick to actual plants: vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, olive oil, herbs, and minimally processed staples. If you eat meat, choose regeneratively raised options.
Your body has evolutionary wisdom about real food. Trust it over marketing headlines.
