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Ultra-processed foods ‘hijacking children’s tastebuds’ Chefs and campaigners say youngsters are being ‘robbed of the experience’ of good meals by diets high in sugar, salt and additives. Kat Lay, Health Editor Children’s health is being damaged by a poor diet from a young age, campaigners say Ultra-processed foods are hijacking children’s taste buds and leaving them “robbed” of the experience of learning to eat, according to campaigners and TV chefs. Celebrity cooks and authors including Thomasina Miers, Bee Wilson, Yotam Ottolenghi, Kimberley Wilson and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have written to Rishi Sunak to say that exposure to ultra-processed foods is “blindfolding” children to flavour and texture, posing long-term risks to their health. Ultra-processed foods, which include breakfast cereals, mass-produced bread, potato-based snacks such as Pringles and many types of cakes and biscuits. They are often high in salt and sugar, contain additives, emulsifiers and preservatives, and are typically high in calories but lacking in fiber and nutrients. Rob Percival, head of food policy at the Soil Association, said: “Ultra-processed foods are hijacking children’s taste buds. These products are often soft and sweet, and children growing up on an ultra-processed diet are left blindfolded to the joys and complexity of real food … Too few know the taste of bitter greens or the nutty flavour of beans and lentils, or have felt the crunch of a tomato bursting on their tongue.” In a campaign with the food charity, the chefs are urging the prime minister to ensure a million extra children in education get five portions of fruit and vegetables a day , using a “whole school approach” to good food with sensory education and better school meals. They say: “Learning to eat should be an adventure — joyful and challenging — but our children are increasingly being robbed of the experience. Many are growing up not knowing the tastes, textures, and smells of real food. Many will rarely feel fresh produce between their fingers. Many will enter adulthood only knowing the simplified and sweet flavours of ultra-processed products, leading to unhealthy choices and poorer health outcomes later in life.” In an accompanying report the charity calls on the government to revive previous commitments to ensure school pupils cook and grow food, visit farms and eat freshly prepared meals, as envisaged in Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy. He resigned as government food tsar this year in protest at a lack of action to tackle rising obesity, particularly among children. Henry Dimbleby, the co-founder of the Leon chain of restaurants, has resigned as the government’s food tsar TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL Independent evaluation suggests that if all schools in England followed this approach, a million more children would be eating their five-a-day. The report also calls for procurement standards for school caterers that require them to use more organic and seasonal produce. It adds that the government should introduce a target to reduce ultra-processed food in children’s diets by boosting consumption of minimally processed fruits, vegetables and pulses. Dr Chris van Tulleken, one of the letter’s signatories, is author of Ultra Processed People, a book released earlier this year. He said: “Growing up on an ultra-processed diet is a bit like growing up blindfolded — cut off from the colours and complexity of real food. It’s fantastic to see that pioneering schools are beginning to address this disconnect, employing practical food education and serving freshly prepared meals. Political action is now needed to ensure all schools can do so.” A recent report from First Steps Nutrition Trust said that high levels of ultra-processed food consumption in infancy “undermines taste development”. The standard diet of very young children normalized snacking, sweet tastes and soft textures, it said, and was at risk of displacing other less processed options necessary for growth, health and development. ADD A government spokesperson said: “We are taking strong action to tackle childhood obesity by cutting the salt and sugar content in foods and encouraging healthier food choices. We’ve already delivered dramatic sugar reductions in children’s foods like breakfast cereals, yogurts and fromage frais, whilst our calorie labelling legislation empowers informed food choices. “Food is already a compulsory topic within the national curriculum for 5–14-year-olds in state-maintained schools, with children receiving high quality teaching on the importance of healthy eating and nutrition. “We are also committed to ensuring children leave school knowing how to cook at least six healthy meals through using curriculum materials that the Oak National Academy are developing. Oak has appointed a subject expert and will start their work on producing these materials in the coming months.” ADD ENDS Article Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ultra-processed-foods-hijacking-childrens-tastebuds-jv7wf32g7

Welcome aboard @Kellie Sounds good. I've never heard of "mushroom chips" and am always on the hunt for a keto-friendly crunch, lol. If I recall, there are only about 100 toxic mushrooms, but the majority of them are safe. We're keto-friendly here, and not die-hard carnivore zealots, so go ahead and dig in, lol 🙂 I really want to invest in a dehydrator or air-fryer capable of dehydrating. I want to make my own jerky and other animal-based snacks.

Well said! If I could turn back time, and had the nutrition and food knowledge that I have acquired in the last year back in the 90's and early 2000's, I would have done then what I am doing today. Back then, it seemed like I was young and invincible, and yet all the while I was doing damage that wouldn't manifest itself until my mid-30's and later.

I would agree to give it at least 90 days. Some people experience benefits within the first week. For others, it does take a couple months.

Hello Andre, I posted an answer over here in the first thread you started on this subject... https://carnivoretalk.com/topic/264-fat-loss-on-a-strict-carnivore-diet/?do=findComment&comment=1779

It can be. A proper human diet is a low carbohydrate, meat-based diet that generally ranges from zero to 100 carbs per day. It does not necessarily have to be 100% carnivore. If you cut out processed food and stick to natural meats, dairy, fruit, and vegetables and avoid processed food, you will likely thrive. However, staying on the carnivore or ketogenic end of this spectrum (less than 20 carbs daily) is recommended if you are not a healthy person. Cutting out the carbs and the plant toxins can help lose weight, reduce blood pressure, reverse diabetes, and eliminate certain auto-immune and chronic conditions. But if you don't suffer from any of those things then you don't necessarily have to be so strict. You can remain animal-based, and still have some variety. As a general rule, to lose weight you will want to not eat foods that spike insulin and you will want to be in ketosis often, which is achieved by eating a moderate protein high fat diet. The last 10 pounds or so are notoriously stubborn. You say you hit the gym a few times a week. Are you lifting weights? Could you be gaining muscle? It sounds like you are saying you lost 17 pounds right away but now have gained a couple back. Is that correct?

Yes I did. It's related to my stage 4 CKD.... https://carnivoretalk.com/topic/59-triglycerides-so-high-i-should-probably-be-dead/?do=findComment&comment=622

And then the flip side of this coin is that the muscle cramps will return. For the record, this is the magnesium complex I take... https://www.amazon.com/Zentastic-Triple-Magnesium-Relaxation-Absorption/dp/B0BC84FL5C/ref=sr_1_1_sspa? I did my research and hunted for what I thought were the best types, and all 4 types of magnesium in that formular are NOT the kind the loosen your stools. 😉 I take one pill (80mg) with breakfast, and one with dinner, and then at bedtime, usually just after midnight, I take 3 pills. So altogether I am taking 5 pills (400mg) spread throughout the day.

I should have taken a picture today. I made wagyu beef burgers with melted cheese and some greek Tzatziki sauce on top. Tzatziki is basically yogurt with diced cucumbers and some seasonings. It was reminiscient of a gyro although some actual gyro meat would have been divine!

It's my own forgetfulness, which then leads to passiveness, lol. I agree that logging is great. I usually have more success losing weight when I am tracking everything religiously.

Welcome Dan. That might have been me. I told my doctor I would lose 50 pounds in 6 months and he kinda chuckled me off, and said "the only way you are going to pull that off is if you cut out every single carbohydrate" - so I did, lol. But as that 6 month checkup was getting close, I was stalled at 40 pounds down. So I started backing off the butter, trimming the fat from my steaks, and removed dairy altogether. I broke my stall but quickly stalled again, and I was having diarrhea. Then when I did my labs I had ridiculously high triglycerides and the doctor wanted me to be a vegetarians instead. One of my theories regarding my trig problem was my macros. I was basically eating a no carb, low fat, high protein diet and I thought maybe it was gluconeogenesis at work. I was wrong and did figure out the issue. But, to fix my macros and make it ketogenic again, I had to up the fat. I returned to using liberal amounts of butter, started eating the fat on my steak, added back cheese, and my stool returned to normal. The diarrea went away. Since then, I've heard two things. 1) That cheese is a natural constipater. And 2) in the book Strong Medicine that I uploaded, there is an account about how Stefansson went on a diet of lean meat, and had diarrhea and digestive discomfort, but when he started eating the fat his issues went away. When I read this it reminded me of my own experience. That sounds like my diet. Chicken and certain cuts of pork (consumed less often on my part) can be lean but it's not the end of the world, you can always add fat to those meals through other means. So we know things were working as expected. I've heard that the heart beats better when running on ketones, and this stonger beat worries some people. You just have to get used to it. Tis the season for viruses here in the U.S. Could you have caught a bug? It just stands to reason that something changed at the 10 week mark. That is common advice, and I hear it from Dr. Anthony Chaffee a lot. The thinking being that if you eat too much fat you won't have enough bile in your gall bladder to break it down, so it will result in loose stools, and you should dial back the fat a bit. But if you didn't increase your fat at the 10 week mark and things were fine prior to that, then I wouldn't suspect this is the case. I will say that during my first 2 months of strict carnivore, I would oscillate back and forth between stool that was hard as rocks, to utter liquid, and I could never predict which was next. This lasted for 6-8 weeks before things returned to my new normal. What kind of magnesium and what is the dosage? Certain types of magnesium will cause loose stools. I eventually developed severe cramping as well, which was from an electrolyte deficiency. I now take a magnesium complex every day, but I've made certain to find a product that contains forms of magnesium not notorious for causing people to explode on the toilet.

This translates to 1lb of meat, 7-8 eggs, 6' tall, and 20% body fat for us American folks 🙂 There could be a couple things going on. What kind of meat are you eating? Is it fatty, or is it lean? For example, a 1 lb ribeye might have 1200 calories. Add in your 560 calories in the 8 eggs and you are sitting at 1760. Add a tablespoon of butter to cook those eggs in and you are at 1860. But if you are eating lean meat such as chicken or fish then you are coming in way under this. It's true you don't have to count calories to lose weight, but it is a useful metric to determine if you are over or under eating. Your body's will adjust to your eating habits. For example, if you cut your calories even more, you're body will learn to run on that reduced load. So what some people will do is gradually add calories to their daily intake, 1800 calories for a fews days, then 1850 for a few days, then 1900 for a few days, 1950, 2000, 2050, 2100, 2150, 2200, 2250, 2300, etc, over the course of a month. The body gets used to running with the higher amount, and then you suddenly drop back to 1800 again. You will lose weight again until your body adjusts to what you are doing, and then you repeat the process. Another idea is how far apart are those 2 meals a day? If you have breakfast at 8am and dinner at 6pm, that is a 14/10 fasting schedule (14 hours fasting, 10 hours feasting). Try adjusting your intermittent fasting window to 16/8 or 18/6 or even 20/4. For example, if you postponed breakfast until noon and had dinner at 6pm, that would be a 18/6 intermittent fasting pattern, where you consume all the food you are going to eat within an 6 hour window. This video will give you some other ideas of what can help...

Interesting article. Based on your list of symptoms compared to the article, you may very well be onto something. I haven't studied oxylates much because I haven't had any dumping issues. But what is interesting is after reading that article, I may have had oxylate toxicity that contributed to my kidney problems. You read down the list of foods that are high in oxylates, and I had been chowing down on almost all those things for years and years.

This is a neat idea. Thanks for sharing. I usually butter and season to taste, but I would have never thought of creating pre-seasoned butter like this.

So I am also 5'8" and 175 lbs. I do not intentionally exercise but my day job can be laborious sometimes. I have sat idle since mid-November, eating 2 or 3 times a day, and probably closer to 2500 calories on the average. If I dropped it down to 1800 and lifted everyday, I am sure that I would lose weight too. This is, in fact, what I plan to do coming soon.

It's a very useful app. I don't use it all the time. I get bored of logging after a while, and since I am a creature of habit and eat the same basic things I don't see the need. I did not track anything for almost all of my carnivore journey until I had that triglyceride scare in October. Then I used it to make sure I was getting the right amount of fat-to-protein, since this was one of my theories as to what might have been going on (which I ended up disproving). I will probably start logging again in March. That's when the weather starts to improve, and is when I plan to really buckle down to get my last few stubborn pounds off.

How many meals a day? Do you know your average daily calorie and macros? Are you intermittent fasting or eating 3 meals a day? Even though this is a weight optimization diet, in general, you can eat more to stop losing weight. If you want to gain muscle weight, lift heavy things. If you want to gain some body fat, add in some carbs. You'll find healthy carbs in milk and fruit and vegetables. The only caveat with vegetables is the plant defense chemicals that you may or may not react to. Basically, follow Paul Saladino's advice that if it's fruitage it's probably more benign, whereas leaves, stems, roots, and seeds will contain more toxins. If you didn't have auto-immune or chronic health issues prior to starting carnivore, then your personal proper human diet can include these other things as well. Dr. Berry says the proper human diet is a spectrum from zero carb carnivore up to 100g a day "low carb", and what is right for you depends on your DNA and personal physiology. We just want to stay away from ultra-processed foods, vegetable seed oils, sugars (refined/hidden), and grains for the most part.

I doubt it but I don't know. It might be worth testing. I have a pan by Ninja that is non-stick (sorta, more like easy to clean). I have no idea what it is made of. When you say iron, do you mean cast iron? I've heard that cast iron pans are actually the best.

Congrats. Ours was in December but we were down with the Covid and felt like death, so we had to postpone it.

Can you explain what you mean by picky system, picky gut? Are you talking about a stomachache, or the follow up bathroom experience? If the latter remember that bacon is super high fat. If you're gall bladder doesn't have enough bile to break down all the fat you consume in a meal, the excess fat is going to go right through you. When you are just starting out, your gall bladder might not be storing a whole lot. As your body learns that you are now eating more fat on a regular basis, it will ramp up bile production and storage.

For all of the last 5 months? Or more recent? All the time? Some of the time? Most of the time? I don't have anything to add here. Black stool may be from dark foods and drinks (beets and dark beer), supplements like iron, or a sign of bleeding in the upper GI tract from a peptic ulcer, gastritis, inflammation, colon polyps, etc. Your carnivore diet is going to be rich in iron. You have to consider these questions and decide if you think this is just due to the change in your diet, or if you want to see a GI doctor to rule out any other possible issue.

It's made from grapes so I assume it has naturally occurring sugars in it (but not refined sugar, like cane sugar).

I drink, on average, once every month or two. It will usually be a shot or two of Kentucky bourbon. I avoid beer and wine at all costs for the reasons that @Geezy listed. Beer is grain, wine is sugar. But all your hard liqueurs have zero carbs, such as pure and neat Scotch, Bourbon, Vodka, and Rum. You'll be kicked out of ketosis until you metabolize the alcohol, and then you will return to that state. The body will burn alcohol before carbs, and carbs before fat. Now I did have wine last night because we celebrated our anniversary. But that was an exception for a special occasion and I'm not the type of person who will backslide from my general dietary lifestyle just because I treated myself last night. If you have the same willpower and resolve, then you could probably drink whatever you want knowing it will be forever and a day till you do it again.

Has it been this way for all of the 5 months? Or it this something recent? If you do a web search for "stool color" you will see a lot of results that say that black can be a sign of blood in the stool and you may want to seek medical attention. But also some antibiotics, drugs, and foods can cause it too. Mine are brown to very dark brown, with random consistencies depending on my fat and magnesium intake, but I would not call mine black. So you have to determine if it's dark brown or black like tar/pitch.

So we went out and celebrated our 23th anniversary last night with some friends, so I did eat off plan - sorta. I had filet mignon, lobster tail, scallops, with a salad, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. We also had some red wine. They new it was our anniversary so they gave us a free creme brulee, and I did have a bite of that. Creme brulee has crusted sugar on top, which is the only part of the meal that actually breaks my personal vow to never eat sugar and grains again. Anniversaries are probably my only exception.