It has become a new staple of the modern food industry: critics subjecting themselves to experiments to make their point, eating McDonald’s, say, or ultra-processed foods (UPFs) almost exclusively for 30 days, and then documenting the catastrophic impact on their weight and overall health.
In Feed the People! Jan Dutkiewicz and co-author Gabriel N Rosenberg, have a new take on the wheeze. For a month, Rosenberg ate only products made by Huel, a British company that makes vegan meal replacement powders and drinks that are marketed as nutritionally complete, with a full range of proteins, essential fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and fibre. His intake was 99 per cent UPFs. His body did not suffer meltdown, however. He lost rather than gained weight. His blood tests and vital signs remained normal. Not all UPFs are the same.