Moment 178: They're Lying To About Low Fat Foods, THIS Is What They're Doing!: Tim Spector

Steven Bartlett (0:03)

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Tim Spector (1:08)

It's the opposite of ultra processed food, which is whole food, which is made with, from the original ingredients of plants, mainly plant-based, but it's not exclusively, that contains all the nutrients that those plants produce without it being stripped away or boiled up or highly pressurized, deformed. And so they have to add in back those nutrients. So, you know, it's things in their pure form. So it's nuts, it's seeds, it's grains that haven't been ground up super finely. It's all the amazing plants and fruits and vegetables that we've got. They, they're healthy foods. But, you know, it's not straightforward. Yes, I've got this list of 10 superfoods. It's understand that many foods that, you know, are healthy for us, most of them are in their original form. Berries, nuts, virtually every vegetable is healthy for us if it's in that original form.

It's only because we had to learn to preserve things. We had to do trickery to make, you know, margarines and things with chemistry that we've moved away from that. But, you know, going back, you know, olive oil, for example, is a great example of something that's bevilified often because it has lots of fats in it. And, you know, certainly I was told, oh, the med trains, they have olive oil in everything. It's horrible. It's all fatty. Turns out that's a perfect, you know, it comes from the olive. The good stuff, extra virgin olive oil, has very little done to it. And that is a good, healthy, quality food. But it can be refined. You can take that and you can keep refining it. You can take corn on a cob as an example. And then, you know, and then you've got, I don't know, tortilla chips or something down the other end is, which bears, or corn flakes, which bears no resemblance to the original. And they're all versions on the spectrum.

Steven Bartlett (3:23)

God, it's so confusing, you know, because what you've said to me is, you know, based on research and studies, but then when I go to a supermarket, labeling, even, I was just thinking then corn flakes. I think I grew up thinking corn flakes were healthy because it says corn in the title. You know what I mean? And when you're trying to navigate, I was just thinking, if I'm going down an aisle now, hearing what you've just said, that that quality food is food that is not ultra processed and kind of resembles its original form. When you walk down the aisle in the supermarket, everything is trying to pretend that it's good. So how do I know what is good? I mean, I can go to the vegetable aisle and I can say, okay, that looks like a cabbage. It looks like no one's messed with that. There's been no study done on that. It hasn't been through a laboratory, but how do I, like, if I'm in an aisle tomorrow, how do I know what food is good and what is not?

Tim Spector (4:08)

Well, you've said the first thing. If it's not in a package, you're pretty sure it's good, okay? So, if it's concealed in some package that's got, you know, happy children and signals of vitamins in it, that should be a warning sign. You know, the more they have to advertise the food and say what its additives are and everything, the more you should be wary about it. The number of ingredients is another pretty good sign. So, once you get over 10, particularly if there's lots you've never heard of you wouldn't find in your kitchen, you should also be wary that that is ultra processed food. Anything that says low calorie that means they've had to add in lots of artificial sweeteners or protein extracts or something else is also a big danger sign. Low in fat means they've replaced the natural fat with something else that's cheaper. And these are all warning signs. And you take breakfast cereals. I mean, I used to eat lots of breakfast cereals. I was brought up on them, highly sugary stuff. And then I thought I was being healthy when I moved to Mouselais and posher stuff.