How To Tell If You’re Suffering From UPF

If you eat frozen dinners, fast food meals, cereal, snack bars, packaged snacks and sweets on a regular basis and you are suffering from with undiagnosed discomforts, you’re definitely not alone. Chances are you have UPF disease. That’s “Ultra-Processed Food” disease.

Fact is roughly 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from ultra-processed foods. Some 70 percent of the packaged foods sold in the United States are considered ultra-processed and they’re edging out healthier foods as they become even more widely consumed across all socioeconomic groups. One of the major offenders is “corn syrup solids,” which is used as a “sugar-like sweetener” that actually works as a chemical inside your body. But it’s cheap so it’s used a lot!

We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products is linked to unwelcome health outcomes, like an increased risk of diabetes, obesity, cancer, tooth decay, and even worse! Yet those numbers indicate that people are loathe to give up those kinds of “foods”. The physical risks are well-known and obvious. But even more concerning are the results of recent studies pointing to another major downside to these irresistible foods: They appear to have a significant negative impact on various organs and our brain health too.

A recent New York Times article reports that in one 2022 study of over 10,000 adults in the U.S., “the more UPFs participants ate, the more likely they were to report mild depression or feelings of anxiety. There was a significant increase in mentally unhealthy days for those eating 60 percent or more of their calories from UPFs.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/well/eat/ultraprocessed-food-mental-health

Food is the first line of defense when it comes to our health. In fact, it is the only line of defense, since we make our defense system, our digestive organs, everything inside, from foods that we eat. There are NO other choices! What you put into your body directly affects your health. Put in good quality food and you get good quality energy and health. The body is so amazing that it can endure decades of being filled with stuff that can barely be called food before it starts to malfunction. It takes commitment and discipline to break oneself from the habit of eating UPFs. But the way you feel typically is reward enough to keep going.

The popular artificial sweetener aspartame, is sold under various registered names – such as NutraSweet, equal, Canderel, Neotame, and so on – and their promoters will give you all kinds of fairytale stories about how the product has been researched more than any other. After the FDA passed the use of aspartame in 1983 for carbonated drinks, there seemed to be an emerging problem with pilots suffering from various conditions including migraines, seizures, tremors, eyesight problems and other neurological episodes.  Ingesting aspartame laced products such as chewing gum, diet cokes and sodas, hot chocolate drinks etc., seemed to be the trigger.  Many articles have been published since 1986 about the dangers of aspartame and the susceptibility of pilots to seizures, vertigo, and hypoxia.

Are you ready to kick the UPF habit? Are you aware that I have constructed food programs for people for over 45 years? Are you feeling bad enough yet? If so, give my office a call and let us help you educate yourself and arm yourself with information that will nourish your body and mind … and restore and help maintain better health for many years to come.