MAR 3

12. MAR 3

Assigned Work

• Van Tulleken, Chris, Ultra-Processed People, C1 "Why is there bacterial slime in my ice cream? The invention of UPF" (15-30; 15)
• Van Tulleken, Chris, C11, "UPF is pre-chewed" (171-180; 9)
• Van Tulleken, Chris, C15, "Dysregulatory bodies" (225-236; 11)

In-Class

• Assign SW2, "Assessing Industrial Foods"

Van Tulleken, Chris, Ultra-Processed People, C1 "Why is there bacterial slime in my ice cream? The invention of UPF" (15-30; 15)

• Food Social justice issue p. 17-18. Do the cheap calories of UPF support the idea that they have a role to play in human nutrition? Or does it support the idea that UPF is a source of food injustice?

• why does UPF ice cream not melt: Ice cream as a paradigm for UPF. Nice detail at p18. UPF is made of cheap “replacements” of macronutrient molecules.

• Emulsifiers

• Starches - some potato gastronomy (21), modified starches can replace fats and dairy, hold water during freezing and bulk out any sauce. (Do you think you are fooling your brain?). Used to achieve shelf life, market (reductive) nutritional claims, and imitate taste (mouth feel, palatability). (Compare Susie’s Organic Mayo.)

• Gums - bacterial exudates; used with starches for thickening, like sugar substitutes, may promote overweight (23).

• Fats - aromatic molecules (of retronasal fame) all fat soluble. Fat is vehicle for flavor, also adds structure to foods. Butter an “inverted emulsion” -mostly fat with a bit of water dispersed. Real butter has lots of fat soluble flavors and nutrients and essential fatty acids.

• Butter history! Napoleon era contest for subsitute: oleomargarine (still from animal fats - suet). To get plant based margarine you need to make plant oils solid. Hydrogenation does that. Cottonseed. Additional process needed to remove toxin “gossypol”. Crisco is born - first mass produced fake lard.

• Closing point about costs and replaceability of plant oils. Could be that chick fat gets cheaper that sunflower oil. You could process it to include on ice cream.

Van Tulleken, Chris, C11, "UPF is pre-chewed"

• Notice the emphasis in this chapter on the “structure of food” vs the processing of oils and starches in the last chapter.

• How does UPF affect the structure of food (palatability) and what are the behavioral implications of UPF?

• Example of structure mattering - Apple study. Juice is pretty close to sugar soda. Also puree’, which has the fibre, but not in original structure.

• Coco Puffs, McD hamburgers, UPF bread. It’s all soft bec of processing. Speed of eating higher, no time to signal satiety to brain.

• Follow the bread story on 174. Read.

• Social justice issue - food deserts often have only UPF bread, real bread expensive.

• UPF may be changing our jaws. Follow details.

• UPF consumed at higher rates. (Barbara Rolls is important. We’ll read her theory of “volumetrics”. Basic idea: we eat by volume, so energy dense foods produce over eating. High volume nutrient dense foods better for calorie control and satiety). Some evidence of genetic disposition toward fast eating also (which could be a risk factor for overeating in a UPF food environment). (Should you slow down your eating? Also a value for mindful eating. Not just about satiety. You notice other changes in appetition, and taste if you slow down.)

• Unprocessed to processed to UPF (Nova scale) - calories per minute: 36, 54, 69. Closes with idea that food industry wants to engineer a UPF solution to this UPF problem.

Van Tulleken, Chris, C15, "Dysregulatory bodies"

• Different approaches to drugs v foods.

• Corn oil isn’t just made from squeezing corn. Read at 226. Could be “corn oil” on the label and have lots of additives from processing. 230

• Background: Easy to test for immediate toxicity, cancer, birth defects, but hard to assess impact of exposure to additives over a long period of time. Example of thyroid hormone system. 227

• Three approaches a food company can take with FDA. Full review, register additive as a GRAS (generally recognized as safe), “self-determination” that additive is a GRAS. Backlog of GRAS applications led to interpretation allowing self-determination.

• Experts cited in the chapter reviewed additive applications. Critical of Corn Oil ONE’s application. Wrong molecule!

• Of 766 food additives since 2000, only 10 went through full review. The rest by 'Self determination'. Some in secret.

• Concern about hormonal changes from additive connected to low fertility rates. [1]

• No complete list of approved additives. Maybe 10,0000, of which 1,000 self-determined. (Elsewhere in the book we learn the EU list is about 2,000.).

• Example of trans fats. If they had been self-approved, we wouldn’t know about them. (Update on trans fat regulation. [2]

• Flavor ingredient regulation 232ff. Self-determined approval of 2,600 ingredients. Example of isoeugenol. 232

• Effects of additives fall disproportionately on the poor and low SES.

• EU regulation is better, but also problems. Ethical issues of the regulatory process: $2 billion and 100 million experimental animals.

SW2: Assessing Industrial Foods

• Stage 1: Please write an 800 hundred word maximum answer to the following question by March 18, 2025, 11:59pm.

• Topic: We have been assessing industrial food primarily from the writings of Moss, Schatzker, and van Tulleken. Our critique has focused on the problems with ultra-processed foods and the flavor industry. Identify the primary concerns about both ultra-processed foods and the flavor industry. What evidence supports these concerns? Does this have implications for your diet or for food policy?

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. You will lose points if you do not follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file, but not in the filename. Save your file for this assignment with the name: "IndustrialFoods".
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "#0 - SW2 - Assessing Industrial Foods" dropbox.
5. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow and Content areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by Sunday, March 23, 2025, 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, use the animal list I sent you by email. Find your animal name on the list and then review the next four animals. If you get to the bottom of the list before reaching 4 animals, go to the top of the list and continue.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the key and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1-2 points of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• Stage 4: Back-evaluation: After you receive your peer comments and my evaluation, take a few minutes to fill out this quick "back evaluation" rating form: [3]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due TBD, 2025, at midnight.