Dr Chris van Tulleken has become a figurehead in the fight against ultra-processed foods, thanks largely to his book on the subject, as well as countless media appearances.
“My friends, my family, think I’m obsessed with this,” he says in the opening seconds of Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating (BBC2, 25 November, 9pm). “And they’re right, I am.”
But it’s not a one-man crusade. Van Tulleken’s hour-long documentary is groaning with contributions from food technicians, academics, psychologists, marketers, researchers and penitent former industry bods.
Noting that obesity levels have soared in the past 50 years, van Tulleken contends that the engineering and proliferation of ultra-processed foods (the term came from a Brazilian study – and broadly covers food with “ingredients you wouldn’t find in your kitchen”) has driven massive levels of overconsumption. Particularly convincing are studies showing the brain’s reward centre “glowing like a furnace” and research subjects consuming way more on a UPF diet than on a minimally processed one matched for sugar, salt and fibre.
Alongside shots of van Tulleken looking intelligent as he types on his laptop or frowning at crisp packets, the programme provides some astonishing titbits: the invention of a starch that mimics strawberry pieces in jam (no need to bother with pricey, hard-to-handle real fruit), or the revelation that tight Pringles tubes into which our hands can’t fit increase desire – turning us into “foraging bears”.
A section that suggests food makers may have given the tobacco industry hints on making their products addictive is deliciously provocative. Van Tulleken advocates dealing with UPF similarly: bringing in warning labels and taxes like those introduced in Colombia.
It’s not all successful: his gripes about branding and marketing are a bit weak, while the inclusion of a food addict with an eating disorder is a shocking but rather extreme example.
The FDF declined to put up an interviewee to argue back, instead providing a statement. Which makes van Tulleken’s argument – “it’s not you, it’s the food” – look all the more solid.
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