Ultra-Processed People

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

This audiobook contains exclusive bonus content between Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken, where they deep-dive into what you've just listened to at the end of each part.

An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.

It's not you, it's the food.

We have entered a new 'age of eating' where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it's doing to our bodies?

Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what's really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can't save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

For too long we've been told we just need to make different choices, when really we're living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

©2023 Chris van Tulleken (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • You’ve got to get this book in your life . . . Completely compelling . . . Read a page and think about it for the rest of the week

    Chris Evans

  • A devastating, witty and scholarly destruction of the shit food we eat and why

    Adam Rutherford

  • If you only read one diet or nutrition book in your life, make it this one. It will not only change the way you eat but the way you think about food. And it does all this without a hint of finger-wagging or body shaming. I came away feeling so much better informed about every aspect of ultra-processed food, from the way it affects the microbes in our gut to why it is so profitable to produce to why it’s so hard to eat only a single bowl of Coco Pops to why any food that is marketed as ‘better for you’ is almost certainly not.

    Bee Wilson

  • A wonderful and fascinating exposé of ultra-processed food, edible substances with strange sounding ingredients which are manufactured by some of the wealthiest companies on the planet and which, worryingly, form an increasing part of our diet. As Chris shows, not only have these foods been formulated to ensure that we eat them constantly and without thought, but they hijack our ability to regulate what we eat, primarily by affecting our brains. And he backs up his claims with a powerful self-experiment, along with lots of rigorous and often shocking research. Reading this book will make you question what you eat and how it was produced

    BBC presenter and bestselling author of The Fast Diet

  • Packed with “I never knew that” moments, Ultra-Processed People is a wonderfully playful book that changed forever how I think about what I eat and why

    Hannah Fry

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