The ubiquitous availability and exaggerated use of processed and ultra-processed food products has led to these products being euphemistically labeled fast or “convenience foods”. If the accepted definition of convenience is something that saves work or contributes to your ease or comfort, than this is an insidious misnomer. Ultra-processed foods are the worst of processed foods and are industrial or lab engineered products made from food extracts and constituents (salt, sugar, oil, starches, hydrogenated fats, and proteins,), with added flavor enhancers, artificial colors and additives to promote hyperpalatability, and manufactured by extrusion, molding and frying. (1) 

According to the CDC , and National Center of Health Statistics, these Frankenstein monsters of food production make up 53% of the total daily calories of people 19 and older, and 62% of the total calories of children between the ages of 1-18. (2) These products have their water, and fiber removed, increasing calorie density and prolonged shelf life, and nutrients like antioxidants compromised, while containing thousands of potentially toxic additives that have entered our food supply without government scrutiny or protection. As a result, they foster dysbiosis of the gut microbiome, and chronic inflammation/ free radical damage ( oxidative stress) that are at the root of all chronic disease. 

Ultra-processed foods , with their exaggerated salt, processed extracted oils, and refined sugar content exact a huge cost in physical and mental well-being. These products are associated with impaired cardiometabolic, reproductive, and mental health, including high blood pressure, increased cardiovascular disease, increased LDL-cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, hormone imbalances, a variety of cancers, anxiety and depression. (3) (4) This is especially disturbing when you consider the huge part these products play in the diets of children and teenagers. One of the biggest costs to society is the disturbing engineered addiction to these products.  Global analysis has suggested that approximately 14% of adults and 15% of children and adolescents meet the criteria for addiction to ultra-processed foods, with higher rates among women aged 50-64, people of color, and people experiencing food insecurity. (5)(6)

Unfortunately, the brain-reward cascade of neurotransmitters , or pleasure system, that exists within the brain has been manipulated by food conglomerates and the food-processing industry to drive compulsive food use and food addiction, pushing their food-as-drug agenda for profit while maliciously promoting pandemics of obesity, addiction, and chronic disease. 

From the early 1970s, the big food conglomerates like General Foods and Kraft, and the food-processing industry, discovered that by adding the trio of sugar, salt, and oil they could produce a state of satiety and exaggerated pleasure that we now know is mediated by dopamine and the brain-reward system. They worked with market researchers and food scientists  who coined the term “bliss point” for that point where saltiness, sweetness, and umami was perceived by consumers as “just right.” They then took it further and added crunchiness to the bliss-point formula and really etched the demand for these products in the brains of the populace. 

Food manufacturers have continued to use these elements extensively to create an assortment of highly processed “cravable” products, including chips, sweetened cereals, candies, cookies, fried foods, and even tomato sauces. (7)These hyperpalatable, craveable foods drive their profits through the roof, but they  dysregulate the brain’s food-reward system to increase dopamine availability, and  the addictive nature of these foods, creating a pleasure trap that promotes the excessive consumption of these foods. (8)These hyperpalatable foods drive relentless over consumption and promote increased weight and dangerous visceral fat that exacts a huge cost of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. These products are not foods. They are dangerous addictive drugs that need to be eliminated from our food chain and food supply. It is truly necessary to avoid all processed foods, and adopt an SOS-free, plant-exclusive eating plan to free yourself from this  pleasure prison that has been etched into the consciousness and the habits of our population, and give yourself the best opportunity to lose weight and body fat.

Unfortunately, our government plays a major role in enhancing the use and addiction to these products. Government subsidies for crops and animal products that are most often used in the production of ultra-processed foods, allow big food corporations/manufactures to lower their prices and make these low cost products more accessible in the markets and fast food franchises that stain and clutter the landscape of communities across America and most foreign countries. This is even more apparent and deadly in impoverished, underprivileged communities, described as “food deserts”,  that lack the presence and accessibility of quality produce and whole plant foods,  insidiously making lower income, compromised communities targets for disease and addiction. 

The cost of convenience foods is not limited to the compromise of physical and mental health. The complex of industrial food production also involves subsidies and exaggerated involvement of animal food production and brutal factory farms, to promote the fried chicken industry and cheap fast food burgers, that foster violence, abuse and death of animals, increased greenhouse gas emissions, devastating climate change and a loss of species diversity.In addition, since many ultra-processed foods come in plastic containers and wraps, the big companies that are the biggest producers of these products are the biggest plastic polluters of the environment. These plastics make their way into our oceans and ecosystems damaging the life of a wide range of species and end up in our food supply as microplastics that disrupt our endocrine and immune systems.

There is no place for so called fast, convenient, ultra-processed food in your diet. These foods exact devastating tolls and costs on every aspect of physical, mental and environmental health. While ultra-processed foods are low-cost and accessible everywhere, this is truly a dangerous illusion. When you factor in the exorbitant health care costs of medical care, and hospitalization, required for the chronic diseases and conditions caused by ultra-processed food consumption, there is no doubt what the real costs are personally, economically, and socially. There is nothing faster and more convenient that simple whole fruits and vegetables. Take advantage of local farmers markets, and stores that help make these foods more accessible and affordable. The optimal health and performance promoted by whole plant foods are the only true convenience.

References

1. Monteiro CA. Nutrition and health. The issue is not food, nor nutrients, so much as processing. Public Health Nutr. 2009 May;12(5):729-731.

2. Williams AM, et al. Ultra-processed food consumption in youth and adults: United States August 2021-2023. NCHS Data Brief No. 536, August 2025.

3. Preston JM. Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health. Cell Metab. 2007 Oct;37(10):1950-1960.

4. Lane NM, et al. Ultra-processed food comsumption and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysisof observational studies. Nutrients 2022 June 21;14(13):2568.

5. La Fata E, et al. Ultra-processed food addiction: a research update. Curr Obes Rep. 2024 May 18;13(2):214-223.

6. Loch LR, et al. Ultra-processed food addiction in a nationally representative sample of older adults in the USA. Addiction 2026 Mar;121(3):510-521.

7. Rao P, et al. Addressing the sugar, salt, and fat issue the science of food way. NPJ Sci Food. 2018  July 16;2:12.  

8. Onaolapo AY,  and Onaolapo OJ. Food additives, food and the con- cept of ‘food addiction’: Is stimulation of the brain reward cir- cuit by food su cient to trigger addiction? Pathophysiology. 2018;25(4):263-276.