Podcast transcript

Do I eat these or this? That's a question for you. How many times have you started a healthy eating plan? Perhaps on a Monday morning you feel full of energy and determination. But by Wednesday afternoon you find yourself eating a packet of biscuits or eating a chocolate bar at your desk. We've all been there, trying to improve our diet and not managing it, not succeeding. And usually the feeling that follows is guilt. G-U-I-L-T. We tell ourselves, 'I am weak. I just don't have the willpower'. But what if that willpower, that mental strength to control ourselves, what if that's not the main problem here?

Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works. Today we're going to practise your English understanding by getting into a topic that affects nearly everyone. And especially if you're a parent trying to feed your children healthily while you're busy. Today we're talking about 'the junk food cycle'. Listening to a complex topic like this one is brilliant for your fluency. I help you with the difficult words. It helps you move beyond just being able to order a coffee in English. It moves you towards being able to discuss real world issues, all in English. So today we're going to cover words around health, economics and food. So there's lots of great English to learn here, especially if you've got English language exams at some point. Let's get into 'the junk food cycle' today. Vocabulary first, 'junk food'. That's J-U-N-K. Well, it's a bit like 'junk email', which might be a folder in your email account. Your junk folder is where all those unwanted emails go. All the rubbish, the stuff you don't want to have to read. And 'junk food', well, it tastes good. But it's not the food that's healthy and nutritious. It's not the food that's good for you. And you'll hear in a minute the idea that it's not actually food at all. But it's designed to taste good and make us want more. And that's the problem. So I was reading a really good article from the UK newspaper, The Guardian, recently. Like all our sources, the link for this is in the tran script on our website at adeptenglish.com. This article is by Bee Wilson, who's a food journalist. If you think 'I eat junk food because I am lazy or because I am greedy', this Bee Wilson article will change your mind. It's called 'We Need to Break the Junk Food Cycle: How to Fix Britain's Failing Food System'. Bee Wilson argues that we're trapped in a failing food system. And the key here is 'system'. word When we walk into a supermarket to buy food, we think we have a choice, don't we? Apples or Ritz crackers? Yogurt or chocolate? Fresh natural bread or sugary cereal? But do we really have a free choice? Well, the truth is that we're being cleverly influenced in our choices of food. We're being influenced especially towards those centre aisles, the middle of the supermarket, the foods that manufacturers process. Not apples, not cheese, not pasta even. But instead 'ultra-processed foods' or UPFs, the ones that really aren't healthy for us. And we may not realise it, but these foods are designed,engineered to taste good, to make us want more, to be 'addictive', in other words, A-D-D-I-C-T-I-V-E. It makes sure you keep coming back for more. I did a podcast on crisps a couple of weeks ago. That was 847. But have you ever wondered why you can't stop eating Pringles? Well, they've been designed that way. The recipe for Pringles is not designed for your food health or nutrition. The recipe ensures that you keep eating more and more Pringles. The advert for Pringles in the UK used to be, "Once you pop, you can't stop". What they mean there, 'once you pop the lid on a tube of Pringles, you can't stop eating them'. The food manufacturer has made sure that this is the case. We are being manipulated here. 'To manipulate' means to influence in a way that is negative and often a way that people may not realise. Food companies want to get richer. If it's at the expense of our health, they don't care. So products designed so that you can't stop eating them. Yet we're encouraged to think that if we're overweight, 'it's our fault, our problem. We're to blame'. But these foods are made purposefully to be addictive. Understanding Ultra-Processed Foods and Their Hidden Dangers So Pringles are ultra-processed foods or UPFs. And there are so many other processed foods on the market and you might not realise it. I've talked about these before in podcast number 768 and podcast number 655. And if you subscribe to Adept English then episodes 109, 144, 147 all cover different topics around ultra-processed foods. Now I agree, lots of food is processed. If you bake a potato, you've processed it. If you make cheese from milk, that's also processed. But cheese is fine. The difference is these foods are ultra-processed. 'Ultra' means beyond. And UPFs are full of ingredients that you don't find in your kitchen. And which sound more like chemicals from a science lab? Snacking on these Ritz crackers? Would you like some glucose fructose syrup? Calcium phosphates? Ammonium carbonates? Sodium carbonates? Potassium carbonates? All with your Ritz cracker. What do those substances do in the body? Probably no one knows. Apples on the other hand, we've evolved for centuries to eat those. So they're okay. Another article from The Guardian newspaper in 2023 is making a statement what The Guardian thinks about UPFs. Again, the link is in the transcript. And this article makes the point. "Blame businesses, not consumers". 'Consumers' means 'customers'. That's you and me! This article describes ultra-processed foods as 'industrially produced edible food substances', not food. That phrase, 'edible substances' - while 'edible', E-D-I-B-L-E, simply means 'you can put it in your mouth and eat it and it doesn't kill you. It's not poisonous', it doesn't mean that it's food with nutrients or that it's good for your long-term health. It just means 'it's a substance that it's possible to eat'. And these UPFs are full of things like chemical emulsifiers, stabilisers, and high fructose corn syrup. Not good for us. And the science is starting to show us just how bad for us this is. A massive scientific review recently linked UPFs to harm. That's H-A-R-M. Disease in every major organ of our bodies. Again, it's in an article in The Guardian with the title, this time, "Ultra-processed food linked to harm in every major human organ, study finds". And it's becoming a problem the world over. The article published in April 2025 says, "Death rates are highest in countries where the population gets the largest amounts of total energy from eating UPFs". In England, apparently, UPFs now make up 56% of our food intake. That's according to the BMA, the British Medical Association. That's in 2026. And the percentage is even higher in the US. There, it's estimated that 62% of the food eaten by the American population is ultra-processed. And for American children, it's 70%! Imagine that! That American data is from Stanford University, 2025. Again, the links are in the transcript if you want to check it out for yourself. So if you still eat natural, traditional foods in your country, then don't be taken over by UPFs. The US and the UK have shocking statistics on this. And our health is suffering because of it. Don't join us! So why do we eat ultraprocessed foods? And why do we feed them to our children?

The Food Industry's Tricks and How to Break Free So why do we keep eating ultra-processed foods? Well, that argument that our willpower is failing, that's why we can't stick to eating healthily - the food industry is fully aware of this. They know exactly how to trick us into eating more UPFs. These companies have laboratories full of scientists running taste tests. Their only job? To find the bliss point. 'Bliss', B-L-I-S-S, means 'extreme happiness or ecstasy'. So it's a precise combination of sugar, fat and salt that makes a crisp like Pringles or a biscuit hard to stop eating. And the ingredients, all those chemical UPFs, they're not for us, they're not for our health and nutrition. They're there mostly to ensure that the food is addictive. We can't stop eating it. These foods and these ingredients, these things, these chemicals in the food, they're not just lacking in nutrients. They're actually doing us harm. How wrong is that? All so, food companies can make more money. So if you're a parent and you're telling yourself off because you're giving your children chicken nuggets again, or if you're finding it difficult to lose weight, remember you're fighting a whole 'junk food system'. It's designed to trap us. The junk food is always the cheaper food. And food companies are happy to let us take the blame. It's a little bit like 50 years ago, cigarette companies blamed smokers until it was proved that cigarettes were addictive. Now governments are starting to take action. UPFs are starting to cost a lot in healthcare. They create lots of sick people further down the line. Meanwhile, what can we do as individuals? We can't change this overnight. But perhaps instead of saying to ourselves, "I have no willpower", we should say "This food environment is trying to trick me". We can look at a packet of 'healthy', granola bars, which are actually just sugar and 'glue', and say "Nice try, Food Industry, but I'm not buying it. I'm off to eat some unprocessed natural food instead! Food that's actually good for my body! ". And actually, you may be surprised just how quickly you feel better for it. If you avoid ultra-processed food. That's another story. Let me know what you think. Is this takeover of UPFs happening in your country? Are your supermarket shells full of these edible substances that aren't really food? Or do you have a lovely traditional diet?