Cook more at home to reduce ultra-processed food intake, say cardiologist groups | Ultra-processed foods
Looking to reduce your intake of ultra-processed foods? If so, cook at home more often, avoid eating late at night, and chew your food more slowly.
These are some of the tips doctors are offering to help people limit the amount of UPF they consume, given the acute and increasing danger it poses to human health worldwide.
Her recommendations include eating plain instead of flavored or sugary yogurt, substituting water for sugary drinks, and reading the nutrition label and ingredient list on any can, package, or bag before purchasing any food.
These are some of the things expert heart doctors advise patients to do if they already have heart disease or are at risk of developing heart disease. An estimated 8 million people in the UK are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, which kills around 170,000 people a year and is one of the country’s biggest killers. This means they are at risk of having a heart attack or stroke, or have had one before, or have a condition such as atrial fibrillation.
The advice is outlined in a new “clinical consensus statement” on how to handle UPF, prepared by the European Society of Cardiology and the European Society of Preventive Cardiology. They identified steps they think cardiologists should take when talking to patients about their health.
For example, they should “encourage patients to cook at home more often,” “discuss with patients the potential benefits of avoiding late meals,” and “advise patients to choose high-fiber, minimally processed foods and practice slower, mindful eating to increase satiety and reduce UPFs overeating,” according to the paper published Thursday in the European Heart Journal.
Cardiologists should begin to include the topic of UPF in the discussion when talking to patients. They should ask how much UPF they routinely consume and then “seek UPF counseling in outpatient clinics and during routine lifestyle assessment, particularly in preventive cardiology.”
The statement notes that it is better to show patients pictures of UPF foods sold in stores to remind them which products these are than to rely solely on verbal descriptions of such foods, which have little or no nutritional value.
Dr D., senior lecturer in public health nutrition at Queen Mary University of London. “Doctors need to have much more practical conversations with heart patients about the foods they eat every day. Simply put, this means encouraging people to cook more at home, although this is often difficult, and opt for more fresh or minimally processed foods and cut back on items such as sugary drinks, packaged snacks, processed meats, ready meals and takeaway items, which are often high in salt, sugar and unhealthy fats,” Kawther Hashem said. Head of research and impact at Action on Salt and Sugar.
He added that doctors should specifically advise people with existing heart problems to eat less salt because it raises blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease.
“Reducing salt is especially important for people with heart problems because it helps lower blood pressure, one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. Cutting out sugary foods and drinks can also help reduce excess calorie intake, weight gain and the risk of type 2 diabetes.”
Prof Luigina Guasti, co-author of the paper, said: “Evidence shows that people who cook more at home have better overall diet quality and consume fewer ultra-processed foods. Even small, gradual increases in home-prepared meals can improve health over time.”
He added that consuming less sugary drinks, packaged snacks and processed meats, which are common types of UPF, would be “a good first step towards an overall healthier diet.”
The article is based on a review of existing evidence on the health risks of UPF. It confirmed the known danger that eating such foods too frequently increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and death from cardiovascular diseases.
Tracy Parker, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said individuals could only achieve so much on their own in their quest to consume less UPF, and the government needed to do more to create a healthier food environment.
