Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick
The former FDA Commissioner and New York Times bestselling author explains why Americans suffer in unprecedented numbers from obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses, and offers concrete solutions for reducing cardiovascular problems, keeping weight off, and curtailing chronic disease. Features a new preface for the paperback edition.

Unprecedented numbers of us live with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses. The root cause is a once-revolutionary idea that seemed to offer so much promise but instead has become the cause of a global health crisis: processed foods. Over the past seventy-five years, a number of factors aligned to create a reality in which processed carbohydrates—in the form of appealing, ever-present food items from pizza to burritos to bagels—became our main food source. In Food or Fiction?, bestselling author and former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, MD, explains how the quest to feed a nation resulted in a population that is increasingly suffering from obesity and chronic disease, and offers an urgently needed course correction.

While changes to farming, production, and distribution revolutionized our lifestyles, it also impacted our health as our bodies quietly contended with the metabolic chaos caused by consuming rapidly absorbable starch. Slowly but surely, these effects accumulated and became disastrous, leading to the health crisis we face today. In Food or Fiction?, Dr. Kessler explains how eating refined grains such as wheat, corn, and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly impossible to lose it. Worse still, he argues, is that this excess weight is making us sick, laying the groundwork for a host of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, and a number of cancers. We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Food or Fiction? reveals in illuminating detail how we got to this critical turning point—and outlines a plan that allows us finally to regain control of our health.

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Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick
The former FDA Commissioner and New York Times bestselling author explains why Americans suffer in unprecedented numbers from obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses, and offers concrete solutions for reducing cardiovascular problems, keeping weight off, and curtailing chronic disease. Features a new preface for the paperback edition.

Unprecedented numbers of us live with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses. The root cause is a once-revolutionary idea that seemed to offer so much promise but instead has become the cause of a global health crisis: processed foods. Over the past seventy-five years, a number of factors aligned to create a reality in which processed carbohydrates—in the form of appealing, ever-present food items from pizza to burritos to bagels—became our main food source. In Food or Fiction?, bestselling author and former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, MD, explains how the quest to feed a nation resulted in a population that is increasingly suffering from obesity and chronic disease, and offers an urgently needed course correction.

While changes to farming, production, and distribution revolutionized our lifestyles, it also impacted our health as our bodies quietly contended with the metabolic chaos caused by consuming rapidly absorbable starch. Slowly but surely, these effects accumulated and became disastrous, leading to the health crisis we face today. In Food or Fiction?, Dr. Kessler explains how eating refined grains such as wheat, corn, and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly impossible to lose it. Worse still, he argues, is that this excess weight is making us sick, laying the groundwork for a host of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, and a number of cancers. We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Food or Fiction? reveals in illuminating detail how we got to this critical turning point—and outlines a plan that allows us finally to regain control of our health.

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Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick

Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick

by David A. Kessler
Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick

Food or Fiction?: The Truth About the Ultraprocessed Foods Making America Sick

by David A. Kessler

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Overview

The former FDA Commissioner and New York Times bestselling author explains why Americans suffer in unprecedented numbers from obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses, and offers concrete solutions for reducing cardiovascular problems, keeping weight off, and curtailing chronic disease. Features a new preface for the paperback edition.

Unprecedented numbers of us live with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses. The root cause is a once-revolutionary idea that seemed to offer so much promise but instead has become the cause of a global health crisis: processed foods. Over the past seventy-five years, a number of factors aligned to create a reality in which processed carbohydrates—in the form of appealing, ever-present food items from pizza to burritos to bagels—became our main food source. In Food or Fiction?, bestselling author and former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, MD, explains how the quest to feed a nation resulted in a population that is increasingly suffering from obesity and chronic disease, and offers an urgently needed course correction.

While changes to farming, production, and distribution revolutionized our lifestyles, it also impacted our health as our bodies quietly contended with the metabolic chaos caused by consuming rapidly absorbable starch. Slowly but surely, these effects accumulated and became disastrous, leading to the health crisis we face today. In Food or Fiction?, Dr. Kessler explains how eating refined grains such as wheat, corn, and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly impossible to lose it. Worse still, he argues, is that this excess weight is making us sick, laying the groundwork for a host of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, and a number of cancers. We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Food or Fiction? reveals in illuminating detail how we got to this critical turning point—and outlines a plan that allows us finally to regain control of our health.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780063382572
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 05/07/2024
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 1,026,713
Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David. A. Kessler, MD, served as Chief Science Officer of the White House Covid-19 Response Team under President Joe Biden and previously served as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Overeating and Capture and two other books: Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs and A Question of Intent. Dr. Kessler is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. He is a graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Birth of Fast Carbs x

Part I Trapped in Food Chaos

Chapter 1 An extraordinary opportunity to save lives 3

Chapter 2 There is a path out of the lifelong trap of food chaos that leads to lasting weight loss and health 8

Chapter 3 Until we learn the truth about fast carbs, we won't break the weight loss-and-gain cycle 13

Chapter 4 The problem posed by highly processed (fast) carbs has been suspected for decades 16

Chapter 5 Only 12.2 percent of Americans are metabolically healthy 19

Part II How Food Stopped Sustaining Us

Chapter 6 Over the past half century, Americans have greatly increased their average daily intake of processed carbohydrates 25

Chapter 7 A turning point for our diet 28

Chapter 8 Government guidelines led us to carbs 32

Chapter 9 "Complex carbohydrates" is a misleading term that fails to distinguish rapidly absorbable carbs from those we absorb slowly 35

Chapter 10 Today's ultraprocessed foods allow us to absorb more calories 38

Chapter 11 The food industry claims there are no negative effects to processing 41

Chapter 12 From whole grain to the cereal box: What are we really eating? 46

Chapter 13 Food processing changes the chemical structure of starch 48

Chapter 14 The altered structure of processed starch makes it a rapidly absorbable fast carb 53

Chapter 15 Processed fast carbs serve as delivery vehicles for the pleasures of sugar, fat, and salt 57

Chapter 16 Without processed starch, we would not have a vast array of processed foods 61

Part III Weight

Chapter 17 Recommendation: reduce or eliminate fast carbs for good to achieve and maintain a healthy weight 65

Chapter 18 Highly processed carbs wreak havoc on our bodies 73

Chapter 19 Where we digest carbs determines how our hunger is satisfied 76

Chapter 20 Highly processed food triggers speed eating 82

Chapter 21 Eliminating as many fast carbs as you can is essential to weight maintenance 88

Chapter 22 Maintaining weight loss requires us to eat less over the long term 94

Chapter 23 Creating new habits can lessen the appeal of fast carbs 97

Part IV Metabolic Chaos

Chapter 24 Recommendation: to avoid metabolic harm, reduce or eliminate fast carbs for good 103

Chapter 25 Consumption of fast carbs may lead to metabolic syndrome 113

Chapter 26 Fast carbs interfere with fat metabolism 117

Chapter 27 A vicious cycle connecting fast carbs, obesity, and diabetes traps many people who struggle with their weight 121

Chapter 28 We have the ability to reverse metabolic disease 127

Chapter 29 Improving metabolic health is important for preserving cognitive function, reducing the risk of certain cancers, and improving male libido 130

Part V Heart Disease

Chapter 30 Recommendation: reduce your LDL levels to prevent heart disease 137

Chapter 31 LDL causes heart disease 140

Chapter 32 Eating less starch reduces salt intake and lowers blood pressure 145

Chapter 33 Diet or medicine to lower LDL? Probably both 148

Chapter 34 Recommendation: engage in daily moderate-intensity exercise to stay healthy 151

Part VI The Optimal Diet

Chapter 35 Most successful diets have one thing in common: limited fast carbs 159

Chapter 36 A diet emphasizing plants and slow carbs is optimal for your health 164

Chapter 37 The pros and cons of low-carb diets 168

Chapter 38 Don't consume processed meats 173

Chapter 39 Your diet doesn't have to be perfect 178

Epilogue In the Public Interest: Changing Our Food Environment 183

Meal Charts 187

Q&A 203

Notes 211

Acknowledgments 287

Index 291

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