Kevin Hall sparked a cultural revolution against ultra-processed food, but he still eats it

"Nutrition researcher Kevin Hall is both a committed scientist and a realist. He knows: it's pretty near-impossible for us to avoid ultra-processed foods entirely, given the food environment we live in. Hall has studied diet and metabolism for years. He spearheaded some of the biggest and most influential studies upending long-held nutrition dogmas in his lab at the National Institutes of Health, until he stepped down last year."

"Over the course of his 21-year career at the NIH, he made remarkable discoveries about the metabolisms of "The Biggest Loser" contestants, pitted low-fat against low-carb diets (spoiler alert: no clear winner there), and discovered that people really do eat more calories and gain more weight when they're offered ultra-processed meals. That watershed news sparked the current craze for "whole" and "real" food and "clean" eating plans."

People tend to eat more calories and gain weight when offered ultra-processed meals. Ultra-processed products vary in nutritional quality; some have reasonable nutrient profiles and add convenience that enables quick, nutritious family meals. Ready-to-heat items like marinara sauce can increase vegetable consumption and simplify cooking without sacrificing nutrition. Decades of diet and metabolism studies produced no clear winner between low-fat and low-carb approaches, and dramatic weight-loss interventions reveal complex metabolic responses. Given the current food environment, completely avoiding ultra-processed foods is nearly impossible, so prioritizing nutritional quality and using selective ultra-processed items can support healthier eating.

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