When two worlds collide: things we learned in April

Corporate lobbying, plant-based calamari rings and probiotics for mental health

In April it became ever more apparent that modern humans move between parallel universes. There’s the real one, where we are subject to the laws of our ancient biology and the natural world, and there’s the delusional one, where corporate forces ignore biological reality and argue that to live well we need their products.

This obviously creates problems for our health, because in the real world our bodies and biology stubbornly refuse to submit to commercial interests and change evolutionary direction. But in the delusional world, forked tongues are very persuasive.

Those tongues also have the ears of governments, and that puts them in a very powerful position.

A briefing paper published in April and conducted by the Food Foundation in the UK explored the extent of lobbying by the food industry. The investigation found that between January 2020 and June 2024, ministers met with food businesses and their trade associations 1,408 times, 40 times more than food non-governmental organisations.

It also laid bare some alarming but unsurprising facts. Babies born today will experience a year less of good health compared to babies born a decade ago. Type 2 diabetes among under 25s has increased by 22% in five years.

We already know the parlous state of our diets and our health, and that they are both linked. Our mistake is to imagine that governments have the will to do anything genuinely constructive about it.

Instead, they fiddle about with new initiatives that go nowhere and do nothing to improve anything. Such efforts are described as ‘unambitious’ and policies that are drawn up often end up watered down after several rounds of industry lobbying.

Also in this parallel universe where there are people hard at work creating alternatives to real food, we learned that plant-based fried calamari rings are currently in the production pipeline. It hasn’t been easy; making them anything like the real thing was something of a challenge. But a gritty team of food scientists has described successfully overcoming this obstacle, in a paper published in ACS Food Science & Technology.

The result is the progeny of a 2023 prototype of an air-fried vegan calamari ring made from a 3D-printed paste of microalgae and mung bean proteins. The problem was the texture (not the nutritional value, obvs).

The scientists rose to the challenge. After testing ‘multiple versions of their printable paste recipe’ they were left with something that is made of 1.5% gellan gum, 2% canola oil and 10% powdered microalgae, the rest being ‘mung bean protein composite ink.’

My favourite part of this bit of news was a comment from the lead author of the study. It’s written in corporate-speak, which I don’t really understand, but I got the gist.

‘Our next steps involve understanding consumer acceptance and scaling formulation for broader applications’. Yes, that old chestnut - persuading people that they should eat this ultra-processed food substitute.

Back in the real world, where the facts speak for themselves, an analysis of data from eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United Kingdom, and United States) has revealed that premature deaths are directly proportional to the amount of ultra-processed foods consumed. This analysis describes a linear association between the amount of UPFs eaten and all-cause mortality. Each 10% increase in the diet increased risk of death from all causes by 3%.

There are an estimated 32 different diseases associated with these UPFs. They include cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, some cancers and depression.

According to the lead author of this investigation, Dr Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson, the negative impact of UPFs is a result of changes in foods that occur during industrial processing, as well as all the artificial ingredients that go into them.

This study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and concludes by calling for global action to reduce UPF consumption.

Global action by governments that are in the pockets of the corporate food lobby? I wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances. They clearly haven’t read the Food Foundation report.

With all that in mind, I don’t know why people were so surprised by the results of a BBC investigation published in April into baby food pouches. Analyses of leading brands of these pouches revealed that they fail to meet the basic needs of babies and toddlers. And that parents were being ‘misled’ by the marketing of these pouches. Surely that’s the whole point of marketing.

A total of eighteen brands of pouches underwent laboratory testing. All sorts of shocking facts emerged from these tests. Despite claims of having no added sugar, some actually contained about four teaspoons of ‘free sugars’. And despite boasts of high vitamin C content, some contained almost none, because it had been destroyed during processing. ‘Packed with goodness’ and ‘good for brains’ were claims that just didn’t pass muster, when put to the test.

Parents were shocked to discover they couldn’t trust the brands. There were calls for the UK government to bring in mandatory legislation. Currently, there are voluntary guidelines in place for manufacturers that were drawn up in 2020, but they haven’t even been published yet, let alone implemented.

Calls for government action to put right corporate shenanigans suggests we’ve come full circle around both universes here, and are back where we started, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

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On a more positive note, a new study has found (and not for the first time) that taking daily probiotics can improve mood and reduce negative feelings such as anxiety and stress. All without blunting emotions, unlike some antidepressants.

These bacteria exert their friendly effects through the gut-brain axis, the line of communication that transmits information from gut to brain, and back again. According to one of the study researchers, Katerina Johnson, ‘The gut–brain connection provides various routes through which bacteria in the gut can influence how we feel and behave, including via the vagus nerve, immune system and hormones’.

The participants of this randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled study were 88 young healthy adults who took a daily probiotic containing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium for a total of a month. The positive effects were observed after just two weeks.

Two weeks is also about the same amount of time it takes for antidepressants to work.

This study adds to existing dietary resources to improve mental health. However, it is important not to miss an important point here. Probiotics may not be necessary – what is required is the maintenance of a healthy gut microbiome, one that isn’t damaged by a rubbish diet.

Previous research has already revealed that ultra-processed foods ‘potentially exert adverse effects on brain health through the microbiota-gut-brain axis.’ Eating UPFs can cause depression by altering the composition of gut bacteria in a way that favours the ‘bad’, or pathogenic bacteria.

April’s revelations suggest that you look after your gut microbiome and keep both feet firmly in the real world, which is where the food is real too. It is better to be your own decision maker rather than outsource your choices to governments and their corporate allies.

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