SPOILERS because this book astonished me, and if you want the same experience, stop reading.

The astonishment was not that we were right about eating actual foods, but how right we are. The shortest version I've run across is also covered here: processing that destroys the matrix is what makes it not-food. The corn kernel I eat doesn't do me much food. But, with real butter and off the cob, it's something most bodies can deal with.

UPF creates a Frankenfood which shows up on the label with an identical nutrition profile to real food. But so much of it is literally dirt cheap ingredients meant to fool the body into thinking it's real food. They tested the taste buds, where this works like a charm. They didn't do these tests, with the MRI. And it turns out, if they had this labeled as a drug, this stuff wouldn't be legal.

This isn't processing like "now it's yogurt" or even JEY's process milk with a profile that works better for her body. We are talking NOVA 4, as the scale goes. This is a concept pioneered by a Brazilian team who studied the radical decline in rural health with the adoption of a Western diet, the infamous pyramid of DEATH.

I feel more empowered than ever before to make the right food choices. This book has given me nuance to the point where I have more possible variety than before, when it comes to whole foods. Adding more fruit carbs, and not experiencing cravings, let me follow guidance about higher carbs while healing from something serious. There is a lot in the Toxic Superfoods book, another success with me, about upping carbs as part of the process. It takes stress off the liver, and it seems to work. I always liked cranberry sauce with my turkey. Every Thanksgiving, we get it from a deli who makes it fresh.

This turns out to be a marker of health I'd like to share from the book. The Brazilian team works their numbers and discover that sugar and oil on the grocery list was a marker of health. Did it mean sugar was healthy? And the oil was not the same kind.

It was important as a marker of behavior. It meant someone was cooking.

In rural Brazil, it meant someone was still eating the traditional diet. As bad as non-fortified flour and sugar devastated indigenous peoples who had never been "civilization sorted before" was, the addition of sugar and vegetable oil was not as bad as the researchers expected. While these things are bad, the presence of UPF overshadows everything.

It's that incredibly bad. In only thirty days of moving his body to 80% UPF, the MRI showed dramatic changes in his brain. Revamping his hormones and activating "known addiction centers." (Hey, you don't have to convince us.)

Low carb worked for Dr. Atkins in 1972, when this was just getting rolling. His heart patients stuffed themselves with real pastry, at least. Now UPF is a giant stone ball like in Indiana Jones. Crushing everything in its path.

To do Atkins, correctly, now? We can't trust the macros. We have to read the whole label because some of that is NOT THAT to our body. It explains how it can be "doing it right" on paper and yet have problems. It's like this should be bundled with Atkins to teach label reading.

Now we can figure things out. UPF is the connector that turbocharged this whole cascade of misery.

We weren't just eating too much of foods that weren't good for us. More and more, even the things we thought were good for us weren't actually food.