Why San Francisco is suing top U.S. food manufacturers over ultra-processed foods

Ali Rogin:

San Francisco is the kind of heavily Democratic city that the Trump administration often targets. But there's one issue they agree on. They're both taking aim at ultra-processed food. In the first lawsuit of its kind, San Francisco is suing 11 of the nation's top food companies, saying they sell ultra-processed food knowing that they are harmful to health.

By some estimates, more than 60 percent of the food consumed in the United States is ultra-processed. A growing body of scientific research says diet high in ultra-processed food lead to chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression.

Earlier, John Yang spoke with Ashley Gearhardt, a University of Michigan psychology professor who studies addiction.

John Yang:

Ashley, we just heard the San Francisco city attorney say that ultra-processed foods are designed to be addictive. Do you agree?

Ashley Gearhardt, University of Michigan: Yes. In my lab that we see that these products can really trigger all the core signs of addiction. That loss of control, those intense cravings, that continued use, even though you know it may be killing or harming you.

John Yang:

How do they do that? What's, what are in the foods that make people addicted to it?

Ashley Gearhardt:

Yeah, there's a certain addiction playbook that's been used from tobacco to opiates to sports betting. You take something that exists, typically exists in nature, like a plant or, you know, a fruit, and you alter it so it gives just this just right dose of reward. It's stimulates you but doesn't fully satisfy you. So you want to keep coming back for more.

You can titrate the smell, the flavor, the taste, and then you flood the environment with it. So your consumers, even if they have a slight moment of temptation, the product is right at arm's reach and the next thing they know, they're using again.

This is what's happened to our food supply when Big Tobacco really took over in the 70s and 80s, and those same levers have been used to create ultra-processed foods that are now killing 1400Americans every day.

John Yang:

You say when Big Tobacco took over food, what do you mean by that?

Ashley Gearhardt:

In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds started buying up the big food companies like Kraft and General Foods. They created some of your favorite products and marketed them like Hawaiian Punch and Lunchables. And there's evidence even from researchers like Laura Schmidt who has found that they have applied technologies, flavorants, marketing strategies that were honed to sell tobacco products and have applied them to the ultra-processed food holdings.

They divested some of these food companies in the mid 2000s. But the stamp of Big Tobacco on our food supply has never changed. It's actually just amplified over time and fundamentally changed.

John Yang:

The food that we eat, should it be regulated the way tobacco is now?

Ashley Gearhardt:

Yeah. When I read things that the food industry is saying, you know, they're talking a lot about how to turn cravings into corporate profits. Or they'll say, you know, indulgence has really been a main profit margin for us. That's a big driver of how we're making money.

And so we've needed time and time again for the government to step in and put some guardrails on those sorts of companies so we and our children can live happy, sustainable, nourished lives rather than being in these cycles of just craving and crashing. That doesn't benefit us, but does benefit those corporations.

John Yang:

Some critics say that the term ultra-processed food lacks a definition. It's too broad that it scoops up a lot of products that may actually be healthy and excludes some that aren't. What do you say to that?

Ashley Gearhardt:

The problem that's happening right now is when we just focus on specific nutrients like sugar or fiber, fat, the industry's been able to use that to do nutrient whack-a-mole. They can pull so many different levers and distract us. So we're eating ultra-processed junk that isn't nourishing us from, you know, low carb diet coke to, you know, low fat snack wells. And we're forgetting what is real food and ultra-processed food by being.

This paradigm shift of really showing what that category is has really changed the name of the game and helped us work in a way that reflects the complexity of the industrial processes that we're now faced with.

John Yang:

You talk about the nutrients in food. It used to be the diet research focused on the nutrients in food. Is enough being done about how food is processed, how food is made?

Ashley Gearhardt:

Yeah, this is where the field is really moving. I mean, we're realizing that ultra-processing is a pathway that you can simultaneously pull all of those levers of sugars and fats and salts. But it's not just that the ultra-processing can speed up the absorption of those rewarding nutrients into the body in ways that your home cook can't.

One thing I've been learning a lot about recently is things like enzymatic processing that essentially resembles a little bit of the enzymes in your saliva or your digestive tract. But that can be applied in food processing in a way that makes it more rapidly be absorbed into your system.

Grandma's homemade cookies were never delivering that sort of intensity. We see that a lot with the flavor additives and the way that the industry can create just so many varieties. I mean, the last time you've gone to the potato chip aisle, you know, there's dozens and dozens of these engineered flavors that are meant to burst into your mouth but then fade super rapidly. So all of a sudden you finish that whole bag of potato chips.

This is uncharted territory. And the technology has just advanced to such a stage that we need greater protections.

John Yang:

Ultra-processed foods are so ubiquitous, so pervasive. Can anything really be done to curb this?

Ashley Gearhardt:

Yes. I feel great optimism and hope. And a large part of that reason is because the United States is an outlier where the majority of our food is now ultra-processed. Countries like Italy and Greece, they don't have this. Less than 20 percent of their food supply is ultra-processed.

We created this problem by what we've invested in, what our governments put its money in, what we've incentivized companies to do. We absolutely have the levers to start to invest in real food that's convenient, affordable and tasty, just like other countries get, so we can be strong and healthy and happy going into the future.

John Yang:

Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, thank you very much.

Ashley Gearhardt:

My pleasure. Thank you so much for chatting with me.