Calorie counting? carbohydrate? Researcher Va. Try Limiting Ultra-Processed Foods Instead, Says Tech – WTOP News

Instead of focusing on cutting calories or carbs, a health researcher and assistant professor at Virginia Tech suggests cutting back on highly processed foods that are physically and chemically modified.

“A lot of people have these ‘calories in, calories out’ recommendations for weight management and weight loss,” said Alexandra DiFlisantonio, assistant professor at the Fralin Institute for Biomedical Research at Virginia Tech Carilion.

Dieters also often focus on macronutrients such as fats or carbohydrates.

“Remember the low-fat craze of the 1990s?” DiFlicantonio said. “Now, we’re in a low-carb frenzy.”

DiFeliceantonio said some recent research suggests thinking about diet differently.

“The processing these foods have undergone changes how they affect your health,” he said.

“I’m not just talking about weight specifically,” said DiFeliceantonio, a neuroscientist who studies how the brain integrates environmental signals to guide food choices and eating behaviors.

What types of foods qualify as ultra-processed?

“They’re foods you can’t produce in your home kitchen,” he said. “So they’re either made with techniques that you can’t replicate, like very high heat, or extrusion, or they contain ingredients that you don’t have in your kitchen at home.”

High consumption of ultra-processed foods “has been linked to various forms of colon, ovarian, cervical, as well as cardiovascular cancer,” DiFlicantonio said. [disease] And deaths from everything.”

The healthier food choices are whole foods, she said.

“Take a piece of fruit. eat vegetables; “Steam a vegetable, cook a piece of meat.”

DiFlicantonio said highly processed foods have the addictive properties of tobacco, alcohol and other substances. They also affect the brain.

“They’re designed to be delicious,” he said.

Given the choice between a rich chocolate chip cookie and a fresh apple, DiFeliceantonio said the cookie was tweaked to give it an edge.

The fruit has “the right amount of sugar, the right amount of fat, the right amount of sodium so you can eat more of it, which is really different from an apple.”

Unlike highly processed foods, as addictive as they are, “foods in the natural environment are not made that way,” he said.

Additionally, the marketing of highly processed foods adds to the challenge. While pumping gas recently, he saw a fried chicken ad on the gas station.

“I think we’ve kind of forgotten that our environment really doesn’t have to be like this to have these signs for these foods all over the place,” DiFeliceantonio said. It’s really difficult when your entire environment is set up to make you eat them.