Health experts: Ingredients in processed foods prevent healthy eating

CLARKSBURG — Fruits and vegetables are not as popular as chips and cookies, but the reason may be that processed foods have altered our sense of taste, health officials say.

Taste buds adapt to diet, according to Extension Specialist Gina Wood, the expanded food and nutrition program coordinator for West Virginia University Extension Service.

“If one eats a diet that’s high in sugar, salt and fat they develop a preference for those foods, and other foods may not taste good to them any longer,” she said.

Wood said some people never develop a taste for fresh foods because of having been fed highly processed, convenience-type foods and fast food from childhood. This is the second generation that’s unable to prepare a home-cooked meal, she added.

“Our food supply is increasingly made up of products that do not resemble foods of past generations because they are made with long lists of ingredients that include artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and other chemical ingredients,” she said.

Humans have a propensity for sweetness from birth, with breast milk containing about 17 grams of sugar. The problem is that the threshold keeps increasing, according to Judy Siebart, a registered dietitian at West Virginia University Medicine.

“We perceive this as sweet and then we add more sugar to it, and our brains light up and we want the higher level,” she said, adding the same is true of salty and fatty foods.

When working in a hospital, she said patients on a low sodium diet would tell her the food was terrible, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. A high sodium diet “blunts your innate sense to taste food.”

“If you could put yourself in like a salt rehab and a sugar rehab, where you ween yourself off it, six weeks later you’re better able to taste food and enjoy it in its natural state,” Siebart said.

Packaged foods contain high sodium and sugar content on purpose, she said.

“What the food industry has done, which is sort of obscene, is they keep pushing sugar into foods that normally wouldn’t have it,” she said.

Examples she used are yogurt and cereal. Anything with cookie pieces or marshmallows is a dessert, Siebart said.

Concerning salty and fatty foods, Siebart said food companies are trying to make irresistible foods to the point where a person can’t eat just one.

“Think about it. With the rates of obesity, do you really want to be turned on to foods that are irresistible?”

In addition to addictive ingredients, Wood indicated fresh produce can’t compete because of marketing campaigns.

“Food manufacturers have large budgets for marketing and advertising that farmers don’t have. Heavy promotion of processed foods has had a profound influence on the decisions we make about the products we purchase,” Wood said.

To decrease salt, sugar and fat in the diet, Siebart said to make a conscious effort to decrease the amount of processed foods and go to every available farmers’ market.

An important part of the process is to make a conscious effort to start cooking at home using fresh herbs in place of salt.

“You can’t put the amount of sugar, fat and salt that (a chain) does,” Siebart said.

She suggested using salt in a recipe, but taking it off the table. Using half the sugar in a recipe does not sacrifice the integrity of the dessert, she said.

Cinnamon is a good replacement for sugar, but she recommends against replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners, honey or agave. The purpose is not to replace one addiction with another, she said.

“Give yourself some time and some space, and your senses do become more acute,” Siebart added.

“Eating healthy on a limited budget is possible but the planning and preparation times are often increased. ...,” Wood said. “People are juggling lots of responsibilities and trying to meet all their family’s needs. Many are working full-time, commuting long distances, transporting kids to and from extracurricular activities. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for making home-cooked meals every evening. Going to the drive-through, picking up a pizza or microwaving a frozen product is less time-consuming, but we ultimately pay the cost with our health.”