Eating three meals of healthy food is not the same as eating three meals of junk food — your body reacts differently.
Scientific Claim
Consumption of hyper-palatable processed foods, even at matched meal frequency, leads to adverse metabolic outcomes (e.g., elevated insulin, insulin resistance, increased adiposity) compared to whole, unprocessed foods.
Original Statement
“So, if you eat three square meals per day of full, wholesome, down-to-earth food, and I eat three square meals of hyper palatable BS, is it safe to say that we're going to end up looking the same, feeling the same, having the same fat distribution, having the same HbA1c, having the same insulin, insulin resistance? I don't think so. I think we know enough about somewhat individual responses to food and somewhat hyper palatable processed garbage being bad that that's probably not going to end up in the same in place.”
Context Details
Domain
nutrition
Population
human
Subject
hyper-palatable processed foods
Action
lead to
Target
adverse metabolic outcomes compared to whole foods
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (2)
Rats fed junk food started eating more and their bodies stopped feeling full properly — showing that tasty processed food messes with your hunger signals and makes you gain fat, even if you haven’t gotten obese yet.
Technical explanation
This study uses a 'cafeteria diet' (a model of hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods) in rats and shows it alters fat tissue function and blunts satiety signals (GLP-1), directly linking HPF exposure to increased food intake and impaired metabolic regulation — even before obesity develops.
This experiment showed that when people eat super tasty foods, they eat more calories — no matter if the rest of their diet is healthy or not. That means the taste itself makes you eat too much, which can lead to weight gain and blood sugar problems.
Technical explanation
This study directly tests the assertion by showing that hyper-palatable foods increase meal energy intake across both processed and unprocessed dietary patterns — meaning even when meal frequency and structure are matched, HPF lead to overeating, a key driver of insulin resistance and adiposity.
Contradicting (3)
Early Time-Restricted Feeding Reduces Appetite and Increases Fat Oxidation but Does Not Affect Energy Expenditure in Humans
This study looked at when people eat, not what they eat, so it doesn’t tell us if junk food is worse than healthy food.
Unknown Title
This study looked at how skipping meals sometimes helps people with metabolic problems, but it didn't compare eating junk food vs. healthy food, so we can't tell if processed foods are worse than whole foods.
This big study found that people who ate a lot of processed foods didn’t have worse blood pressure, sugar, or fat levels than others — even though their diets were less healthy — which goes against the claim that these foods directly harm metabolism.
Technical explanation
This large study found no direct association between UPF consumption and metabolic syndrome (including insulin resistance, high blood pressure, etc.) across age groups, directly contradicting the assertion that HPF cause adverse metabolic outcomes even at matched meal frequency.