Doctor's List of Healthy Processed Foods | Dr. Neal Barnard

The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee

Physicians Committee

Carroll, Health & Fitness, Diabetes, Science, Nutrition, Vegan, Pcrm, Barnard, Weightloss, Food, Health, Recipes, Medicine, Diet

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are processed foods unhealthy? A new study suggests we're divided on how to answer that question.

Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is one of the authors of that study.

He joins Chuck Carroll on The Exam Room to dive into the results -- and why it matters that Americans are so conflicted about which class of foods are healthy, and which will make you sick.

Dr. Barnard will review the most purchased processed foods and identify which are the most and least healthy.

He will also go over the results of a PCRM survey showing Americans' opinions on processed foods. Many are unaware that the majority of food that they're eating is ultra processed. But not all processed foods are created equally.

This episode is sponsored by The Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund, which supports organizations like the Physicians Committee that carry on Greg’s passion and love for animals through rescue efforts, veganism, and wildlife conservation.

— — SHOW LINKS — —

Processed Foods Survey

https://bit.ly/procfoodsurvey

— — —

Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund

https://gregoryreiterfund.org

— — EVENTS — —

International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine

Where: Washington, DC

When: August 14-16, 2025

Tix & Speakers: https://www.pcrm.org/icnm

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Where: Canaan Valley Resort - Davis, WV

When: Sept. 26-27, 2025

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on the exam room.
0:04.0	Somebody left a comment on Spotify, I think it was, and they were like, there's no way that a simple ham and eggs breakfast from a restaurant is worse for you than a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch, which probably has a rather lengthy list of ingredients, including
0:22.6	sugar.
0:23.6	People are eager to beat up on sugar, like sugar is the devil.
0:25.6	And I think that may be something we memorized when we were four years old and we wanted
0:28.6	a sugar cookie.
0:29.6	And our mom told us, no, it's going to spoil your dinner.
0:31.6	And so we got this idea that sugar is somehow terrible.
0:34.6	Biology 101, your body, your brain, your heart, every cell in your body,
0:40.3	its number one fuel is sugar. So sugar itself is not a bad thing. Sugar comes to us in fruit,
0:46.3	of course, and it comes to us in carbohydrates. Carbohydrate is starch, is many sugar molecules
0:52.3	linked together by molecular bonds that are digested by enzymes in your
0:56.6	body to provide those sugars to your brain. So sugar is a good thing. Starch is a really good thing.
1:02.2	What people are thinking of here is, well, but there's way too much of it. And that can be true,
1:06.9	but this is nowhere near the problem that the fat in animal products is. So if a person is eating a steak and egg breakfast, they're at high risk for diabetes, for hypertension, for colorectal cancer, for heart disease, many other things. And if they stop that and eat a breakfast cereal, especially with some soy milk on top, they're making a really good switch, even if that cereal is sugar-coated.
1:30.1	Better it's not, because you don't need that added sugar.
1:32.6	But that is not the devil.
1:33.8	That's not the big problem.
1:34.8	That is not the reason for obesity.
1:40.7	Welcome to the exam room podcast, brought to you by the Physicians Committee. Hi, I'm the weight
1:45.9	loss champion Chuck Carroll, raising health IQs coast to coast and around the world. Hi to the exam room.
1:51.9	He's listening in St. George, Utah, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Mumbai, India. Wherever you are,
	...

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