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KERA's Think

The hidden history of ultra-processed food

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8861 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

 From flavored yogurt to a package of Ding Dongs, Americans love ultraprocessed food. Alice Callahan is a New York Times reporter with a Ph.D. in nutrition, and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why our diets became so reliant on foods made in a factory, why farm subsidies and advertising are partially to blame, and why we can’t seem to put these foods down. Her article is “How Ultraprocessed Food Took Over America.” 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Have you heard about OMG Yes?

0:03.0

This is a website of new findings from the largest ever research study into women's pleasure and intimacy in partnership with researchers at Yale and IU.

0:12.0

When you see that kind of evidence-based, open, honest portrayal of what feels good and why, it becomes so obvious. That's just how this should be.

0:25.2

The techniques are beautifully organized and presented with women of diverse ages,

0:30.8

sharing their experiences, no shame, no blushing, just enthusiasm that makes you want to learn more.

0:35.1

You can watch OMG Yes, All By Yourself, you can watch with a partner, or you can discuss it with friends like a book club.

0:38.1

See for yourself at omg yes.com. That's omg yes.com.

0:44.1

We can look back now at the collective national freak out over the TidePod challenge and realize it was a joke that accidentally turned dangerous.

1:01.5

The memes encouraging people to ingest sachets of laundry detergent were meant to be jokes because who would even want to eat something that would taste awful and immediately make them sick.

1:11.5

On the other hand, ultra-processed foods are perfectly edible in the short term,

1:16.0

but not so good for our health over the course of years,

1:19.0

and our taste for and reliance on these foods is no accident.

1:23.7

From KERA in Dallas, this is think.

1:26.4

I'm Chris Boyd.

1:27.4

My guest wanted to understand how we arrived at this moment where UPFs, ultra-processed foods, are hard to avoid in the average American grocery store and, of course, on our plates. With the little digging, she learned that the additive-enabled tinkering that gave us shelf-stable cheese food, fish sticks and fruit gushers, and

1:45.3

flavored yogurt dates back further than most of us imagine. Alice Callahan has a Ph.D. in

1:51.0

nutrition, and she's a reporter for The New York Times, where you can read her article,

1:55.0

how ultra-processed food took over America. Alice, welcome to think. Thank you so much, Chris. That's great to be here.

2:02.8

Processing food, honestly, is as old as cooking food. How clear is the line then between processed

2:09.0

and what we now call ultra-processed? That is a great question and a really good place to begin,

2:16.1

because I do think it's important to acknowledge that processing food is like part of what makes us humans, right?

2:23.9

We like you said, we cook food, go all the way back to kind of hunter-gatherers.

...

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