Time Magazine dismissed the danger of hyper-processed foods last week by relying on research linked in part to the soybean industry.
On Tuesday, the paper published an article asking readers to ponder, “What if Ultra-Processed Foods Aren’t as Bad as You Think?” The magazine later changed the title of the piece to “Why One Dietitian is Speaking Up for ‘Ultra-Processed’ Foods” after the original headline provoked controversy online.
The magazine profiled a woke dietician named Jessica Wilson, who was “irked” by Dr. Chris van Tulleken’s book on processed food, Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food. According to Time, Wilson complained the book was “over-sensationalized and that the news coverage of it shamed people who regularly eat processed foods — in other words, the vast majority of Americans, particularly the millions who are food insecure or have limited access to fresh food; they also tend to be lower income and people of color.”
“Wilson felt the buzz ignored this ‘food apartheid,’ as well as the massive diversity of foods that can be considered ultra-processed, a category that includes everything from vegan meat replacements and nondairy milks to potato chips and candy,” Time reported. “‘How can this entire category of foods be something we’re supposed to avoid?’ Wilson wondered.”
Wilson went on to conduct an experiment wherein she ate 80 percent of her daily calories from “highly processed foods,” which included swaps of “morning eggs for soy chorizo” among other changes.
“A weird thing happened,” Time
