‘It’s Not Food. It’s an Industrially Produced Edible Substance.” — Chris van Tulleken
Editor-In-Chief, Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier III, MD, COL (ret.), MC, USA
Pam and I are presently island-hopping in the northern Bahamas. Sailing my own boat to the Bahamas has been on my personal “bucket list” for over 40 years. We are on the “hook” at Allans Pensacola Cay (pronounced “key”) and will be adding our boat name to the famous Signing Tree soon. To say we are in an isolated region of the world would be an understatement. The majority of the cays we visit are uninhabited and accessible only by boat. Our mornings begin with coffee and a check-in with world news and family via satellite internet. The news has been as challenging as ever to consume as we start 2026 in another foreign war with Venezuela.
It is hard for me, and I imagine most Americans, to pay much attention to medical concerns with a news cycle consumed by world conflict. The reality, though, is that health concerns that directly impact American lives, such as the new super flu, measles outbreaks as vaccination rates fall and the general affordability of health insurance and other medical issues, are likely far more directly impactful on their families and individual lives.
We enjoy listening to the National Public Radio News Hour regularly because we find its content more worldly and less biased (in most cases). Wedged among the numerous stories of human conflict (my gosh, history sure seems to rhyme) was a segment regarding a corporate association in which I was unaware. In previous columns, I have lamented the cigarette companies peddling their nicotine poison for profit through the design of the infamous cigarette that delivers just enough drug to stimulate the smoker’s desire for another smoke.
The number of human deaths and treasure lost by the American public due to the habit of nicotine is truly epic in scale. R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris were among the major tobacco companies that agreed to pay billions in restitution to U.S. states in a 1998 landmark settlement over their manipulative and deceptive practices in tobacco marketing and the many smoking-related illnesses attributed to tobacco. Litigation and payments related to the settlement continue to this day.
What I learned today is that R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris corporations have applied their decades of research into the manipulation of human brain motivation and reward with nicotine consumption into the realm of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which are chemically manipulated food products that use higher levels of sugar, salt, fat and carbohydrates to make them hyperpalatable to average humans.
Humans have evolved from a time when diets were inconsistent and often limited; we became programmed to seek out natural food sources rich in these components. Nature, of course, is not a for-profit organization, therefore, natural food sources that evolved alongside us were healthier options for our bodies. Leveraging their experience with nicotine manipulation, the R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris enterprises diversified their corporate portfolios into major food companies, including Del Monte, Nabisco, General Foods, Kraft, and 7UP.1 These brands are well known for their profitability in manufacturing and distributing UPFs to the American public. Entire aisles of your local supermarket are devoted to chips, cookies, cereals, instant noodles and the like, purposely engineered to stimulate your brain to want more of the product. Have you ever been able to consume just one potato chip?
As the percentage of UPFs continues to increase in the general American diet, so has the obesity crisis. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that more than half of calories consumed at home by adults in the U.S. come from UPFs.2 UPFs are like a new nicotine habit, with no less severe health consequences. The same corporate executives who created financial empires addicting consumers to nicotine have used the same playbook within the food industry. The significant difference is the lack of government regulation regarding UPFs. Instead of researching and regulating the sources of obesity in our food systems, an entirely new family of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) medications that suppress appetite is now wildly profitable. Understand, I am not criticizing of this new approach to weight loss. Not enough is known about the risks and benefits. On the other hand, it seems rational and prudent to address this public health issue at the source, specifically, the quality of the food we consume.
A quick survey of our pantry on the boat reveals more UPFs than is probably healthy. Pam and I are well aware of the dangers of UPFs, but their convenience and ubiquity make avoidance challenging, even for educated and resourced individuals. Just as the government stepped in to protect our population from the health tragedy of tobacco, we need a similar effort to improve the safety of our food supply and control the proliferation of UPFs. A government warning on my bag of chips might not deter me from this guilty pleasure, but at least it will stimulate thought and perhaps lead to another choice.
Admittedly, I am sheepish that I was unaware of the link between big tobacco and UPFs. Like many, with so much of the world presently on fire, it is hard to remain abreast of health issues when Delta Force is in Venezuela capturing Maduro. Then again, that is the mission of Federal Health Providers: to stay aware of seemingly mundane issues that impact our population’s health, issues that might not be as exciting but, sadly, can be just as dangerous to the servicemembers we serve. I cannot help but imagine that a conversation with a patient struggling with obesity about UPFs would be as effective and healthy as an appetite suppression subscription. At the very least, the prescription should not supersede the discussion.
- Public Affairs, “Berkeley Talks: How the tobacco industry drove the rise of ultra-processed foods.” June 27, 2025. https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/06/27/berkeley-talks-ultra-processed-foods/ – Accessed January 4, 2026.
- Bloomberg School, Ultraprocessed Foods Account for More than Half of Calories Consumed at Home. December 10, 2024. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/ultraprocessed-foods-account-for-more-than-half-of-calories-consumed-at-home – Accessed January 4, 2026.
