Dr Chris van Tulleken: The Food Industry Wants to Buy My Silence

About this episode

Dr Chris van Tulleken is a doctor, scientist and one of the UK’s leading voices on ultra-processed food. An associate professor at UCL, an NHS doctor, World Health Organisation adviser and author of the bestselling Ultra-Processed People, he has spent years investigating what the food industry is really putting on our plates. But the truth about what we eat is far more unsettling than most of us realise... In this eye-opening conversation, we revisit why Chris believes the evidence linking ultra-processed food to physical and mental health problems has reached the same threshold we once reached with tobacco. He reveals how the world’s biggest tobacco companies helped shape the modern diet, how food is engineered and tested to make us eat more and eat faster, and what certain additives may be doing to our gut, our mood and our brains. He shares what happened when he spent a month eating an 80% ultra-processed diet, why so many people are living in “food swamps”, and the eye-watering sums of money that he has turned down from fast food companies to protect his integrity. Chris also sets out the two changes he believes could transform our food system: clear warning labels on unh