Cutting highly processed foods from your diet might be the key to shedding more pounds — even without cutting calories — according to a recent study.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) put participants on two nutritionally matched diets. One included minimally processed foods like oatmeal and homemade spaghetti Bolognese. The other was made up of ultra-processed foods like oat breakfast bars and ready-made lasagna meals.
Participants lost twice as much weight by eating minimally processed foods as they did when indulging in ultra-processed fare. That result suggests that eating fewer highly processed foods could help people lose weight, the researchers say.
The study findings were published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.
The researchers defined minimally processed foods as those that went through “very little alteration from their natural state.” Examples were fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, fish and dairy products such as natural yogurt.
Ultra-processed foods were defined as those that are “significantly altered from their original form through processing.” These foods often have ingredients such as artificial flavors, preservatives and emulsifiers that are not typically used in home cooking.
For the study, about 50 people in England with an average age of 43 were split into two groups. Each group consumed a diet rich in either minimally processed foods or ultra-processed foods, which were delivered to their homes, for eight weeks.
After returning to their normal diet for four weeks, participants who had started with a minimally processed diet switched to an ultra-processed diet, and vice versa, for another eight weeks.
For both diets, levels of fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, salt and fiber were matched. Participants also consumed the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables while on both diets.
In addition, participants were given large amounts of food while on both diets and were told to consume as much of it as they liked.
Interestingly, participants lost weight on both diets. The researchers say this was likely due to the provided diets being more nutritious than the participants’ normal diets.
However, participants lost 2.06% of their body weight by eating minimally processed foods compared with a 1.05% reduction by eating ultra-processed foods.
In other words, participants lost roughly twice as much weight on the minimally processed diet even though the minimally processed food they ate was nutritionally equivalent to the highly processed food.
In a summary of the findings, study co-author Dr. Samuel Dicken of the UCL Centre for Obesity Research and UCL Department of Behavioural Science and Health said:
“Though a 2% reduction [in weight] may not seem very big, that is only over eight weeks and without people trying to actively reduce their intake. If we scaled these results up over the course of a year, we’d expect to see a 13% weight reduction in men and a 9% reduction in women on the minimally processed diet, but only a 4% weight reduction in men and 5% in women after the ultra-processed diet.”
The researchers also noted that those who consumed a diet of minimally processed foods saw “significantly greater improvements” in how much they craved food and in their ability to resist such cravings when they did arise.
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