Would you eat food that’s been predigested?

Experts say that’s what we’re doing when we consume many popular packaged foods — those breads, cereals, snack chips and frozen meals that have been refined, pounded, heated, melted, shaped, extruded and packed with additives.

A growing body of research suggests that the extent of industrial processing that your food undergoes can alter its effects on your body, determining its impact on your appetite, hormones, weight gain, and likelihood of developing obesity and chronic diseases.

This extreme processing creates foods that are so easily absorbed by the body that they’re essentially predigested. Many foods also are engineered to overcome our satiety mechanisms, which drives us to overeat and gain weight, experts say.

In recent years, scientists have adopted a new name for foods that are intensely manipulated by food manufacturers: ultra-processed.

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