Gut & MicrobiomeMichael Pollan Reveals How Ultra-Processed Food Hijacks Your Brain and Hunger Signals
Ultra-processed food is the focus of this ZOE episode featuring Michael Pollan and Professor Tim Spector. They explain how modern food is deliberately engineered with combinations of sugar, salt, and fat to stimulate the brain's reward system and suppress natural fullness signals. The conversation covers how agricultural monoculture and food industry economics over the past 50 years reshaped what we eat, why fibre and diverse plants help regulate appetite, and how gut microbes are directly affected by food quality. Practical strategies include cooking at home more often, identifying ultra-processed products, eating 30 different plants per week, and applying Pollan's famous rule: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. The episode frames overeating as a systemic, engineered problem rather than a willpower failure.
