Research
Energy balance
Non-beverage energy density and hyper-palatability (high sodium/fat or sodium/carb combinations) in ultra-processed foods positively predict meal energy intake and drive excess consumption.
Be aware that ultra-processed foods are engineered to be hyper-palatable and have high energy density (excluding beverages). This combination drives you to eat more without you necessarily feeling fuller. Choose foods with lower energy density and less engineered hyper-palatability.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In a secondary analysis of the meal intake data, non-beverage energy density was an important variable positively predicting meal energy intake and mediating a substantial fraction of the effect of ultra-processed versus minimally processed meal energy intake in our trial [41].
Why this rating
Based on secondary analysis of a high-quality RCT.
Source
From dearth to excess: the rise of obesity in an ultra-processed food system
Kevin D. Hall · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2023
DOI 10.1098/rstb.2022.0214
narrative_reviewCited 42×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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