Ready meals make you fat

Frozen pizza, bread, chocolate, with Almost half of the food in Germany is heavily processed – and the trend is rising. At the same time, the number of Obese people is increasing every second adult in Germany is now too thick. US researchers now want to have in one Experiment, a connection between the two phenomenon is found. Therefore, dishes to tempt ready to eat more, the researchers report in the journal “Cell Metabolism”.

Longer processed foods are strongly suspected to be harmful to health: A study of 2018 brought some of them with an increased cancer risk of dying from Recently reported, researchers are even of a higher risk, at an early stage. Nevertheless, Chips, sausages and soda are popular. They often contain more calories, salt and sugar as well as fat.

How strong ready meals Overweight can affect, wanted US to check researchers are now more accurate. For this, they selected 20 healthy Volunteers, who lived over a period of a month in a research institution. The one group was every day, three meals plus Snacks, which consisted of highly processed foods. For Breakfast there was, for example, a Serving of honey nut cereal and a Finished blueberry muffin.

Half a Kilo more per week

The other group received the same number of meals, however, with unprocessed foods. The Breakfast consisted approximately of yogurt with fruit and nuts. Over the whole period, the subjects could eat as much food as they wanted. After two weeks was exchanged.

The result: In the two weeks in which the subjects ate ready-made products, increase in the average, kilograms, in two weeks with fresh food you were about as much again. Similarly, the percentage of body fat.

The scientists have different hypotheses as to the causes. The participants ate the highly processed food faster. “If you eat very quickly, to his gastro-intestinal tract may not have enough time to signal the brain that you are full,” says study leader Kevin Hall. Can overeating Affected quickly.

Finished products often contain more calories than consumers think, says Marc Tittgemeyer from the Cologne Max-Planck-Institute for metabolism research, was not involved in the study. In addition eat enable finished often the reward system of the body, the required to to more.

In the study, the participants stated, however, that both of the food would have tasted shapes you well. Nevertheless you took on in the two weeks with ready meals less than 500 calories per day more. One reason for this could also be sugar have been containing drinks such as sodas and juices that contain a lot of calories.

Over the long-term consequences of an unhealthy diet, the study, however, says nothing. In addition, 20 subjects are too few to draw conclusions on the total population. For more reliable statements, it would need several Hundred participants.

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Also what is the role of the income in the nutrition, it does not show the Experiment, because the subjects are not even shopping or cooking had to. However, from previous studies it is known that people with low incomes are more likely to use ready-made products, because they are usually cheaper than fresh food.

Some physicians, therefore, demand of sugar and to put a tax on salt-containing food. Also about a kind of traffic light system for food has been discussed for a Long time violently. Thus, consumers should be able to more easily see how healthy a product is. Food Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU), announced now, in the summer of consumers through various models ask.