DESIGNER

Ellie Wong

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Article text courtesy of nytimes.com

How America Got Hooked on Ultraprocessed Foods

The earliest processed foods promised ease and convenience. They filled the bellies of soldiers at war. But now, the evolution and explosion of ultraprocessed foods has become one of the greatest health threats of our time.

How did we get here? Let’s take a tour through history. Humans have been processing food for millenniums. Neanderthals sizzled meat over open flames; hunter-gatherers ground wild wheat to make bread; and factory workers canned fruit for soldiers during the Civil War.

But in the late 1800s, food companies began concocting products that were wildly different from anything people could make themselves. Coca-Cola was introduced in 1886