“If you don’t recognize an ingredient, neither does your body.”
~Jen Smiley

In a 2025 podcast interview on the Ultimate Human Podcast, hosted by Gary Brecka, nutrition expert Jen Smiley shared her journey to better health by reading food labels. She explained how grocery items are 98% marketing, with tiny ingredient lists hiding chemicals you can't pronounce, like preservatives that cause inflammation and disrupt your body's natural processes.

In 2025, KM Krost and a team studied 186,744 UK adults aged 40–75 from the UK Biobank (2006–2010). They used food surveys to track 37 ultra-processed food additives like flavor enhancers, coloring agents, and sweeteners, linking them to deaths over 11 years. They adjusted for total food intake to focus on additive effects.