On May 12^th I attended a “Scientific Morning” at the University of Montreal, entitled "Food Systems, Nutrition Transition and Health". The event was sponsored by “TRANSNUT” a WHO Collaborating Centre for Nutrition at the University, which leads research on the nutrition transition in the Global South.

The presentations were fantastic and fortunately the morning was recorded on video and is now available here.

The two keynote speakers:

Enrique Jacoby (Senior Advisor at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). His talk is entitled “Can we do better to stop the pandemics of obesity and diet-related NCDs?” and appears from the 9 minute mark to the 44:00 minute mark.

Carlos Monteiro (Director of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies on Health and Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of São Paulo). His talk is entitled “Food processing, quality of diets and health” in which he discusses the role of the consumption of "ultra-processed" food as a determinant of health. His talk begins at 71 minute mark and continues to the end of video at 120 minutes.

Afterwards there was discussion period, available here.

Both talks are worth watching. If you are interested in the role of the industrial food system, I highly recommend Monteiro’s presentation. His work has influenced the way I think and work and is having increasing influence throughout the world of nutrition. In brief, Monteiro argues that the level of processing of food is key to understanding health in developed countries and in countries undergoing the nutrition transition. The level of intake of ultra-processed food is correlated with numerous adverse health outcomes.

Thanks to Malek Batal for inviting me to the event.