{"podcast":{"title":"Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson","slug":"fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256","podcast_index_feed_id":940256,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/forku/","website_url":"https://www.forku.com","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/788b2349-48f2-498b-af8c-3fc9e102deaa/FU-2026-1.png","author":"Terry Simpson","episode_count":135,"summary":"Fork U(niversity) Not everything you put in your mouth is good for you. There’s a lot of medical information thrown around out there. How are you to know what information you can trust, and what’s just plain old quackery? You can’t rely on your own “google fu”. You can’t count on quality medical advice from Facebook. You need a doctor in your corner. On each episode of Your Doctor’s Orders, Dr. Terry Simpson will cut through the clutter and noise that always seems to follow the latest medical news. He has the unique perspective of a surgeon who has spent years doing molecular virology research and as a skeptic with academic credentials. He’ll help you develop the critical thinking skills so you can recognize evidence-based medicine, busting myths along the way. The most common medical myths are often disguised as seemingly harmless “food as medicine”. By offering their own brand of medicine via foods, These hucksters are trying to practice medicine without a license. And though they’ll claim “nutrition is not taught in medical schools”, it turns out that’s a myth too. In fact, there’s an entire medical subspecialty called Culinary Medicine, and Dr. Simpson is certified as a Culina…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-19T16:19:44.473681+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256"},"episode":{"title":"Ultra-Processed Food The Enemy","slug":"ultra-processed-food-the-enemy","published_at":"2026-01-08T07:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256/ultra-processed-food-the-enemy","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256","url":"https://forku.com/episode/ultra-processed-food-the-enemy","audio_url":"https://op3.dev/e/episodes.captivate.fm/episode/99e12e43-9256-44e7-94bf-59c83cddebad.mp3","summary":"Ultra-Processed Food: Making Sense of the Madness Ultra-processed food has become the villain of modern nutrition. Scroll through social media, and you’ll hear that it’s poisoning us, wrecking our gut, and driving the obesity epidemic all by itself. At the same time, other voices dismiss the entire idea as fear-mongering. According to them, processing doesn’t matter at all. Neither extreme tells the full story. So instead of slogans, let’s talk about what ultra-processed food actually means, why people want to blame it, where the science is strong, and where it starts to drift into storytelling. Why We’re Looking for Something to Blame The obesity epidemic is real. Rates have climbed for decades, and people understandably want answers. Human biology didn’t suddenly change in the 1980s. Willpower didn’t vanish overnight. Something in our environment shifted. Food is an obvious suspect. Because food changed, many people assume there must be a single culprit hiding in the ingredient list. That belief leads to bold claims. Some say Europe bans certain additives and therefore avoids obesity. In reality, obesity rates continue to rise across Europe as well. Others argue that specific ingredients damage the gut, letting in more calories or triggering metabolic chaos. Those ideas sound scientific, especially when they involve complex biology. However, when a problem is large and complicated, humans naturally want a cause that feels simple and controllable. Blaming one ingredient feels easier than confronting patterns of eating, stress, time pressure, and convenience. Biology, unfortunately, rarely offers cinematic villains. What “Ultra-Processed” Actually Means To understand the debate, definitions matter. Researchers use the NOVA classification system to describe food process…","meta_description":"Ultra-Processed Food: Making Sense of the Madness Ultra-processed food has become the villain of modern nutrition. Scroll through social media, and you’ll…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":571,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256/episodes/ultra-processed-food-the-enemy/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/fork-u-with-dr-terry-simpson-940256/ultra-processed-food-the-enemy.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}