The LuLac Edittion #5, 594, March 8th, 2026

 

FOOD-TASTIC NEWS

PROCESSED FOODS…

THE NEW CIGARETTES?

Back in the day when I was a kid everyone smoked. My dad smoked Raleigh’s. There was a coupon on the back which encouraged you to get prizes when you had enough of them. We got an ottoman and my first stereo. I tried smoking once. It was a lot of work. You had to open the back take it out, light it with matches, put it in your mouth, smoke it and repeat the process after flipping the ashes into an ash tray. 7 steps was way too much for me. 

He quit smoking cold turkey in 1968 when he broke his leg on the railroad. The first anti-smoking commercials appeared. One that was especially effective was where William Tallmsan who played Perry Mason’s legal foe Hamilton Burger.

Today it seems processed foods might be in the cross hairs similar to the cigarette ban.

Researchers from Harvard, Duke, and the University of Michigan are calling for ultra-processed foods to be regulated like tobacco, arguing that they’re engineered for habitual overuse.

The paper compares cigarettes and ultra-processed foods, highlighting their use of additives, reward mechanisms, and marketing tactics that manipulate biological and psychological responses.

The researchers say that certain ultra-processed foods are more like engineered consumables than real food and call for policies that promote minimally processed options and limit misleading health claims.

In their research review, the parallels are pretty stark. Like cigarettes, ultra-processed foods are fine-tuned to deliver the right dose of sugar — think a quick hit from soda — or the careful balance of fat and carbs in chips.

The rapid delivery of feel-good chemicals to the brain can give these foods addictive potential, similar to cigarettes. They note that while cigarettes are engineered to deliver nicotine within seconds, ultra-processed foods are engineered for rapid digestion and absorption because they have little to no fiber, making it easier for the body to process sugar and fat more quickly.

The battle to do this involves education and a change in diet. Unlike cigarettes, nutritional choices are controlled directly by one fact: everybody eats. Food companies respond to that. Low sodium foods are healthy but sometimes not tasty.

Whether a ban on processed foods will come to fruition is unlikely. A pizza has cheese, tomato sauce and dough. But oh that pepperoni is processed. It will be hard to free that pizza topping from the cold dead hand of consumers.

And Sopersatta? As an Italian would ell you, “Fuh get about it”.

 

DAIRY QUEEN FREE CONE DAY

Dairy Queen's annual Free Cone Day is right around the corner.

Each year, the chain kicks off spring by giving away free ice cream for one day only.

Per a press release, Dairy Queen has given away 38 million free cones since the first Free Cone Day in 2015.

As the countdown to this year's event continues, we're sharing everything you need to know to scoop up a piece of the action.

Free cone day is Thursday March 19^th at participating Dairy Queen locations.