Ultra-Processed Meals Are Unhealthier Than You Think (theguardian.com) 150
For a long time it has been known that diets dominated by ultra-processed food (UPF) are more likely to lead to obesity. But recent research suggests that high UPF consumption also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and, according to a recent American study involving 50,000 health professionals, of developing colon cancer. From a report: On a more general note, last month a study in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology found that people born after 1990 are more likely to develop cancer before they're 50 than people born before 1970. It's suspected that UPF might be a contributing factor to this development.
As the UK is estimated to draw more than 50% of its calorie intake from UPF, this is no passing health scare but an issue that goes to the very heart of our culinary lifestyle. But before looking deeper into the issue there is an obvious question: what is a UPF? NOVA (not an acronym) is a widely used food classification system that separates foods into four categories based upon their level of processing. Almost all foods, aside from fresh fruit and raw vegetables, undergo some degree of process. Cooking is a process, and it usually involves added ingredients such as oil and salt. In NOVA's first category, Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed foods (fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk). Group 2 is made up of processed culinary ingredients such as sugars, oils and butter. Group 3 is processed foods (canned vegetables and fish, bread, jam). Group 4 is ultra-high processed foods, which are mostly low in protein and fibre, and high in salt, sugar and fat, and have undergone industrial interventions such as extrusion, moulding and milling.
As the UK is estimated to draw more than 50% of its calorie intake from UPF, this is no passing health scare but an issue that goes to the very heart of our culinary lifestyle. But before looking deeper into the issue there is an obvious question: what is a UPF? NOVA (not an acronym) is a widely used food classification system that separates foods into four categories based upon their level of processing. Almost all foods, aside from fresh fruit and raw vegetables, undergo some degree of process. Cooking is a process, and it usually involves added ingredients such as oil and salt. In NOVA's first category, Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed foods (fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk). Group 2 is made up of processed culinary ingredients such as sugars, oils and butter. Group 3 is processed foods (canned vegetables and fish, bread, jam). Group 4 is ultra-high processed foods, which are mostly low in protein and fibre, and high in salt, sugar and fat, and have undergone industrial interventions such as extrusion, moulding and milling.
Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fresh food is expensive. If your diet can regularly involve fresh food, you're probably wealthy enough to also have a generally-less-stressful lifestyle, and it's easier to find time to go to the gym.
It's an overly broad generalization, of course, but so long as ultra-processed foods are cheaper than a diet involving fresh fruits and vegetables prepared with below-average amounts of salt and sugar, "it's really really unhealthy" rings hollow to folks already having issues making their rent payments.
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The problem is that ultra-processed food is relatively new, but the industrial cooking methods aren't changed enough to actually differentiate what used to be processed foods from ultra-processed foods.
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Well, sure; group statistical characteristics can't be used as stereotypes. But that doesn't mean there's no difference between the groups. Many poor people live in food deserts [wikipedia.org] -- over 12% of the US population. Fresh food is basically unavailable to them.
Re: Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:2)
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The distance is different for urban (1 mile) and suburban/rural (10 miles). This factors in the fact that anyone in a rural area pretty much has a car or starves. Other definitions take into account car ownership -- e.g. census tracts with at least 100 households which have no car and are further than 0.5 miles from a grocery store, or which have 500 households with cars but are more than 20 miles from a grocery store.
Re: Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that ultra-processed food is relatively new, but the industrial cooking methods aren't changed enough to actually differentiate what used to be processed foods from ultra-processed foods.
Yes and no. Part of the problem with the processed food debate is that there are actually some pretty ancient processed foods that are also probably healthier for you. Flour is an example, but I think the best example might be nixtamal. That's corn flour that has been boiled with crushed lime to chemically break it down which is a fairly extreme form of food processing. The result is that a lot of extra nutrition is released from the corn, allowing people to live almost exclusively on it. Without nixtamalization, people relying on corn as their main staple can end up with nutritional deficiency diseases like pellagra and kwashiorkor. What's good and what's bad in processed foods obviously has some nuance to it.
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Re: Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:2)
"low in protein and fibre, and high in salt, sugar and fat"
It's not the cooking methods, its what is in and what isn't in these foods that matters the most. We know not enough fiber is bad, we know too much salt or fat is bad, these 'ultra processed' foods have had the best stuff removed and the worst stuff adddd.
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Funny you said too much fat, not too much sugar. We know too much sugar is bad, the science is still out on what constitutes "too much" fat, and whether or not it's bad (unless you are talking about trans fats).
More importantly, is it the food or your life? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fresh food is expensive. If your diet can regularly involve fresh food, you're probably wealthy enough to also have a generally-less-stressful lifestyle, and it's easier to find time to go to the gym.
It's an overly broad generalization, of course, but so long as ultra-processed foods are cheaper than a diet involving fresh fruits and vegetables prepared with below-average amounts of salt and sugar, "it's really really unhealthy" rings hollow to folks already having issues making their rent payments.
If you are going to the gym and eating fresh, you are of a certain socio-economic status or at least have a less stressful life than those who cannot. If you take someone who lives off pop-tarts, slim-jims and McDonald's....and suddenly had them eating fresh vegetables every portion, would you be able to measure a huge difference? Maybe for colon cancer, but for cardio-vascular disease, I suspect lifestyle is a huge component. I suspect daily stress and lack of physical fitness is a huge issue for many of these ailments.
Conversely, take the healthiest people you know...replace their current diet with McDonald's and pop tarts, but ensure the calorie counts are the same...will they be as unhealthy? I imagine their stress management and physical fitness will reduce the impact greatly
I personally suspect the impact of food is greatly overstated compared to genetics and lifestyle. Few things are worse for you than being poor...especially combined with perpetual stress...which drains you at a fundamental level and makes it really hard to go about exercising and keeping fit. So...is it the McDonald's that's killing you?...or is it all the factors in your life that made you end up eating dinner at McDonald's that's shortening your lifespan.
Re:More importantly, is it the food or your life? (Score:5, Insightful)
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In an industrialized country, plenty of poor people in manual labor jobs eat what would be classified as "ultraprocessed" food. We are not just talking about village fishermen or what have you.
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Yes, but the powers that be need an easy answer that they can tut-tut the victims about, not a systemic issue that requires real social change. And especially not change that might make the ultra rich slightly less ultra rich.
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Yes, and if the "powers that be" demanded social change, you'd be whining about who are they to tell everyone else how to live.
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Social change doesn't require telling everyone how to live. For example if you reduce standard work hours and increase manditory PTO, you can make quite a difference in stress levels, how much rest people get, and how much time they have to cook a decent meal at night.
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The easy answer is the UPF that show a link to Cancer, Heart issues, etc get a label just like cigs do.
The UPFs pointed out to be better or healthier do not (like the corn).
If a UPF has a label and they correct their process / ingredients so it is not longer linked they can have their label removed.
4 boxes of cereal 3 of them labeled Have show signs to cause cancer and heart problems and 1 box with no label. Which one will get bought and how quickly will those other 3 make corrections.
Re:Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's a myth. Unless you live in a food desert, fresh fruits like bananas, apples, and grapes, and vegetables like spinach, beets, carrots, and potatoes are some of the cheapest foods you can get. This is especially true if you live in a farming state -- which are a LOT of them. Stay away from pricier options like "organic" and patented varieties like Honeycrisp apples and you'll be fine.
Dried beans are some of the all-time cheapest. Add in rice and some basic spices and you can easily eat dirt cheap -- and healthy.
Regardless, your type of argument -- skipping acknowledging the science and jumping straight to "but no one can afford it" is dishonest. At least acknowledge the facts before making excuses.
Something along the lines of "Yes, they can be. However, a lot of people live in food deserts and the combined local scarcity of fresh options and convenience of pre-packaged, ultra processed foods makes it challenging."
A big part of the problem is the TRILLION dollar industry that is dedicated to getting you to eat cheap, convenient crap. If you work or live in a city, just think about how many places you can get food quickly in a one-block radius. Not just restaurants, but convenience stores, drug stores, vending machines, street vendors, you name it. Super convenience combined with non-stop advertising is a powerful force.
Re:Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the same line of "reasoning" the fat acceptance people like to trot out. "But, but, the poor downtrodden people can't afford healthy food so shouldn't be shamed for shoving Big Macs in their maws, and also being fat is beautiful and healthy anyway!". Only.. they like to pretend "healthy food" means "expensive organic, non GMO (lol), food from Whole Foods".
It's a strawman - as you say. "healthy food", meaning nutritional food without absurd caloric density and sugar, is not actually expensive. Then, of course, they will make up some shit about "but ain't nobody got time for cooking!! The poor downtrodden work 23.98 hours a day!!". It's all bullshit and excuses.
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but ain't nobody got time for cooking!! The poor downtrodden work 23.98 hours a day!!". It's all bullshit and excuses.
People use those excuses only to fool themselves.
There are 24 hours in a day.
Subract:
-8 hours sleep
-8 hours work
-2 hour total back & forth work commute
-1 hour workout
-1 hour for showering, makeup, & grooming
That still leaves on 4 hours every day, eg. 6pm-10pm, to find 30 minutes to cook at least one healthy meal and have leftovers for the next two days.
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The food dessert is real
Yes, it is usually eaten at the end of the meal, and can be quite high in sugar and fat.
Cost of food. (Score:3)
Nearly all grains are cheap. Likewise pulses. Eggs must be dirt cheap in the US as you pack as many in as possible. Cheap parts of chicken likewise.
I think most poor people know this. It's not hard to figure out. Cooking it might be intimidating/time consuming. I'm glad my school gave lessons.
Inequality probably shouldn't exist though, certainly not to the degree it is in the US or UK.
You forgot time-factors (Score:2, Interesting)
No, that's a myth. Unless you live in a food desert, fresh fruits like bananas, apples, and grapes, and vegetables like spinach, beets, carrots, and potatoes are some of the cheapest foods you can get. This is especially true if you live in a farming state -- which are a LOT of them. Stay away from pricier options like "organic" and patented varieties like Honeycrisp apples and you'll be fine.
Dried beans are some of the all-time cheapest. Add in rice and some basic spices and you can easily eat dirt cheap -- and healthy.
Regardless, your type of argument -- skipping acknowledging the science and jumping straight to "but no one can afford it" is dishonest. At least acknowledge the facts before making excuses.
If you have the time to go to the grocery store 4x a week to keep fresh fruit and vegetables in your fridge, you are of higher socioeconomic status than most people we're talking about. Poverty and being broke are actually 2 different things. Being broke is a temporary state of inadequate finances. Poverty is all encompassing and changes your outlook and state of mind. Poor people are so beaten down with stress and despair they can't really muster much energy to think long-term. Look at any McDonald's.
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If you have the time to go to the grocery store 4x a week to keep fresh fruit and vegetables in your fridge, you are of higher socioeconomic status than most people we're talking about.
Oh come on. Even bananas keep for at least a week. The root vegetables can keep for a month. Rice was not specifically mentioned, but it's another super-cheap, nutritious food and it can last for literally years (although I suppose it's not technically "fresh"). Yes, you do have to spend some time cooking, but you can definitely get plenty of healthy nutrition for not a lot of money compared to pre-packaged foods.
But the poor rarely have time or energy (Score:2)
If you have the time to go to the grocery store 4x a week to keep fresh fruit and vegetables in your fridge, you are of higher socioeconomic status than most people we're talking about.
Oh come on. Even bananas keep for at least a week. The root vegetables can keep for a month. Rice was not specifically mentioned, but it's another super-cheap, nutritious food and it can last for literally years (although I suppose it's not technically "fresh"). Yes, you do have to spend some time cooking, but you can definitely get plenty of healthy nutrition for not a lot of money compared to pre-packaged foods.
The people who are poor enough to rely on fast food are typically crunched for time and suffering from some general depression. Life sucks when you're poor. It gets quite hopeless. I grew up in poverty and now live in a very nice life...but it was a roughly equal mix of my effort plus lots of blind luck that are the reason I'm living an upper-middle-class life and my cousins in similar circumstances aren't. I am constantly reminded of what I escaped when I go home.
Yeah, you don't HAVE to eat shitty f
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The people who are poor enough to rely on fast food
Fast food is expensive, not cheap! If someone is relying on fast food they are not poor. This isn't the 1970s anymore when a Quarter Pounder was a mere $0.70. Where I live, a fast food burger is $8 and a combo starts at $12. A "poor" family of four can buy a weeks worth of groceries with the same amount of money they woud spend on a couple of family fast food outings. Heck if they are addicted to burgers and fries and cannot live without them they
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The people who are poor enough to rely on fast food are typically crunched for time and suffering from some general depression. Life sucks when you're poor. It gets quite hopeless. I grew up in poverty and now live in a very nice life...but it was a roughly equal mix of my effort plus lots of blind luck that are the reason I'm living an upper-middle-class life and my cousins in similar circumstances aren't. I am constantly reminded of what I escaped when I go home.
Suffering from outright depression is a little bit different than simply being of different socioeconomic status.
In my household there's a bit of a mix. We don't all eat the same things. Part of this is that we don't have all the same dietary requirements, but it's also a matter of differing tastes. I tend to mostly eat pretty healthy, except when there's an extreme time crunch. That means mostly fresh vegetables and fresh fruits. As long as I'm reasonably selective about them, those meals are a lot cheaper
Re: You forgot time-factors (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to go to the grocery store four times a week in order to keep fresh fruits and vegetables. They actually keep for longer than most people realize because they've just forgotten.
I fully understand the difference between poverty and being broke. I actually completely agree with your rationale about depression and overall circumstances.
You're way off base on my reasoning and attempting to blame the lazy poor. In another post. I summed it up in another post that it is essentially a trillion dollar industry fighting to keep people fat and unhealthy because of corporate profits. Not necessarily specifically having that goal, just that's how it works out with cheap, processed food and the advertising and agriculture industries around it.
Simple and easy are two different things. It is simple to eat healthy and cheap, but by no means is it easy. The entire world is working against you much of the time.
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You don't need to go to the grocery store four times a week in order to keep fresh fruits and vegetables. They actually keep for longer than most people realize because they've just forgotten.
Without an ethylene scrubber, fruit goes bad rapidly. The only way they are able to store fruit so long in commercial operations is to use one. Most people don't have one, so fruit which has usually already been stored for some time before people get it (like apples for example) will go bad quickly once they get it because it's already been stored. These days I also notice a lot of produce has been picked especially under-ripe and it goes straight from that condition to going bad in under a week, and never
Store fruit in a fridge (Score:3)
I inherited a book from 1946 on commercial (at the time) fruit production - apples, pears and similar - and cold storage is the basic way of slowing down the ripening. Of course, commercial large-scale operations will have more sophisticated techniques to lengthen the season. For instance with apples you can also shut down the supply of oxygen (the apples are still alive) in a controlled fashion. But none of that is relevant if you're just storing it for a week.
It works wonders for apples. 4 degrees celcius
Dollar per calorie / caloric density (Score:2)
When I was a kid yeah, if you could stop by and shop daily you could do all right buying the stuff about to go bad, but that assumed a) you had time to shop and b) had time to cook right after you shopped. Because That stuff wasn't gonna be edible in a day, two tops.
Now? The grocery stores figured out
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Cost and access to fresh food aren't the only factors here. Convenience is another big one, many people buy the fast food etc because there isn't enough time after work to actually prepare a decent meal at home or because there are too many other things that need doing (such as making sure the kids get their homework done and all the other things that they need to do to be ready for school the next day)
you did not adjust for prep time (Score:2)
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Unless you live in a food desert, fresh fruits like bananas, apples, and grapes, and vegetables like spinach, beets, carrots, and potatoes are some of the cheapest foods you can get. This is especially true if you live in a farming state -- which are a LOT of them.
I live in California, the state that produces more of the food we eat in this country than any other state, and I can confidently say that you have no idea what you are talking about. Processed foods are absolutely cheaper than vegetables, there is literally no question. When measured by calorie content, it's cheaper to eat microwave burritos and hot pockets than it is to eat apples and grapes, even here in the state where the food is produced. And man cannot live on fruit alone. People have tried. It's rea
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Well, to be fair, plenty of people have lived on beans, rice, and/or potatoes throughout much of their lives. Maybe meat once a week. Gonna be nutrient-poor with just those three ingredients though.
Re:Was this adjusted for socioeconomic status? (Score:4, Insightful)
You left out the spinach, beets, carrots and potatoes. While you also want to add some fat to that diet and boost protein a bit, what objection do you have to that diet (which is obviously not an exclusive list in any case)? What would your alternative be?
Frozen Vegetables (Score:2)
are better than "Fresh" because they're frozen at the farm aren't aren't rotting in a truck.
Rice, chicken, and frozen vegetables are cheap and perfectly healthy. Drink more water. Stay away from sugary crap.
Salad dressing makes a good sauce to cook chicken in to add flavor.
Some of the reason people buy an $8 burger instead of making a $2 sandwich at home is because of time and materials required to prep. You don't need to eat the healthiest freshest foods, you just need to stay away from the garbage.
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Most studies don't seem to.
The article doesn't really link to the evidence base. From a 2020 metaanalysis:
"However, beyond the nutritional composition, UPF could also explain their harmful effects through other mechanisms, such as the presence of compounds that are formed during the processing of the food, and therefore more present in UPF. For example, both acrylamide – a contaminant present in heat-treated processed food products – and acrolein – a compound formed during fat heating
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Acrylamide is present in french fries, even if you make them "by hand" in your kitchen. I strongly suspect that acrolein is present in a lot of home-cooked foods as well.
BPA is in every damn thing, unless you harvest it and consume it yourself (e.g. no plastic packaging involved).
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Fresh food is expensive. If your diet can regularly involve fresh food, you're probably wealthy enough to also have a generally-less-stressful lifestyle, and it's easier to find time to go to the gym.
Is fresh food really expensive? I find that to be the case only if you don't shop well for fresh food and you do shop well for processed foods. Most processed foods actually seem to be more expensive by unit weight than fresh foods. The more processed, and the more of a junk food something is often seems to make it more expensive). Consider, for example, potatoes vs potato chips. Potato chips are mostly potatoes plus oil and salt. Average price is probably somewhere around $5 to $6 per pound. Potatoes thems
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Fresh food is not more expensive. I don't know why people keep reiterating this shit. A head of cabbage, a few carrots, one brocoli cap, one cauliflower head, three potatoes, and a couple chicken breasts will give you a weeks worth of healthy dinners and it will cost not much more than one large pizza!
Also it doesn't always have to be fresh food-the grocery store is full of frozen vegetables that only need to be heated in a microwave. They have less nutrition than fresh veggies but they have one very impor
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Fresh food isn't that expensive. I'm sorry it's just not. I started this year grossly obese and was the guy shoving fast food down my throat day after day. March 31st I was told I was diabetic and had to change everything about my diet and that was it. 281 to 218 and still going. What's more is I spend far less at the grocery store than I did eating out all the time. Produce isn't expensive. Chicken isn't expensive. Losing most of the snacks and treats isn't hard to do and takes a big bite out of your groce
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Really? You mean buying an apple at the insane stupormarket price costs more than getting *part* of an apple in a fast food meal?
I know, you actually don't cook, nor do you know how to. I do, and I also go to an "ethnic" supermarket (in this case, Korean), and pay about half the price for vegetables.
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It's a complete and total myth that fresh food is more expensive than processed. It just is at any level or iteration of the argument.
Any argument to the contrary is bad accounting. You're simply generalizing the wealthy idiots you know and kind of making a straw man out of the nobility of the poor.
Seed oils are particularly bad for you (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Seed oils are particularly bad for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhh, you can use all sorts of edible oils as "machine oils", is that supposed to be scary? And is "rapeseed" supposed to sound scary? I mean, it's got "rape" in it so I guess it must rape our health, right?
Your choice of Corn, canola, sunflower, avocado, olive, etc.. oil is probably around the 500th most important thing you should be worrying about in your dietary choices.
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And is "rapeseed" supposed to sound scary? I mean, it's got "rape" in it so I guess it must rape our health, right?
This is why the Canadians coined the euphemism canola ("Canadian oil").
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Canola is different than rapeseed. Rapeseed is still called rapeseed AFAIK.
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Canola isn't exactly the same as rapeseed:
https://foodal.com/knowledge/p... [foodal.com]
"In 1979, a new cultivar known as ‘Canola’ was born from rapeseed through traditional plant hybridization, enabling home cooks to safely reach for it in the kitchen. This cultivar was developed in Canada and touted for its composition of less than 2% erucic acid and low levels of glucosinolates."
Sadly canola oil still has a lot of omega-6 fatty acid in it. Which is not good.
What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Without clear data it is hard to believe these studies
Re:What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stripping out nutrients to make them shelf-stable and easier to process, then artificially adding them back in by "enhancement" changes the bioavailability of the nutrients.
The chemistry in food is insanely complex, yet we focus so much on specific nutrients in the quest to find that "magic bullet" that makes it all easy. How much is the (unregulated) supplement industry worth? How many click-bait "eat this ONE superfood" articles are out there?
For example, fruit is GOOD for you but fruit juice is pretty much just as BAD for you as soda. Why? Strip out all the fiber and it is pretty much just liquid sugar that blows up your blood sugar because there is nothing to slow down the absorption. EAT the fruit, fiber and all, and the sugar absorption is naturally moderated and the rest of the nutrients in the fruit are better digested in your body.
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Like some articles claim bread is processed, but then does that also apply to home-made bread or is it only for factory bread?
"Group 4 is ultra-high processed foods, which are mostly low in protein and fibre, and high in salt, sugar and fat, and have undergone industrial interventions such as extrusion, moulding and milling. (emphasis mine)"
Apparently anything made with non-whole grains is ultra processed. Considering humans have been milling grains for thousands of years I'll file this advice appropriately.
Re:What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:5, Informative)
Milling isn't the same as stripping out the germ, endosperm, bran, and gluten into separate parts to make processing easier, then adding things back in and calling it "enriched".
The summary is referencing The Guardian article and the the linked paper directly. The NOVA [openfoodfacts.org] classification it is referring to is a lot more nuanced than "milling".
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Milling isn't the same as stripping out the germ, endosperm, bran, and gluten into separate parts
Agreed, it is not.
The NOVA [openfoodfacts.org] classification it is referring to is a lot more nuanced than "milling".
Good to know. So just poor reporting then. No question that is very common.
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Still, milling is a form of processing. We are supposed to believe Jesus or "Mother Nature" wants us to eat unprocessed raw food, because we are too stupid to improve our processing tech to make it superior.
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I guess you live in a city and have never seen flour in its many many original forms.
"Milling" can be done in different ways, with different stages, with different types of grain.
Whole grain, semi stripped grain, grain that has almost everything removed from it prior to milling it so you get a really fine almost paste like white flour (that one's extremely unhealthy).
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"Milling" can be done in different ways, with different stages, with different types of grain.
Indeed that makes it an exceptionally poor generalization. I personally prefer dark ryes.
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Nobody knows. You'll get all kinds of opinions though (in fact, you already have).
"Processed food" is a rough category that you can somewhat reliably capture in a survey a hundred thousand people or so are willing to answer regularly for years or occasionally decades, and that's what it takes to detect these things. If you captured a detailed chemical analysis of everything a million people ate over a decade you could probably track it down more specifically, but nobody will pay for that, and you probably w
Re:What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:4, Funny)
Keep hearing processed foods are bad, over and over. But what exactly makes them so bad?
The lack of radiogenic isotopes. Eat more bananas! ;)
Re:What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:5, Funny)
Keep hearing processed foods are bad, over and over. But what exactly makes them so bad? Like some articles claim bread is processed, but then does that also apply to home-made bread or is it only for factory bread?
What makes it bad is blasting dough thru a nozzle or molding it to a given shape. If you just leave your dough as an unstructured blob it will be way healthier than you think.
blob (Score:2)
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A 2020 meta-analysis blames cheap ingredients and...
"However, beyond the nutritional composition, UPF could also explain their harmful effects through other mechanisms, such as the presence of compounds that are formed during the processing of the food, and therefore more present in UPF. For example, both acrylamide – a contaminant present in heat-treated processed food products – and acrolein – a compound formed during fat heating – have been associated with an increased risk of CVD
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I'm with you. But unlike most of these articles, this one actually does address definitions and reasons. I know nobody around here reads the linked articles, but this one is worth reading.
I'm not saying I buy it, just that this article is relatively helpful, compared to others I've seen rattling on about ultraprocessed foods.
Re:What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:4, Funny)
Keep hearing processed foods are bad, over and over. But what exactly makes them so bad
According to the Mercola Institute of Nutrophobic Studies, it's because the ingredients have long names that jam crosswise in your intestines, causing consipation.
Re: What exactly makes them so bad? (Score:2)
Its not the processing, its what results from the processing ie foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt low in proteins, fiber, essential vitamins, minerals and enzymes.
I do eat processed foods but I keep an eye on the salt fat and fiber content, i try to balance out my diet to get enough fruit veg and fiber.
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Given that they called butter a processed food and you make butter by mechanically agitating cream I have some quibbles myself.
Same with applesauce. Cook apples, can applesauce in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. If cooking counts as processing then you have some sort of raw food religion going on. And no, I did not add sugar to the applesauce this year, the apples were sweet enough without it.
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Yeah, lately I've been eating nothing but synthetic green wafers that they say are manufactured from plankton, and I feel great!
nonsense! (Score:4, Funny)
So it causes colon cancer in health professionals? (Score:2)
At least that seems to be implied here. Maybe being a health professional is unhealthy then?
Also, what is it with group 4? Not everything highly processed has a lot of sugar, salt or fat. Seems to me there is a class missing here.
Again (Score:2)
I'm not saying that ultra processed foods are good for you. I personally shy away from them. I used to eat microwavable packets for lunch and I think it gave me stomach issues (which that could be a part of the problem is the packagi
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I'd love to know the root cause that explains the data. Be it socioeconomic or the plastic packaging. We'd all like the answers, and we'd like them instant like cup ramen or microwave popcorn.
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You have to get off the couch for those. We want our scientific results like Uber Eats: somebody puts exactly what we think we'd like into a nice package, brings it to the door and, if we yell loudly enough when we hear the bell, will walk it right over to our couch.
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"All" processed foods tend to have certain things in common. They kind of fall into classes where they have different groups of things done to them, but in general they can be grouped fairly successfully.
One of the big things they do is replace other stuff with sugar for flavor and shelf stability. For example vegetable oil goes rancid over time so they replace it with HFCS which produces a similar texture in food.
That leads directly into another thing they do for shelf stability, which is pound foods full
sample size of 1 says... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thought Slime on YouTube is Vegan (Score:2)
Low carb isn't the thing that works. It's staying away from junk food. Going on a low carb diet keeps you away from cookies, chips, soda, donuts, etc.
The catch is cooking and prepping all that fresh food. I make a vegetable stew a few times a month. Takes about 2 hours all told for about 4 or 5 meals. Doesn't freeze all that well though, but either way it's 2 hours out of a day to make it. Could it be done faster? Maybe,
Re:Thought Slime on YouTube is Vegan (Score:4, Insightful)
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Have you looked at the nutrition labels of the chocolate that is 95% cocoa solids? Almost no sugar and an intense rich chocolate taste.
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NEWS FLASH - We are what we eat, drink, and breathe.
Bad news for vegans (Score:2)
And their meat replacements.
Re: Bad news for vegans (Score:2)
add ultra-processed fiber to the list (Score:2)
More about quality than processing itself (Score:2)
"Processing" itself is not a single thing. Any kind of recipe or cooking involves a "process." In many cases, it is known that cooking actually improves the healthfulness of foods, so it's not true that processing harms healthfulness, and the ultraprocessing harms it even more.
My theory is that it's more about the quality of the ingredients. Most of the "ultra" processed foods are made to be ultra-cheap. For example, using a chemical artificial flavor because it's cheap, instead of the real flavor.
So it see
Bull (Score:2)
"Group 3 is processed foods (canned vegetables "
Canned vegetables contain vegetables, water and a bit of salt, that's all.
Picked, washed, cooked in the can and thus sterilized, it doesn't get any better than that.
"Fresh" vegetables lie around for days until they are prepared and eaten.
Is it really about "processing"? (Score:2)
Like... if you controlled for "total sugar" alone, how much of the "ultra processed" signal would go away?
Compare apples to apple sauce - surely the difference isn't the processing (mashing up the apples), it's the stuff added or removed after? Right?
Or sometimes I eat protein bars. They've been processed to hell and back - the resulting bar is barely edible goo. But the macronutrient balance is good - low sugar, lots of protein and fiber. Am I somehow wrecking myself by eating this unnatural, super-pro
Eating lettuce will kill you (Score:2)
Every single human who has ever eaten even a single leaf of the stuff has died or is in the process of dying!
Causation correlation studies are crap.
If your "study" is actually just a lazy exercise in statistics, then you need to quit the "science" gig and move to accounting, where you belong. Statistical studies in science should ONLY be used to tell scientists where to look for problems/solutions and NEVER to make public pronouncements about what's good/bad, right/wrong, etc. If actual science has not be
Missing a level (Score:2)
IMHO, this system is missing a level aka "high-processed" food which should be level 4 and "ultra-high" should be level 5.
But the whole system is bullsh*t because extruding and molding do nothing to the food.
Follow the money: For those of you who never shop in a so-called natural grocery store, I can tell you that people spend three to four times what they would in Walmart. The food isn't any different. Organic is organic no matter where you buy it. But Barnum was right. I went into a so-called natural
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The word "processed" isn't nearly well enough defined for an article or headline like this.
It's a good thing they said "ultra processed" then, isn't it?
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I'll wait for "mega processed" and "hyper processed" food, TYVM.
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Re:What Counts as Processed? (Score:4, Insightful)
This article actually does answer your questions.
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"That raises (not begs) the question: Whose agenda is this?"
Given the rise of plant-based milk, cheese and meats alternatives in both the U.S.A. and Canada, I'd say it's the agenda of farmers. They collude on a lot of things, such as creating the "food pyramid" bullshit to get us to consume their products in excess of what we actually need.
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There are a lot of companies out there, not just Beyond and Impossible.
And do you know how plant-based meats are made, or do you just repeat the "ultra-processed" FUD you keep hearing about which probably comes from the farming industry?
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"The process of crafting these products involves machines like slicers and spiralizers, as well as extrusion technology, which exposes the plant-based proteins to thermal and mechanical stresses to render them more “raw.” An extruder feeds ingredients through a stationary barrel and a revolving screw mechanism, either with or without heat, to knead and ultimately compress the product. Other manufacturers use wet texturization technology (which involves adding significant amounts of moisture duri