Why We Might Never Know the Truth About Ultra-Processed Foods (bbc.com) 163
An anonymous reader shares a report: A recent meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Chicago was presented with an observational study of more than 500,000 people in the US. It found that those who ate the most UPFs (ultra-processed foods ) had a roughly 10% greater chance of dying early, even accounting for their body-mass index and overall quality of diet. In recent years, lots of other observational studies have shown a similar link - but that's not the same as proving that how food is processed causes health problems, or pinning down which aspect of those processes might be to blame.
So how could we get to the truth about ultra-processed food?
The kind of study needed to prove definitively that UPFs cause health problems would be extremely complex, suggests Dr Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in diet and obesity at Oxford University. It would need to compare a large number of people on two diets -- one high in UPFs and one low in UPFs, but matched exactly for calorie and macronutrient content. This would be fiendishly difficult to actually do. Participants would need to be kept under lock and key so their food intake could be tightly managed. The study would also need to enrol people with similar diets as a starting point.
It would be extremely challenging logistically. And to counter the possibility that people who eat fewer UPFs might just have healthier lifestyles such as through taking more exercise or getting more sleep, the participants of the groups would need to have very similar habits. "It would be expensive research, but you could see changes from the diets relatively quickly," Dr Astbury says. Funding for this type of research could also be hard to come by. There might be accusations of conflicts of interest, since researchers motivated to run these kind of trials may have an idea of what they want the conclusions to be before they started.
So how could we get to the truth about ultra-processed food?
The kind of study needed to prove definitively that UPFs cause health problems would be extremely complex, suggests Dr Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in diet and obesity at Oxford University. It would need to compare a large number of people on two diets -- one high in UPFs and one low in UPFs, but matched exactly for calorie and macronutrient content. This would be fiendishly difficult to actually do. Participants would need to be kept under lock and key so their food intake could be tightly managed. The study would also need to enrol people with similar diets as a starting point.
It would be extremely challenging logistically. And to counter the possibility that people who eat fewer UPFs might just have healthier lifestyles such as through taking more exercise or getting more sleep, the participants of the groups would need to have very similar habits. "It would be expensive research, but you could see changes from the diets relatively quickly," Dr Astbury says. Funding for this type of research could also be hard to come by. There might be accusations of conflicts of interest, since researchers motivated to run these kind of trials may have an idea of what they want the conclusions to be before they started.
We know. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of the old debate about smoking and cancer which went on for years. Tobacco companies said there is no "proof" that smoking causes cancer as they evidence that it does cause cancer mounted.
AFAIK there is still no "proof" that smoking causes cancer but we all know that it does.
Don't eat that garbage food.
Re:We know. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Agreed. And you see it all over here too: "we don't want anyone to tell us what ultra-processed means -- er, I mean no one even knows what that definitely binary term means"
As for the article, the research proposal would be stupid: "It would need to compare a large number of people on two diets -- one high in UPFs and one low in UPFs, but matched exactly for calorie and macronutrient content."
Nah, we want to compare people randomly assigned to eat the two diets, but the nutrients and calories are what they
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We all know the main problem of UPFs is they encourage overeating, largely through a combination of tastiness, convenience, reduction of fiber, and being "pre-chewed".
I agree with most of what you said, and with the sentiments of the two commenters above you. But we need to do our best to get the causal links correct.
The (effectively) addictive nature of UPF's is, as you noted, a major problem. Even at that, it's not just the over-eating that's problematic - it's also the repeated blood sugar spiking which leads to insulin resistance, which then leads to a whole raft of other problems. As it happens, I have too much personal experience with this.
But other harms caused by
Re: We know. (Score:2)
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The issue for me seems to be that soooo many people don't understand anything about statistics or probability, nor actuarial tables. Most people, if they know anything a
Re: We know. (Score:2)
Possible they also led otherwise healthier lives? Assuming they weren't sitting all day watching their phone.
Re: We know. (Score:2)
When we compare people to determine things like this we make timely comparisons so they are compared to other groups at the same time. Therefore the people not staring at phones were compared with other people not staring at phones.
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The other set of grandparents, he was an avid gardener, kept himself in shape, ate well, after his 4th or 5th hea
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Non-smokers also get lung cancer. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law both died of lung cancer and my sister is currently being treated for it, and all of them are/were non-smokers and grew up in non-smoking households.
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Anecdote is not data.
Your grandparents were lucky.
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The difference between anecdote and data is a clip board.
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The issue for me seems to be that soooo many people don't understand anything about statistics or probability, nor actuarial tables. Most people, if they know anything at all about statistics, only repeat the tired old refrain about how the best way to lie is through statistics or some such nonsense.
Indeed. The fact of the matter is that the average person does not really understand anything, but makes decisions based on "gut feelin", peer-group behavior and recommendations by celebrities and such nonsense and thinks they are in possession of deep insight. In actual reality, statistics work and can give us a lot. Obviously, there are misleading ones around and sometimes they are somewhat hard to spot. Typically, careful reading what is actually stated is all it takes though. Outright lies are rare thes
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Sure. many statistics are crap. That is nto the point. The point is whether the bad ones are easy to spot and I claim they are. Just that most people do not have the minimal clue that is required to do so.
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Lad!!! not lady!!!
I'm very glad you clarified that - I was busy wondering what I had missed for all these years when I had assumed that you were a man. Good to know my assumption was correct.
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What else do we all "just know"? (Score:2)
We do. We also know, Democrats cheated in 2020, don't we?
Is not it convenient, when it is always the opponent, who is stuck with the burden of proof, and can be dismissed as a "liar" because he has "no evidence"?
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Too many people are not interested in truth. They just want to "win". Obviously, they lose long-term because they never actually figure anything out and are easy to manipulate in believing the most bizarre crap. In politics, this behavior known as "voting bread and games". You can do it until there is no bread and no games left or the rich have taken them all. And then things go to hell.
Just to be pedantic (Score:2)
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No translation of this type can be literal. Your guess is not better than mine.
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The words do translate as that. But the expression is not merely the words. Incidentally, there is zero need for me to translate literally (which only the incompetent do anyways) when I am not referencing a source.
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Wouldn't circenses translate to any entertainment in an arena?
In modern English I don't see how games (or concerts even) is a worse translation to circuses.
I've only seen it as bread and circuses, but I don't see how bread and games is a worse translation, and a literal one would be more wordy than either.
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Re: We know. (Score:3)
I'm no doctor but I think if you're eating cigarettes you're doing it wrong.
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Probably healthier than smoking them.
Re: We know. (Score:2)
Vaping?
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People were sold vaping as "less unhealthy" as smoking but evidence is mounting that vaping is bad also.
Re: We know. (Score:2)
Yeah I figured as much when I see people surrounded in a cloud of essentially artificially-flavored steam.
Back to eating them for me!
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Good thing most people don't eat cigarettes.
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Actually, there is proof. Medical statistics has advanced a _lot_. Well, unless you classify things like 99% certainty as "there is no proof". In that case, there would not even be proof that humans die from old age. After all, there are 8 billion around that have not died. Since the pandemic we know there are a lot of idiots around that will actually believe bizarrely unlikely crap because of a miniscule uncertainty in the results.
Don't eat that garbage food.
Not even that. Do not only or mainly eat garbage food. If you do, have a loo
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There is a difference.
All of the substances in a cigar/cigarette are toxic.
Most of the substances in an alcoholic beverage are also toxic, but you never drink straight ethanol.
Everything in Cannabis is toxic to you, which is why "smoking" it is as bad as smoking cigars.
Guns kill indiscriminately. So anyone owning a gun, likely knows someone who has used a gun on a human or an animal.
With processed foods, we run into a problem. Nothing in the processed food is toxic unless consumed in large enough quantities
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For one review, published in the British Medical Journal, researchers pooled the results from 14 studies involving nearly 10 million people. After crunching the data, the researchers determined that the consumption of ultra processed foods was associated with a higher risk of premature death.[3] Other research has linked high consumption of ultra processed foods with the following health problems:
Heart disease and heart attacks.
Stroke.
High blood pressure.
Depression.
Overweight and obesity.
Diabetes.
Reduced HD
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The problem with pooling studies is that the population is only as diverse and random as the underlying studies were, making it harder to eliminate bias. You're way better off doing large-scale case-control observational studies, where you're able to match individuals based on their characteristics 1:1 between the control and experiment arms and more precisely compensate for differences in the two populations.
You're also at the mercy of inconsistent definitions of "ultra-processed". Does adding nitrates a
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Processed meats with nitrates cause cancer and other diseases.
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Processed meats with nitrates cause cancer and other diseases.
Likely, yes. Of course, nitrates are also vasodilators, which means they lower your blood pressure, and can potentially reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, so curing meat is very much a mixed bag. And pooling studies of nitrates for cancer with studies of high fructose corn syrup for cardiac disease could result in entirely missing the nitrate reduction in blood pressure, creating a skewed picture of the world.
Either way, the point I was trying to make was that as soon as you allow the celery po
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I don't know about plastic much, but we could certainly have rules on if it can shed materials or whatever.
2 seems insane to me - much of the cost and waste or things needed to be recycled is in single serving packaging. Yes, from a food perspective I guess it doesn't matter much, but from an environmental and economic perspective it sure does.
3. Many states have just mandated people bring their own bags - which I think is silly and probably wrong about plastic use / environmental improvement, but we'd have
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Well with smoking there was something well defined about it. "Ultra-Processed Foods" isn't well defined. Of course it might be plausible that some ways of processing food might have an impact on health, but it's probably not the amount of processing that goes into food.
Plus there is a simple explanation which could explain the correlation. People who are poor and have lots of stress because they need to work long hours and multiple jobs, tend to die younger and tend to have less time/money to cook for thems
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It's not just poor people buying UPFs.
Everybody eats them because they are engineered to taste good, they don't fill you up so you eat more and they are ubiquitous.
It's hard to avoid them.
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>it is impossible to control someones diet for extended periods of time.
Illegal, not impossible.
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Reminds me of the old debate about smoking and cancer which went on for years. Tobacco companies said there is no "proof" that smoking causes cancer as they evidence that it does cause cancer mounted.
AFAIK there is still no "proof" that smoking causes cancer but we all know that it does.
I don't like these arguments because they are unfalsifiable and "proof" isn't a useful evidentiary threshold in the first place.
In my view the most pressing issue is the "pinning down which aspect of those processes might be to blame" since the category is so broad and nebulous. Telling people to avoid 70% of the food in the grocery store because it is bad for them is unrealistic and exacerbates warning fatigue.
If there were more specific advice.. this specific ingredient is bad, that process is bad then i
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This isn't helpful. First, we know why cigarettes cause cancer. We have been able to identify the carcinogens. But, secondly, "ultra processed foods" is an extremely undefined umbrella term, which became all too apparent to me when I started learning to cook seriously.
Here is an example of something "ultra processed": black coffee.
First you grow the coffee trees. Then you need to remove the "beans" (pits) from the berries. Those then need to be dried, roasted, ground to a powder and then finally you create
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Read the ingredients list on a loaf of store bought bread.
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Are you trolling? Did you even read my reply? What is your point in relation to what I wrote? That long ingredient lists, or names of additives that are difficult to pronounce are an indicator of toxicity? If so, that's pseudoscience. Dihydrogen Monoxide is not only perfectly good for you in appropriate doses but a lack of it can cause death.
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There's a key difference between smoking and UPF, the main one being it's not clear exactly what part of UPF is unhealthy and the definition of UPF is insanely wide.
Don't eat that garbage food.
UPF include things like bread (I assume you don't bake your own) or cereal (I assume you don't make your own) both of which are actually associated with positive health outcomes. Additionally UPF by definition can include things with fairly innocuous ingredients. Sure we like associating it with deep fried mechanical reclaimed emulsified garbage
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Read the ingredients list on a loaf of store bought bread. Lots of odd chemicals.
(I bake my own bread with whole wheat flour, water, yeast... that's all)
(I eat muesli which I mix up myself from organic oats, walnuts, and raisins... none of the chemicals that you find in store bought cereal.)
A more complete list:
1. Additives in breadmaking
The main classes of additives used in breadmaking are: (i) oxidants/reductants; (ii) emulsifiers; (iii) hydrocolloids; and (iv) preservatives. Maximum dosages permitted may
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That sounds scary. They have big names. Some of them even have "acid" in the title and we all know that burns skin!
So let's just google one of them: "Ascorbic acid"
Ascorbic acid is an essential nutrient in human diets, and necessary to maintain connective tissue and bone. Its biologically active form, vitamin C, functions as a reducing agent and coenzyme in several metabolic pathways. Vitamin C is considered an antioxidant.
Well shit that one sounds like it's not only good for you, but necessary in your diet
Re: We know. (Score:2)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0... [nytimes.com]
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You've cut-and-pasted a long laundry list of "ingredients in bread", but I'm not sure what the underlying point is that you are trying to make.
Glancing through your list: Of the first three items that you posted, #2 is "ascorbic acid" and #3 is "L-cysteine". Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. Zero health risk there. L-cysteine is a commonly-occurring amino acid. Zero health risk there. Item #1 is azodicarbonamide, which *might* indeed be a health risk, but which has also been removed from most bakery products
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But processing is necessary. Flour is processed grain. Some of the problem here is that there are non-scientist nutritionists (an unlicensed field) who just repeat nonsense, or who extrapolate based on just a few studies. There's the group that insists paleo is the best diet because handwaving says it is true. It is very common for one causal link to be the wrong way around. Ie, the statistic that those who drank one glass of wine a day were healthier led some to believe it was the wine that was healthy,
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Yes, the subject of nutrition seems to attract lots of controversy because everyone thinks they are an expert.
Your hypothesis of poor people eating more UPF is just wrong and disproved by all the studies which have been done.
The definition of UPF is well defined. It's not just processed or cooked, etc.
Some foods are highly processed or ultra-processed. They most likely have many added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, and artificial colors or preservatives. Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from sub
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Yes processing is necessary. That is why they use the word "ultra" to separate it from the traditional non-industrial food processing.
They don't think that the fact that the bread was made in a factory is a problem in itself, nor are the ingredients problem. Problem is that humans eat UPF 500 calories per day more more than they eat processed food, because it is so easy to eat it.
Here is a nice study comparing processed and ultra processed food explained:
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/... [nih.gov]
Re: We know. (Score:2)
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AFAIK there is still no "proof" that smoking causes cancer but we all know that it does.
Sorry, but if we ALL know (and we do), then that is really all the proof necessary. Especially after a few billion in settlements.
And I’m pretty sure the mandatory warning labels on tobacco products, along with every medical questionnaire from every profession and specialty wanting to know if you’ve ever even consumed a single cigarette, tends to speak volumes as to how much the “proof’ is in our face and theirs.
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Already done [nih.gov]:
Currently, no mechanisms have been demonstrated that could explain the correlation between vaccination and the development of autoimmune diseases. Furthermore, epidemiological studies do not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause systemic autoimmune diseases. The only confirmed associations, although very rare, are those between the flu vaccine and Guillain-Barré syndrome, especially with old vaccine preparations, and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and thrombocytopenia.
Now offer up your excuses so we can move on.
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Ah the appeal to authority. So convincing, its not like the FDA wasn't telling us Cigarettes were not hazardous as recently as 1963 or anything.
Appeal to Authority is not a logical fallacy when the authority cited is actually an expert in the field under discussion.
-The expert can still be wrong, humans are fallible.
-Refusing to acknowledge expertise is Dunning-Kruger / misplaced ego.
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I think it is quite complicated and still mostly not understood which is why it is hard for you to get an answer, because UPF is not a single item. Best explanation that I know is this quite long, but interesting video from the Royal Institution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The video explains some chemicals ( https://youtu.be/5QOTBreQaIk?t... [youtu.be] ). For example for artificial sweeteners: When you taste a sweet taste, it prepares your body to receive sugar. And when sugar does not arrive, bad things happen t
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The 15 science studies I referenced measured UPF consumption and controlled for the other factors you think might have influenced the outcome.
As far as which chemicals are causing the problem, this has also been studied.
Take a look at the ingredients list on a store bought loaf of bread, for example. Lots of chemicals that you would never add to homemade bread.
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Take a look at the ingredients list on a store bought loaf of bread, for example. Lots of chemicals that you would never add to homemade bread.
That's not an answer, and that is precisely the problem here. UPF isn't properly defined and thus the exact mechanism which makes it bad for your health hasn't been identified. Bread is a great GREAT example. It's the one cited often as classified as UPF despite producing positive health outcomes in those who eat it due to its high dietary fibre intake. Lumping bread in with mechanically reclaimed meat moulded and deep fried, freeze dried, and packaged with endless array of preservatives is nonsensical from
yeah no shit (Score:4, Insightful)
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the definition of "Ultra-Processed Food" is so broad as to be meaningless. Mixed nuts are an ultra-processed food.
I agree the category is fairly broad, for instance protein shakes and protein bars are ultraprocessed though both are often used by athletes so probably not that unhealthy.
But mixed nuts? I don't know where you're getting that from. Roasted nuts [theguardian.com] are classified as minimally processed, white salted or sugared roasted nuts are "processed".
Just main mixed nuts would be unprocessed.
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The definition is not broad.
Name a food and I’ll tell you if it’s ultra processed.
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Bread. Is it ultra processed or isn't it?
Store bought mass-produced bread: yes
Bread baked in the store: maybe?
But under some definitions, even homemade bread made of nothing but flour, salt, water, yeast is considered "ultra processed."
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This is precisely the problem. Nobody defines it, they just cite examples.
"Ultra-processed foods such as sausage, candy, and breakfast cereal."
But what is it exactly that makes them "ultra-processed" and how can I apply that rule to determine if other foods qualify?
I would argue that it's not the processing at all, but the ingredients. Bread, for example, is "ultra-processed" but if homemade, can be very good for you, while the squishy white stuff from the store, not so much.
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> Mixed nuts are an ultra-processed food.
Citation needed. If the ingredients are peanuts, cashews and almonds, that's not an UPF. If it has a long list of ingredients you can't pronounce, then it's an UPF.
Credit the Master Chef. (Score:2)
the definition of "Ultra-Processed Food" is so broad as to be meaningless. Mixed nuts are an ultra-processed food.
If it helps, the rest of the civilized food-bearing world has an easy way to identify Ultra-Processed Food.
They just call it “American”.
Unfortunately calling it “food” is against 537 by-laws, 894 regulations, 267 ordinances, and banned in at least 90 countries.
Re: yeah no shit (Score:2)
Not sure if that's the case in every country but where I live, most food products have nutritional values indicated per 100g. So it's easy to check the percentage of fat and sugar, for instance.
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Just keep in mind how we got to this point. Processed foods play a "base load" role in the food supply chain, to use an electric utility metaphor. They come from efficiencies developed to feed billions of people. What would it be like if you were sharing the contents of the perimeter of your store with everyone else in town? An unprocessed future of food is expensive and exclusive, at least until population declines change the food supply equation.
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I have a bag of wheat, but I'd prefer that someone grind it into flour first. I've got some raw milk but please, someone pasteurize it so I stay healthier. We NEED some processing because the world is just not set up right now for everyone to only eat unprocessed foods. We will have massive food spoilage, difficulty in shipping food, etc. We can't all live on a farm, or even near a farm. Same for people who think we shouldn't use fertilizers on farms, but we cannot feed the world without it and major r
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It seems you missed reading the parts just after your quote.
I discuss simple processing vs ULTRA processed...and most of my post was how the individual can discern between ultra processed foods, not so much a scientific study.
It's common sense for the genera
No one can even define (Score:4, Insightful)
The only certainty is doubt. (Score:3)
Not surprising, we can't know lots of things (Score:4, Interesting)
This is hardly surprising. For any study teasing out some bit of dietary advice, there are three other studies finding four different things.
How about we try to figure out basic things, such as what are reasonable amounts of fats, carbs, and protein for any given person, and why that answer is different from person to person? Once we have that surrounded, we can get into more subtle things like food preparation.
Biological systems are fiendishly complicated and IMHO it's unlikely we'll ever pin things down in neat equations.
UPF isn't a useful category (Score:2)
There isn't any single definition of what constitutes an ultra processed food. Some countries have tried to create definitions, but the definitions tend to be contorted messes of exceptions and inclusions meant to limit the UPF designation to foods that are actually unhealthy.
Raw chicken is minimally processed, but it isn't good for you. Tofu is a UPF by almost every definition except for the ones that specifically exclude it, but it's actually a healthy (if tasteless) choice.
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Too much of the wrong stuff, too conveniently (Score:5, Insightful)
While the definition is unreasonably inclusive, generally speaking:
UPFs will have a lot of compounds in them that humans didn't evolve to handle in our digestive tracts, or, in many cases, stuff we evolved with but not in the quantities present in these foods. That's bad.
UPFs are more likely to be consumed as a convenience. If they're consumed almost exclusively, then you might draw the conclusion that the person consuming them is more interested in convenience than a healthy diet. And from there you might draw the conclusion that they approach live in general like that.
So there's two reasons I can think of that people who eat a lot of UPFs might be less healthy than those who don't.
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Indeed. I would expect that people that actually look how much salt, sugar, artificial flavoring, etc. are in UPF and then make reasonable choices, can actually live healthy off them. Of course it is easier to just not consume a lot of UPF. Have a care what you eat, take time to eat, vary what you eat. That gives you the benefits.
That does really not matter (Score:2)
Yes, we do not know whether ultra-processed foods are really unhealthy in general. But it really does not matter. We know that people that have a care about what they eat live longer and healthier. Whether that is because they tend to eat less ultra-processed foods really does not matter much.
Hence, Caveat Emptor. Make sure you know what you eat and have a care how much salt, sugar, artificial flavoring, preservatives, etc. you eat and try to eat fresh and green stuff regularly. That will give you the benef
The lawsuits if UPF were proven to be harmful? (Score:2, Insightful)
Every food maker would be at risk. The payout could top a $T.
Nutrition is fad driven. (Score:3)
Sure, but⦠(Score:2)
what we're missing are more definitions.. (Score:2)
It's social class!!! not nutrition (Score:2)
Bullshit (Score:3)
If you track a large number of people long enough and get a lot of data, you can find the signal in the noise. "Proving" it is nice to have but unneccesary. Most likely Google and/or Apple could do this already using shopping and purchase data for people who wear smart watches and use fitness tracking apps.
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you can find the signal in the noise
Sure, you can find signal in the noise. The question then is if the signal is statistically significant. If you stop reading headlines and start reading actual studies (assuming that numbers with decimal points and letters like "p" don't scare you), you'll find things are far less bullshit than you think.
pastrami (Score:2)
salami
bologna
pep'roni
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What's the definition of "ultra processed"?
Is it something measurable, or some kind of food phlogiston?
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The definition of ultra processed food is quite long. To summarize and simplify, it is a food which you could not make in your own kitchen using normal kitchen equipment and materials you could find from your farm.
Ultra processed food according to latest definition is:
"Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary us
That's the problem with all studies (Score:2)
"There might be accusations of conflicts of interest, since researchers motivated to run these kind of trials may have an idea of what they want the conclusions to be before they started."
Well, yeah. It's been that way for a long time. And you're never going to remove bias from the equation even if all money for studies went into a big pool so that nobody knew exactly who funded it. You could get stuck with a researcher who's a militant vegan or a die-hard Atkins fan. The data can always be tainted or c
Not processing, it's the ingredients (Score:2)
Which processes specifically are harmful?
- Cooking
- Grinding
- Roasting
- Chopping
- Mixing
We could go on. Which of these cause nutritional harm?
A cooked chicken is more healthy for you than a raw one, but is more processed.
Margarine and butter are both "ultraprocessed" but butter is arguably better for you, to a point, and that's debatable.
Bread is clearly ultraprocessed, but the homemade variety is good for you, while the squishy white stuff from the factory, not so much.
Stop knocking "processing" and start