Conversations about processed, heavily processed, and ultra-processed foods always trigger people who recognize that it’s an imperfect measure. It should be interpreted as a heuristic, not a perfect 1D measure of a food’s healthiness.
As a heuristic it correlates quite well to many measures. The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
A simple example of the effects of processing would be considering an apple: Eating a whole apple is the healthiest because you consume all of the fiber and the digestion process is slowed because you have to break it down. Crushing it into something like apple sauce preserves much of the structure but now it absorbs faster and it’s easier to overeat it before your body can recognize it’s full. Processing it further to apple juice removes the fiber and now makes it spike your blood sugar and it’s easy to consume a lot of sugar.
Ultra processed would take this even further, packaging it in a container with added sugar and some preservatives for shelf life. This is where it enters kids (and adults) diets, where it is far removed from the unprocessed Apple it started as.
It triggers people because it's dumbing down something to the point of near uselessness. It's very much similar to the nonsense that is telling people not to eat "chemicals."
Congrats, you found an example involving a basic item that works. I suppose that means something, and now people should go drink unpasteurized milk and RFK Jr. was right all along.
The reason telling people not to eat chemicals is dumb is precisely because you lose the richness of the structure of the argument by taking the category of chemicals and casting them all in the same 1 dimension. Like saying, "Pharmaceuticals are dangerous."
Proponents of the dumbing down basically suggest just memorizing all the counter examples. Congratulations, you successfully reduced the problem of recognizing junk food down the problem of recognizing junk food. I'll avoid processed food except the processes that are good, like baking bread instead of eating raw flour, and it's good when it is bread but bad when it's cookies.
In reality, the measures that people need to legitimately follow aren't actually all that complex. You don't need to reduce it down to one dimension. You would be much better off if you just kept track of these 3 or 4 dimensions.
1. How many calories do you eat in a typical day.
2. How satiated they are after a reasonable number of calories.
3. If they aren't pooping well, eat more fibre.
4. If you really want to get nerdy about it, track macros.
Doing so isn't actually all that complicated. In fact, I don't think a lack of knowledge or recognition of the issues in their diets is the issue. It's really the harsh reality that people struggle to manage the vices they already are fully aware of, and telling them about the dangerous of "processed" foods doesn't meet this issue in any way.
This is a bad characterization of the processed food scale which suggests you haven’t actually read any of the research or the processed food criteria, you’re just assuming what it means.
Equating the research to RFK Jr is a strange attack, given that this is actual research that you’re dismissing and replacing with your own idea that you can sense if your food is healthy by some arbitrary criteria you came up with.
It’s also ironic that you dismiss it as a dumbing down and then propose your own extremely reductive criteria as a replacement which completely misses the issues being studied. It’s possible to have a eucaloric diet and eat enough fiber while also having significant negative health effects ranging from glycemic control issues to rapidly progressing cardiovascular disease.
>The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
False, based publicly available data, even data pushed by the UPF cultists there is no correlation between UPF consumption and 'Life Expectancy at Birth', 'CVD Deaths per 100K', 'Heart Disease Deaths per 100K', 'Cancer Incidence Rate per 100K', 'Stroke deaths per 100k', '%age Population with High Blood Pressure ISCED standard', 'Mean Systolic Blood Pressure (mmHG)', or shockingly 'BMI'.
In fact, in some cases there is an anti correlation such as life expectancy, now it would be absurd to suggest UPFs increase longevity of course but the reality is richer countries eat more processed foods and richer countries live longer.
This is completely false and easily refuted. I don’t understand how you’re calling the processed foods research a “cult” while also making sweeping claims without any sources.
> Overall, direct associations were found between exposure to ultra-processed foods and 32 (71%) health parameters spanning mortality, cancer, and mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and metabolic health outcomes. Based on the pre-specified evidence classification criteria, convincing evidence (class I) supported direct associations between greater ultra-processed food exposure and higher risks of incident cardiovascular disease related mortality (risk ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.37 to 1.63; GRADE=very low) and type 2 diabetes (dose-response risk ratio 1.12, 1.11 to 1.13; moderate), as well as higher risks of prevalent anxiety outcomes (odds ratio 1.48, 1.37 to 1.59; low) and combined common mental disorder outcomes (odds ratio 1.53, 1.43 to 1.63; low). Highly suggestive (class II) evidence indicated that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was directly associated with higher risks of incident all cause mortality (risk ratio 1.21, 1.15 to 1.27; low), heart disease related mortality (hazard ratio 1.66, 1.51 to 1.84; low), type 2 diabetes (odds ratio 1.40, 1.23 to 1.59; very low), and depressive outcomes (hazard ratio 1.22, 1.16 to 1.28; low), together with higher risks of prevalent adverse sleep related outcomes (odds ratio 1.41, 1.24 to 1.61; low), wheezing (risk ratio 1.40, 1.27 to 1.55; low), and obesity (odds ratio 1.55, 1.36 to 1.77; low).
I’m amazing how anti-science this conversation always becomes on HN, with those who don’t understand the research claiming to have the scientific upper hand.
Mortality Europe: Sweden, Norway, UK, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, all the highest consumers of UPFs and by far the longest lived, France somewhat on the fence for UPF consumption only at 30%, Malta and Switzerland comparable to France for longevity and UPF consumption.
Croatia, Lativa, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, have the lowest consumption and the shortest lives. Cancer incidence rate is lowest in Sweden - the country in Europe that consumes the most processed foods, cvd deaths (and incidence rates) peak in Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, heart disease is the same story but we add in Czechia (30% of diet is UPF like the middling France group).
Stroke deaths lowest in Ireland, Norway, UK, Austria, Switzerland, highest (by miles) in Romania, Latvia, then Croatia, Lith.
Romania has relatively low blood pressure (survivorship bias?) but again it's the same story, rich countries have it better despite high UPF consumption.
UK and Ireland are admittedly pretty fat, but so are Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus and besides Sweden, Norway, Germany, Netherlands are not.
Even these diseases of affluence are uncorrelated on a national scale, you are being fed a lie that seems palatable because it makes sense on paper that "weird chemicals must be bad for you" you cultists are indistinguishable from RFK to me.
Lets see who is anti-science, do you believe aspartame leads to cancer?
Yet you cite nothing beyond country level data that you seem to be teasing the conclusion you want out of, when really you're just comparing income levels.
>"weird chemicals must be bad for you" "cultists"
Such a strange, profoundly unconvincing screed. Processed foods usually have high levels of salt, high levels of sugar, and usually an extremely high GI coupled with very low fibre. This is about as pro-science and demonstrated medically and scientifically that it makes your posts look absolutely insane.
On the contrary, I'm using the same data (including the monteiro set) as the cult and reaching different conclusions, alas I'm not published so if you want to see reality you'll need to do the analyses yourself if you're capable.
You seem exasperated by HN's general reaction to UPF myths and fables because you've previously been shown up on the same alarmist nonsense.
Ah, you're doing your own research. Okay. Super convincing.
>You seem exasperated by HN's general reaction to UPF myths
Huh? Bizarre. You are seeing factions that don't exist, and maybe HN isn't for you if you can't see people having a discussion/debate without veering into this extremist polarized nonsense.
Can you tell me what I've said that is "alarmist nonsense"? Can't wait to be educated.
>No answer on the aspartame question?
This conversation has absolutely nothing to do with aspartame, so I've ignored your cheap trolling and distractions. You were soundly debunked, yet you keep on with this bizarre, hyper polarized nonsense. If this site had a block feature I would absolutely just block your worthless noise.
How was I debunked, by you, the amateur using a paper by a psychologist and a nutritionist because you cannot do the work yourself?
Maybe HN isn't for you, Reddit's probably more your speed.
Aspartame is absolutely relevant to the discussion, but here especially because you broadly accused HN of being anti-science on this subject, I want to know your stance on aspartame to know how thought out your position is on UPFs or if you just consume the literature unquestioningly, I'll assume from your avoidance that you would answer in the affirmative?
Here on HN there are actually multiple people, and I wasn't the one that replied earlier with a specific citation (versus your ridiculous claim of cooking your own numbers, which you should understand convinces absolutely no one).
But a general observation that the more processed a product is the more likely it is nutritionally garbage is pretty universally accepted and is generally valid, however vague and debatable the specific tiers might be.
>but here especially because you broadly accused HN of being anti-science on this subject
Do you imagine yourself to be the universal "HN"? I made no such claim. Nor is there some pro-UPF faction dominating HN that you seem to imagine. Seems to be a pretty mixed group, many legitimately curious and learning and coming at it from different perspectives and levels of knowledge.
Then there's you, spouting nonsense and looking for an argument while you muddy the waters.
Again, though, your shrieking about artificial sweeteners again just betrays that you're a hyper-polarized person just looking for an argument at whatever cost. Humorously I've defended and encouraged artificial sweeteners on this very site many times.
I didn't realise you weren't the guy from earlier, so fine.
I am not shrieking, I'm cool a cucumber. In general I try to avoid this subject because of how divisive it is and because the loudest voice in the room is the one decrying the subject despite all evidence to the contrary.
It is absolutely reddit-tier to say "grass isn't actually green because these two people say so" only in this case the grass is behind an abstraction that requires a bit of minor gathering and analysis, yes my own analysis counts for nothing I am aware, but I encourage everyone to do it themselves, the data are free and ubiquitous.
Do I see myself as HN? no, but evidently the original guy sees himself pushing back against the tide of uninformed HNites without realising what that actually implies.
Not nonsense, not debunked, not shrieking.
Muddying the waters? maybe but I'm fed up of this fucking stupid shit popping up every other week on here and having sandal-clad neo hippies and anti-science right-wing fruitcakes sperging out.
Politics has nothing to do with it, it's about data.
I'm right of centre and think RFK is a fruitcake, I have no idea how the guy above is aligned politically but I do know he doesn't know wtf he's talking about.
Fiber is also beneficial for the "good" gut bacteria, as it feeds on fiber. Fiber also binds to your LDL "bad" cholesterol in the digestive system and helps to eliminate it.
Any system that can't tell the difference between a nutrigrain bar (which is a candy bar basically) and a turkey sandwich (which is fine) is gimped and useless and no longer has value.
Even your apple example is lacking! There's a difference between unsweetened apple sauce which is crushed and the most common applesauces which have juice and sugar added.
Ultra-processed doesn't automatically mean unhealthy. It's what it's made of and how it's processed, and the quantities you ingest that can make it unhealthy, just like some unprocessed foods can still be unhealthy depending on what they are.
Whole grain cereal with low sugar contents fall under ultra-processed, and it could still be more nutritious and less sugary than freshly squeezed OJ.
Whole grain cereal with sugar would be classed as 'processed' food as I understand it.
Examples of processed food:
> Canned or bottled vegetables and legumes in
brine; salted or sugared nuts and seeds; salted,
dried, cured, or smoked meats and fish; canned
fish (with or without added preservatives); fruit
in syrup (with or without added anti-oxidants);
freshly made unpackaged breads and cheeses.
It doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy but in reality there is a very strong correlation between food being processed and having too much sugar, salt , fat or other stuff. A lot of these foods are designed for addictiveness .
It depends on the classification system, but yes, whole grain cereal with added sugar and preservatives for shelf-life is often classified as ultra-processed.
That said, I think framing all UPFs or processed foods as "bad" misses the point. What really matters is the nutritional value of the food itself. A food being ultra-processed doesn’t automatically make it less healthy than a minimally processed one.
We should focus more on what’s actually in the food: the sugar content, fiber, protein, fat, micro-nutrients, rather than just whether it’s been processed or not.
TLDR: It's the label telling what is in the food that matters, not the processes it underwent, although that can be VERY helpful for certain people who value how their food is made for moral/ethical/health reasons.
This podcast had an excellent discussion of how “ultraprocessed” means whatever authors want. It seems like people who pay for expensive maple syrup, oils, tallow and butter are put on some pedestal and everyone else lives under the cloud of “ultra” something.
I've not listened to the podcast, but please note that processed/ultraprocessed have formal definitions that are followed by many studies.
These are the NOVA classifications, where processed and ultraprocessed are groups 3-4 respectively. These definitions have evolved over time [1], which means that it can be confusing to read different studies, when the formal definitions have changed after publication. So the best thing is to ignore the "ultraprocessed" category as a general term and instead read what the methodology was in any given study.
What researchers mostly don't do is lump all sorts of things into an undefined bucket of whatever processes and ingredients they think are unhealthy that day. This is what pop-sci media does, and may be what the podcast is railing does. But studies on ultraprocessed foods tend not to do this.
I'd recommend "Ultra processed people" be van Tulleken. He references the relevant studies, doesn't try to convince you to change your diet but gives enough food for thought. ;)
What really amazes me is seeing little kids at the playground etc, walking around and eating things like Cheetos. Not only is this ultra-processed junk terrible for them, it's programming them bad habits (and manners) to just free feed and roam around like that. Is it any wonder why America is so fat and unhealthy and so many struggle with eating issues? You don't see this behavior nearly as often in Europe, Asia, etc and it should come at no surprise that those kids are more mature and have better self control over American kids.
I don’t have kids but I was kid. We almost never had snacks. There were no parents that would bring snacks after soccer practice. You just ate what you got during regular meal times. And sometimes you would pack a sandwich.
Snacking is an American/Anglo world thing. As are terrible manners in general. Civilized people sit down and eat at the table, and that includes having their children do the same - even for snacks (there are some exceptions, of course). That also goes for devices at the table, either at home or restaurants (truly incredible that people abuse their children this way). Yes, I have very strong opinions on this as a father who's seen that there's another way called "being a parent".
>They can’t imagine going without food for a few hours.
The best example of this phenomena is the movies. People start snacking the moment they enter and continue through the whole show, which is a conditioned response that theatres quite literally created -- normalizing that it's a "part of the experience" -- for revenue production.
Can people really not fathom going a couple of hours without stuffing their faces? It's bizarre.
I feel the same way about flying. It's amazing how demanding people are to be fed on even short flights, when the whole process is just annoying and overbearing.
Which excludes the massive difference in obesity. No Wal-Mart motorized shopping carts in Europe.
> The color-coded visualization shared by Brilliant Maps shows that in many U.S. states, obesity rates exceed 30 percent, with some surpassing 40 percent. Southern and Midwestern states, such as Mississippi and West Virginia, report the highest levels, while Western states like Colorado and Hawaii have comparatively lower rates, though still above most European nations.
> Comparatively, obesity rates in most European countries remain below 25 percent, with some nations, particularly in Southern and Western Europe, reporting levels under 15 percent.
That's a binary, right? Either you're overweight or you're not. What about the magnitude of the overweight? (Asking because I'm curious about the data, not because I necessarily disagree with you)
"Ultra-processed food" is the new term for "junk food" for people who thought it needed three more syllables.
They're both vague you-know-what-I-mean terms, and don't have any place in research papers, which really ought to be asking more specific questions. Are ultra-processed foods bad for you? You might as well ask whether "yucky foods" are good for you, or what the health effects of "appetizers" are.
If you want to know if white bread or artificial colors or emulsifiers are unhealthy, ask that question directly instead of using this vague proxy category.
I am aware of the Nova classification. "Vague" was the wrong word for me to use. "Overly broad" is probably closer to what I mean. Just read Group 4's definition. If "ultra-processed" can mean a million different things, then it doesn't matter that you've precisely defined all the things it can mean, your study will still be conflating a million independent variables.
If you think emulsifiers are unhealthy, conduct a study on emulsifiers. If you think the absence of Nova group 1 foods is unhealthy, study that. I am questioning the value of studying foods with emulsifiers OR no group 1 ingredients OR added sugar OR were extruded OR were moulded OR which have "sophisticated packaging" OR have fruit juice concentrates OR hydrogenated oils OR etc. etc. etc., as if they formed a single scientifically meaningful group.
The math doesn't add up: even if the top 10% of US kids ate 0% of ultra-processed foods and the rest have 80+% in their diet, it would still be a larger average than the one reported.
> If the ingredients include artificial colors and chemicals that aren’t normally found in the kitchen, the item is likely ultra-processed.
Curious to see sandwiches included in the list (and the top "offender", no less). Home-made ones can be pretty healthy!
Edit to add: the study says:
> "Ultra-processed foods tend to be hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fats".
The study page also contains a more precise definition (using something called Nova classification).
Highly processed flour bun. Slice of highly processed cheese. Highly processed ketchup sauce on top.
An unprocessed slice of tomato and lettuce if you’re lucky.
Conversations about processed foods reveal a lot about how our perspectives have shifted so much. Something like a burger is stacked with highly processed items.
Unfortunately, getting "decent bread" is not as easy as it has been years ago even in countries having the best bread and largest variety in the world such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, ... Many small bakeries started adding artificial ingredients to extend shelf life, shorten production time or replace expensive ingredients.
Pretty much anything you get in mainland Europe is still tons better than the vague bread-shaped organic matter they sell at supermarkets in Ireland or the UK. Seems to be an Anglo thing because my experience in New Zealand was similar (can't speak to the US though).
That doesn't mean you can't find decent bread even at supermarkets, but it's not the default and quite a lot more expensive. The main exception in Ireland is Lidl, which sells decent bread for a decent price.
Sorry but this is UPF bread and their rolls are sometimes made in China.
> sell at supermarkets in Ireland or the UK
At least in London there are many shops now that sell bread that at least looks like bread (Ole & Steen, Gail's, ...). I can't remember any ingredient lists, so likely UPF as well...
Lidl has a bakery that sells fairly decent sourdough and some other breads. Definitely not made in China. Obviously I didn't mean that every single product at Lidl is good.
No, it’s flour, which is a heavily processed wheat product.
> mozzarella
Which is a heavily processed food that differs greatly from the input products.
> tomato sauce
Also processed. Likely has added sugar.
It’s interested to read these conversations and see that the frame of reference has shifted so much that obviously highly processed ingredients aren’t tripping people’s processed food detectors. Then the language used isn’t picking up on the processing (calling it wheat instead of flour).
My comment said higher processed. The enriched, bleached, white, non whole wheat flour is highly processed.
Putting it into bread products with flavor enhancing additives and shelf life enhancing preservatives like you see in the hamburger buns at the store would make it ultra processed.
> Are we going to have a discussion on the ultra-processed diet of the medieval peasant?
Are you intentionally missing the point? A medieval peasant processing whole wheat into flour and then making a recipe out of it without added sugar and preservatives is a lot less processed than modern white flour production that goes into hyper-palatable foods on the shelf.
The average pizza that kids or adults consume is not from fresh, hand-made flour like a medieval peasant. It’s from the industrial process and it generally has flavor enhancing additives (sugar). We’re talking Domino’s pizza for most people, not an artisanal handmade pizza with freshly ground flour.
>It’s from the industrial process and it generally has flavor enhancing additives (sugar).
Just had to jump in on this. We have gotten way too accustomed to calling out sugar as a particular villain in stories like this, and it misses the forest for the trees. It makes it easy to think that removing sugar suddenly makes a product healthy. In the same way that we as a society went through that very foolish period where we thought "low fat" made a product healthy.
An average pizza dough for a large pizza has about 270g of 00 white flour. 75% of that flour is glucose chained into starches, or about 202g of glucose.
The same pizza dough will have around 1.5 tsp of sugar, or about 6g of sucrose. About 3g of that is glucose.
So in that pizza dough people will often shriek and point at the 3g of glucose courtesy of the sugar, blind to the fact that the flour added an enormous 202g of glucose. Glucose that will end up as blood glucose extremely rapidly (the body close to instantly cracks starches of refined flours into individual glucose molecules).
I've harped on here about this a lot, but sugar is simply not the big problem people think it is, at least relative to many diets where it is absolutely dwarfed by the glucose contribution of simple carbs. And to be extra clear, such a meal is perfectly fine if you're highly active and follow it up by a game of soccer or a hike or some other venture that uses that glucose to feed muscles. But for the average person it's followed by doing nothing, and their already insulin resistant body goes through trials to deal with the flood.
It depends on the amount. In that example the sugar clearly isn't a problem, but if you're eating multiple donuts where you're getting 50g of sugar, then youre getting 25g of fructose.
And overloading your liver with fructose is linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, visceral fat and inflammation - just like drinking alcohol
Ignoring that medieval peasants were likely highly active and regardless had a short, brutish life, the flours at the time shared little in common with modern flours.
Medieval flour would have had the entire grain -- the bran, germ and endosperm -- ground into the resulting product. The product would be high in fibre and nutrients, and with a ratio of good fats as well.
Modern flour separates out just the starch endosperm and discards the rest, then refining it to an ultra digestible product.
Nutritionally the former is healthy. The latter is not great, especially for people with a caloric surplus and a sedentary lifestyle, where it's just a massive glucose blast as that flour is 75% almost immediately turned into blood glucose.
The article is abut "ultra-processed" food. It's fairly easy still to get non-UPF flour, mozzarella and tomato sauce at least in my country. Try the same with candy, ice cream, frozen pizza, cookies, fast food...
I was responding to a comment that said “highly processed”.
Regardless, the mozzarella and tomato sauce purchased from the local store inside of a package or jar with long shelf life is likely to be ultra-processed.
But discussing the best-case scenario where all ingredients are sourced perfectly is missing the point. When someone says pizza or hamburger they’re not talking about the theoretically optimal perfectly produced pizza to minimize processed food content, they’re talking about what people are really buying and eating.
> When someone says pizza or hamburger they’re not talking about the theoretically optimal perfectly produced pizza
I don't know what "garbawarb" meant with "basic pizza", a frozen one or pizza in general? I just argued that flour, mozzarella and simple tomato sauce are not the best examples for UPF.
The _real_ scandal in that horse meat thing wasn't so much the fact that it was horse, but the fact that, clearly, the traceability system had utterly broken down.
Part of the processing is to add something harmful or remove something useful either as the target of the process, or as a byproduct.
I give you a tomato, that's unprocessed. I squash it a bit and maybe add some salt? That's processed. I boil the hell out of it and mix it with 30 other ingredients (like salt, sugar, flavoring, preservatives, other additives, etc.), especially in large quantities? That's heavily processed or above. As you can see, the processing is what made a tomato worse for the health.
Not "necessarily", but "realistically". I think we need to start by clarifying what "processed" means from a practical (legal/commercial) perspective rather than common sense. What you call "processing" as a normal person, like boiling, frying, smoking, canning, fermenting, baking aren't necessarily even considered "processed" in the commercial sense. They're considered "preservation" (e.g. smoked fish) or "cookery" (e.g. bread). So almost every process that humans applied to food until the 19th-20th century was basic cooking and preservation, with a few exceptions of convoluted foods.
The modern interpretation of "processing" only begins at the next level. When the process has a lot more added steps and ingredients which in practice are almost guaranteed to be less healthy. But when we say "ultra-processed" it's guaranteed that it has significant health downsides. Ultra processed food has decreased nutritional content due to the processing, and high levels of unhealthy ingredients or components (like sugar, salt, trans fats, preservatives, and all kinds of other additives). Many ultra processed foods have more sugar, salt, or trans fats than they have the purported main ingredient. I'm just looking at a jar of "pistachio cream" that has 50% more sugar than pistachio.
So for all intents and purposes, in practice, processed food makes it less healthy and ultra-processed is synonymous with very unhealthy.
Here is where Robert can come in and do something good by disincentivizing ultra-processed foods with the tools he has available at the FDA. Sure, getting bad color ingredients out is good --now go for the gusto and disincentivize ultra-processed foods.
The quantity & quality of a child's diet determines how fast they age & their health later in life, its just crazy that US children now get 2/3rds of their energy from ultra-processed foods that are designed to be hyper-palatable & maintain hunger. Unfortunately, there’s just a lot of misinformation out there as it relates to diet (food pyramid being one of the most egregious examples). For one, although most ultra processed foods are bad, some can be actually beneficial for those with medical issues.
Conversations about processed, heavily processed, and ultra-processed foods always trigger people who recognize that it’s an imperfect measure. It should be interpreted as a heuristic, not a perfect 1D measure of a food’s healthiness.
As a heuristic it correlates quite well to many measures. The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
A simple example of the effects of processing would be considering an apple: Eating a whole apple is the healthiest because you consume all of the fiber and the digestion process is slowed because you have to break it down. Crushing it into something like apple sauce preserves much of the structure but now it absorbs faster and it’s easier to overeat it before your body can recognize it’s full. Processing it further to apple juice removes the fiber and now makes it spike your blood sugar and it’s easy to consume a lot of sugar.
Ultra processed would take this even further, packaging it in a container with added sugar and some preservatives for shelf life. This is where it enters kids (and adults) diets, where it is far removed from the unprocessed Apple it started as.
It triggers people because it's dumbing down something to the point of near uselessness. It's very much similar to the nonsense that is telling people not to eat "chemicals."
Congrats, you found an example involving a basic item that works. I suppose that means something, and now people should go drink unpasteurized milk and RFK Jr. was right all along.
The reason telling people not to eat chemicals is dumb is precisely because you lose the richness of the structure of the argument by taking the category of chemicals and casting them all in the same 1 dimension. Like saying, "Pharmaceuticals are dangerous."
Proponents of the dumbing down basically suggest just memorizing all the counter examples. Congratulations, you successfully reduced the problem of recognizing junk food down the problem of recognizing junk food. I'll avoid processed food except the processes that are good, like baking bread instead of eating raw flour, and it's good when it is bread but bad when it's cookies.
In reality, the measures that people need to legitimately follow aren't actually all that complex. You don't need to reduce it down to one dimension. You would be much better off if you just kept track of these 3 or 4 dimensions.
1. How many calories do you eat in a typical day. 2. How satiated they are after a reasonable number of calories. 3. If they aren't pooping well, eat more fibre. 4. If you really want to get nerdy about it, track macros.
Doing so isn't actually all that complicated. In fact, I don't think a lack of knowledge or recognition of the issues in their diets is the issue. It's really the harsh reality that people struggle to manage the vices they already are fully aware of, and telling them about the dangerous of "processed" foods doesn't meet this issue in any way.
This is a bad characterization of the processed food scale which suggests you haven’t actually read any of the research or the processed food criteria, you’re just assuming what it means.
Equating the research to RFK Jr is a strange attack, given that this is actual research that you’re dismissing and replacing with your own idea that you can sense if your food is healthy by some arbitrary criteria you came up with.
It’s also ironic that you dismiss it as a dumbing down and then propose your own extremely reductive criteria as a replacement which completely misses the issues being studied. It’s possible to have a eucaloric diet and eat enough fiber while also having significant negative health effects ranging from glycemic control issues to rapidly progressing cardiovascular disease.
But in your examples you might as well say "low-fibre" instead of "ultra-processed" and you would be closer to the truth.
>The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
False, based publicly available data, even data pushed by the UPF cultists there is no correlation between UPF consumption and 'Life Expectancy at Birth', 'CVD Deaths per 100K', 'Heart Disease Deaths per 100K', 'Cancer Incidence Rate per 100K', 'Stroke deaths per 100k', '%age Population with High Blood Pressure ISCED standard', 'Mean Systolic Blood Pressure (mmHG)', or shockingly 'BMI'.
In fact, in some cases there is an anti correlation such as life expectancy, now it would be absurd to suggest UPFs increase longevity of course but the reality is richer countries eat more processed foods and richer countries live longer.
This is completely false and easily refuted. I don’t understand how you’re calling the processed foods research a “cult” while also making sweeping claims without any sources.
https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310
> Overall, direct associations were found between exposure to ultra-processed foods and 32 (71%) health parameters spanning mortality, cancer, and mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and metabolic health outcomes. Based on the pre-specified evidence classification criteria, convincing evidence (class I) supported direct associations between greater ultra-processed food exposure and higher risks of incident cardiovascular disease related mortality (risk ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.37 to 1.63; GRADE=very low) and type 2 diabetes (dose-response risk ratio 1.12, 1.11 to 1.13; moderate), as well as higher risks of prevalent anxiety outcomes (odds ratio 1.48, 1.37 to 1.59; low) and combined common mental disorder outcomes (odds ratio 1.53, 1.43 to 1.63; low). Highly suggestive (class II) evidence indicated that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was directly associated with higher risks of incident all cause mortality (risk ratio 1.21, 1.15 to 1.27; low), heart disease related mortality (hazard ratio 1.66, 1.51 to 1.84; low), type 2 diabetes (odds ratio 1.40, 1.23 to 1.59; very low), and depressive outcomes (hazard ratio 1.22, 1.16 to 1.28; low), together with higher risks of prevalent adverse sleep related outcomes (odds ratio 1.41, 1.24 to 1.61; low), wheezing (risk ratio 1.40, 1.27 to 1.55; low), and obesity (odds ratio 1.55, 1.36 to 1.77; low).
I’m amazing how anti-science this conversation always becomes on HN, with those who don’t understand the research claiming to have the scientific upper hand.
I'm staring at the scatter plots right now.
Mortality Europe: Sweden, Norway, UK, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, all the highest consumers of UPFs and by far the longest lived, France somewhat on the fence for UPF consumption only at 30%, Malta and Switzerland comparable to France for longevity and UPF consumption.
Croatia, Lativa, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, have the lowest consumption and the shortest lives. Cancer incidence rate is lowest in Sweden - the country in Europe that consumes the most processed foods, cvd deaths (and incidence rates) peak in Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, heart disease is the same story but we add in Czechia (30% of diet is UPF like the middling France group).
Stroke deaths lowest in Ireland, Norway, UK, Austria, Switzerland, highest (by miles) in Romania, Latvia, then Croatia, Lith.
Romania has relatively low blood pressure (survivorship bias?) but again it's the same story, rich countries have it better despite high UPF consumption.
UK and Ireland are admittedly pretty fat, but so are Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus and besides Sweden, Norway, Germany, Netherlands are not.
Even these diseases of affluence are uncorrelated on a national scale, you are being fed a lie that seems palatable because it makes sense on paper that "weird chemicals must be bad for you" you cultists are indistinguishable from RFK to me.
Lets see who is anti-science, do you believe aspartame leads to cancer?
>I'm staring at the scatter plots right now.
Yet you cite nothing beyond country level data that you seem to be teasing the conclusion you want out of, when really you're just comparing income levels.
>"weird chemicals must be bad for you" "cultists"
Such a strange, profoundly unconvincing screed. Processed foods usually have high levels of salt, high levels of sugar, and usually an extremely high GI coupled with very low fibre. This is about as pro-science and demonstrated medically and scientifically that it makes your posts look absolutely insane.
On the contrary, I'm using the same data (including the monteiro set) as the cult and reaching different conclusions, alas I'm not published so if you want to see reality you'll need to do the analyses yourself if you're capable.
You seem exasperated by HN's general reaction to UPF myths and fables because you've previously been shown up on the same alarmist nonsense.
No answer on the aspartame question?
Ah, you're doing your own research. Okay. Super convincing.
>You seem exasperated by HN's general reaction to UPF myths
Huh? Bizarre. You are seeing factions that don't exist, and maybe HN isn't for you if you can't see people having a discussion/debate without veering into this extremist polarized nonsense.
Can you tell me what I've said that is "alarmist nonsense"? Can't wait to be educated.
>No answer on the aspartame question?
This conversation has absolutely nothing to do with aspartame, so I've ignored your cheap trolling and distractions. You were soundly debunked, yet you keep on with this bizarre, hyper polarized nonsense. If this site had a block feature I would absolutely just block your worthless noise.
How was I debunked, by you, the amateur using a paper by a psychologist and a nutritionist because you cannot do the work yourself?
Maybe HN isn't for you, Reddit's probably more your speed.
Aspartame is absolutely relevant to the discussion, but here especially because you broadly accused HN of being anti-science on this subject, I want to know your stance on aspartame to know how thought out your position is on UPFs or if you just consume the literature unquestioningly, I'll assume from your avoidance that you would answer in the affirmative?
Here on HN there are actually multiple people, and I wasn't the one that replied earlier with a specific citation (versus your ridiculous claim of cooking your own numbers, which you should understand convinces absolutely no one).
But a general observation that the more processed a product is the more likely it is nutritionally garbage is pretty universally accepted and is generally valid, however vague and debatable the specific tiers might be.
>but here especially because you broadly accused HN of being anti-science on this subject
Do you imagine yourself to be the universal "HN"? I made no such claim. Nor is there some pro-UPF faction dominating HN that you seem to imagine. Seems to be a pretty mixed group, many legitimately curious and learning and coming at it from different perspectives and levels of knowledge.
Then there's you, spouting nonsense and looking for an argument while you muddy the waters.
Again, though, your shrieking about artificial sweeteners again just betrays that you're a hyper-polarized person just looking for an argument at whatever cost. Humorously I've defended and encouraged artificial sweeteners on this very site many times.
I didn't realise you weren't the guy from earlier, so fine.
I am not shrieking, I'm cool a cucumber. In general I try to avoid this subject because of how divisive it is and because the loudest voice in the room is the one decrying the subject despite all evidence to the contrary.
It is absolutely reddit-tier to say "grass isn't actually green because these two people say so" only in this case the grass is behind an abstraction that requires a bit of minor gathering and analysis, yes my own analysis counts for nothing I am aware, but I encourage everyone to do it themselves, the data are free and ubiquitous.
Do I see myself as HN? no, but evidently the original guy sees himself pushing back against the tide of uninformed HNites without realising what that actually implies.
Not nonsense, not debunked, not shrieking. Muddying the waters? maybe but I'm fed up of this fucking stupid shit popping up every other week on here and having sandal-clad neo hippies and anti-science right-wing fruitcakes sperging out.
I think the guy read somewhere that not wanting to eat UPF is right wing aligned and then the politics brain took over.
Politics has nothing to do with it, it's about data.
I'm right of centre and think RFK is a fruitcake, I have no idea how the guy above is aligned politically but I do know he doesn't know wtf he's talking about.
Fiber is also beneficial for the "good" gut bacteria, as it feeds on fiber. Fiber also binds to your LDL "bad" cholesterol in the digestive system and helps to eliminate it.
Any system that can't tell the difference between a nutrigrain bar (which is a candy bar basically) and a turkey sandwich (which is fine) is gimped and useless and no longer has value.
Even your apple example is lacking! There's a difference between unsweetened apple sauce which is crushed and the most common applesauces which have juice and sugar added.
Ultra-processed doesn't automatically mean unhealthy. It's what it's made of and how it's processed, and the quantities you ingest that can make it unhealthy, just like some unprocessed foods can still be unhealthy depending on what they are.
Whole grain cereal with low sugar contents fall under ultra-processed, and it could still be more nutritious and less sugary than freshly squeezed OJ.
Whole grain cereal with sugar would be classed as 'processed' food as I understand it.
Examples of processed food:
> Canned or bottled vegetables and legumes in brine; salted or sugared nuts and seeds; salted, dried, cured, or smoked meats and fish; canned fish (with or without added preservatives); fruit in syrup (with or without added anti-oxidants); freshly made unpackaged breads and cheeses.
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/527...
IME "Processed" in popular usage means "ultraprocessed" so the "your bread is processed haha" people are muddying the waters.
It doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy but in reality there is a very strong correlation between food being processed and having too much sugar, salt , fat or other stuff. A lot of these foods are designed for addictiveness .
It depends on the classification system, but yes, whole grain cereal with added sugar and preservatives for shelf-life is often classified as ultra-processed.
That said, I think framing all UPFs or processed foods as "bad" misses the point. What really matters is the nutritional value of the food itself. A food being ultra-processed doesn’t automatically make it less healthy than a minimally processed one.
We should focus more on what’s actually in the food: the sugar content, fiber, protein, fat, micro-nutrients, rather than just whether it’s been processed or not.
TLDR: It's the label telling what is in the food that matters, not the processes it underwent, although that can be VERY helpful for certain people who value how their food is made for moral/ethical/health reasons.
This podcast had an excellent discussion of how “ultraprocessed” means whatever authors want. It seems like people who pay for expensive maple syrup, oils, tallow and butter are put on some pedestal and everyone else lives under the cloud of “ultra” something.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/17271368
I've not listened to the podcast, but please note that processed/ultraprocessed have formal definitions that are followed by many studies.
These are the NOVA classifications, where processed and ultraprocessed are groups 3-4 respectively. These definitions have evolved over time [1], which means that it can be confusing to read different studies, when the formal definitions have changed after publication. So the best thing is to ignore the "ultraprocessed" category as a general term and instead read what the methodology was in any given study.
What researchers mostly don't do is lump all sorts of things into an undefined bucket of whatever processes and ingredients they think are unhealthy that day. This is what pop-sci media does, and may be what the podcast is railing does. But studies on ultraprocessed foods tend not to do this.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6389637/
I'd recommend "Ultra processed people" be van Tulleken. He references the relevant studies, doesn't try to convince you to change your diet but gives enough food for thought. ;)
but that food for thought has been processed by others already...
What really amazes me is seeing little kids at the playground etc, walking around and eating things like Cheetos. Not only is this ultra-processed junk terrible for them, it's programming them bad habits (and manners) to just free feed and roam around like that. Is it any wonder why America is so fat and unhealthy and so many struggle with eating issues? You don't see this behavior nearly as often in Europe, Asia, etc and it should come at no surprise that those kids are more mature and have better self control over American kids.
My casual observation is that a lot of Americans are obsessed with snacking. They can’t imagine going without food for a few hours.
Honest question (and I’m not from the US), do you have kids?
I don’t have kids but I was kid. We almost never had snacks. There were no parents that would bring snacks after soccer practice. You just ate what you got during regular meal times. And sometimes you would pack a sandwich.
Snacking is an American/Anglo world thing. As are terrible manners in general. Civilized people sit down and eat at the table, and that includes having their children do the same - even for snacks (there are some exceptions, of course). That also goes for devices at the table, either at home or restaurants (truly incredible that people abuse their children this way). Yes, I have very strong opinions on this as a father who's seen that there's another way called "being a parent".
As a spaniard, we had the concept of “merienda” way earlier than any globalisation happened.
> Snacking is an American/Anglo world thing
It’s spreading. The notion that if a child is hungry the only solution is to feed them immediately.
Exactly. People seem to think being hungry is not acceptable.
Question as a parent: kids do need constant snacking now? I know some kids who do but they are overweight.
>They can’t imagine going without food for a few hours.
The best example of this phenomena is the movies. People start snacking the moment they enter and continue through the whole show, which is a conditioned response that theatres quite literally created -- normalizing that it's a "part of the experience" -- for revenue production.
Can people really not fathom going a couple of hours without stuffing their faces? It's bizarre.
I feel the same way about flying. It's amazing how demanding people are to be fed on even short flights, when the whole process is just annoying and overbearing.
Gentle reminder that while the US is somewhat more overweight than most of Europe, most of Europe is still pretty overweight!
72% overweight rate for US adults, 45-60% for most European countries.
https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sh-sta-owad-zs...
Which excludes the massive difference in obesity. No Wal-Mart motorized shopping carts in Europe.
> The color-coded visualization shared by Brilliant Maps shows that in many U.S. states, obesity rates exceed 30 percent, with some surpassing 40 percent. Southern and Midwestern states, such as Mississippi and West Virginia, report the highest levels, while Western states like Colorado and Hawaii have comparatively lower rates, though still above most European nations.
> Comparatively, obesity rates in most European countries remain below 25 percent, with some nations, particularly in Southern and Western Europe, reporting levels under 15 percent.
https://www.newsweek.com/map-reveals-obesity-rates-us-compar...
That's a binary, right? Either you're overweight or you're not. What about the magnitude of the overweight? (Asking because I'm curious about the data, not because I necessarily disagree with you)
"Ultra-processed food" is the new term for "junk food" for people who thought it needed three more syllables.
They're both vague you-know-what-I-mean terms, and don't have any place in research papers, which really ought to be asking more specific questions. Are ultra-processed foods bad for you? You might as well ask whether "yucky foods" are good for you, or what the health effects of "appetizers" are.
If you want to know if white bread or artificial colors or emulsifiers are unhealthy, ask that question directly instead of using this vague proxy category.
This is false. Research papers use formal definitions of what ultraprocessed means. The most common classification criteria are called Nova [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
I am aware of the Nova classification. "Vague" was the wrong word for me to use. "Overly broad" is probably closer to what I mean. Just read Group 4's definition. If "ultra-processed" can mean a million different things, then it doesn't matter that you've precisely defined all the things it can mean, your study will still be conflating a million independent variables.
If you think emulsifiers are unhealthy, conduct a study on emulsifiers. If you think the absence of Nova group 1 foods is unhealthy, study that. I am questioning the value of studying foods with emulsifiers OR no group 1 ingredients OR added sugar OR were extruded OR were moulded OR which have "sophisticated packaging" OR have fruit juice concentrates OR hydrogenated oils OR etc. etc. etc., as if they formed a single scientifically meaningful group.
> They're both vague you-know-what-I-mean terms, and don't have any place in research papers
This is false. There are specific criteria for these categories in the research papers.
It’s also acknowledge that it’s not a 100% perfect objective all-encompassing measure, but it is a very good heuristic.
I don’t know why some people read a headline and think they know more about the topic than the research papers (which they clearly also have not read)
Only surprised it is not higher to be honest.
Is it because its an average and the Gwyneth Paltrows have 0%.
If they broke it down to demographics then would show a divide depending on income/education levels, area and so on.
The math doesn't add up: even if the top 10% of US kids ate 0% of ultra-processed foods and the rest have 80+% in their diet, it would still be a larger average than the one reported.
> highly processed foods like burgers, pastries, snacks and pizza
Is a burger highly processed? Home-made burgers seem not to fall into that bucket. (Hot dogs, I can buy as being it, but burgers not.)
From the article:
> If the ingredients include artificial colors and chemicals that aren’t normally found in the kitchen, the item is likely ultra-processed.
Curious to see sandwiches included in the list (and the top "offender", no less). Home-made ones can be pretty healthy!
Edit to add: the study says:
> "Ultra-processed foods tend to be hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fats".
The study page also contains a more precise definition (using something called Nova classification).
Highly processed flour bun. Slice of highly processed cheese. Highly processed ketchup sauce on top.
An unprocessed slice of tomato and lettuce if you’re lucky.
Conversations about processed foods reveal a lot about how our perspectives have shifted so much. Something like a burger is stacked with highly processed items.
Just like the term "ultraprocessed foods" the term "sandwich" is very badly defined.
I can't determine whether the study differentiates between healthy home made sandwiches and junk food that contains some kind of "bread".
> healthy home made sandwiches
That would include baking your own bread which is not common in the US afaik.
Or just buying decent bread. The selection of breads in the average American supermarket seems pretty bad compared to what I was used to in Finland.
Unfortunately, getting "decent bread" is not as easy as it has been years ago even in countries having the best bread and largest variety in the world such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, ... Many small bakeries started adding artificial ingredients to extend shelf life, shorten production time or replace expensive ingredients.
Pretty much anything you get in mainland Europe is still tons better than the vague bread-shaped organic matter they sell at supermarkets in Ireland or the UK. Seems to be an Anglo thing because my experience in New Zealand was similar (can't speak to the US though).
That doesn't mean you can't find decent bread even at supermarkets, but it's not the default and quite a lot more expensive. The main exception in Ireland is Lidl, which sells decent bread for a decent price.
> exception in Ireland is Lidl
Sorry but this is UPF bread and their rolls are sometimes made in China.
> sell at supermarkets in Ireland or the UK
At least in London there are many shops now that sell bread that at least looks like bread (Ole & Steen, Gail's, ...). I can't remember any ingredient lists, so likely UPF as well...
Lidl has a bakery that sells fairly decent sourdough and some other breads. Definitely not made in China. Obviously I didn't mean that every single product at Lidl is good.
Is pizza? Basic pizza is just wheat, mozzarella, and tomato sauce. It's cooked, but I guess cooking is a process.
> Basic pizza is just wheat,
No, it’s flour, which is a heavily processed wheat product.
> mozzarella
Which is a heavily processed food that differs greatly from the input products.
> tomato sauce
Also processed. Likely has added sugar.
It’s interested to read these conversations and see that the frame of reference has shifted so much that obviously highly processed ingredients aren’t tripping people’s processed food detectors. Then the language used isn’t picking up on the processing (calling it wheat instead of flour).
Are we counting flour as ultra-processed now? Are we going to have a discussion on the ultra-processed diet of the medieval peasant?
The type of bread a peasant was eating was far, far different to the bread we eat today.
My comment said higher processed. The enriched, bleached, white, non whole wheat flour is highly processed.
Putting it into bread products with flavor enhancing additives and shelf life enhancing preservatives like you see in the hamburger buns at the store would make it ultra processed.
> Are we going to have a discussion on the ultra-processed diet of the medieval peasant?
Are you intentionally missing the point? A medieval peasant processing whole wheat into flour and then making a recipe out of it without added sugar and preservatives is a lot less processed than modern white flour production that goes into hyper-palatable foods on the shelf.
The average pizza that kids or adults consume is not from fresh, hand-made flour like a medieval peasant. It’s from the industrial process and it generally has flavor enhancing additives (sugar). We’re talking Domino’s pizza for most people, not an artisanal handmade pizza with freshly ground flour.
>It’s from the industrial process and it generally has flavor enhancing additives (sugar).
Just had to jump in on this. We have gotten way too accustomed to calling out sugar as a particular villain in stories like this, and it misses the forest for the trees. It makes it easy to think that removing sugar suddenly makes a product healthy. In the same way that we as a society went through that very foolish period where we thought "low fat" made a product healthy.
An average pizza dough for a large pizza has about 270g of 00 white flour. 75% of that flour is glucose chained into starches, or about 202g of glucose.
The same pizza dough will have around 1.5 tsp of sugar, or about 6g of sucrose. About 3g of that is glucose.
So in that pizza dough people will often shriek and point at the 3g of glucose courtesy of the sugar, blind to the fact that the flour added an enormous 202g of glucose. Glucose that will end up as blood glucose extremely rapidly (the body close to instantly cracks starches of refined flours into individual glucose molecules).
I've harped on here about this a lot, but sugar is simply not the big problem people think it is, at least relative to many diets where it is absolutely dwarfed by the glucose contribution of simple carbs. And to be extra clear, such a meal is perfectly fine if you're highly active and follow it up by a game of soccer or a hike or some other venture that uses that glucose to feed muscles. But for the average person it's followed by doing nothing, and their already insulin resistant body goes through trials to deal with the flood.
It depends on the amount. In that example the sugar clearly isn't a problem, but if you're eating multiple donuts where you're getting 50g of sugar, then youre getting 25g of fructose.
And overloading your liver with fructose is linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, visceral fat and inflammation - just like drinking alcohol
Ignoring that medieval peasants were likely highly active and regardless had a short, brutish life, the flours at the time shared little in common with modern flours.
Medieval flour would have had the entire grain -- the bran, germ and endosperm -- ground into the resulting product. The product would be high in fibre and nutrients, and with a ratio of good fats as well.
Modern flour separates out just the starch endosperm and discards the rest, then refining it to an ultra digestible product.
Nutritionally the former is healthy. The latter is not great, especially for people with a caloric surplus and a sedentary lifestyle, where it's just a massive glucose blast as that flour is 75% almost immediately turned into blood glucose.
> it’s flour, which is a heavily processed wheat product
Regular flour is processed, not ultra processed. If it’s sweetened and laden with preservatives it’s ultra processed.
The article is abut "ultra-processed" food. It's fairly easy still to get non-UPF flour, mozzarella and tomato sauce at least in my country. Try the same with candy, ice cream, frozen pizza, cookies, fast food...
> The article is abut "ultra-processed" food.
I was responding to a comment that said “highly processed”.
Regardless, the mozzarella and tomato sauce purchased from the local store inside of a package or jar with long shelf life is likely to be ultra-processed.
Luckily, Mozzarella here only contains milk, salt, bacteria and rennet and many tomato sauces are free from UPF ingredients.
You can find the same here.
But discussing the best-case scenario where all ingredients are sourced perfectly is missing the point. When someone says pizza or hamburger they’re not talking about the theoretically optimal perfectly produced pizza to minimize processed food content, they’re talking about what people are really buying and eating.
> When someone says pizza or hamburger they’re not talking about the theoretically optimal perfectly produced pizza
I don't know what "garbawarb" meant with "basic pizza", a frozen one or pizza in general? I just argued that flour, mozzarella and simple tomato sauce are not the best examples for UPF.
Pizza is processed. Frozen pizza is ultra proccessed
Home made pizza is fine. The frozen stuff is mostly terrible with too much salt, sugar and god knows what else.
Check what's in the tomato sauce and dough (hint: sugar)
"Simple" sugar doesn't make it ultra processed, it's the modified starch, glucose syrup, emulsifiers, ...
Sure, that's what I meant.
Indeed, adding sugar is a process.
I imagine low quality burger meat contains a lot of stuff, not just lean muscle.
Or even horse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
Horse tastes fine and I'd prefer it over UPF crap all the time.
The _real_ scandal in that horse meat thing wasn't so much the fact that it was horse, but the fact that, clearly, the traceability system had utterly broken down.
Why are we calling it processed foods when it is not necessarily the processing of the foods that makes it bad?
Part of the processing is to add something harmful or remove something useful either as the target of the process, or as a byproduct.
I give you a tomato, that's unprocessed. I squash it a bit and maybe add some salt? That's processed. I boil the hell out of it and mix it with 30 other ingredients (like salt, sugar, flavoring, preservatives, other additives, etc.), especially in large quantities? That's heavily processed or above. As you can see, the processing is what made a tomato worse for the health.
The term is perfectly apt.
But there is a widely supported hypothesis that humans evolved bigger brains because they started to cook their food.
Hence "processed" is not necessarily bad. And thus the term, imho, is not suitable.
Not "necessarily", but "realistically". I think we need to start by clarifying what "processed" means from a practical (legal/commercial) perspective rather than common sense. What you call "processing" as a normal person, like boiling, frying, smoking, canning, fermenting, baking aren't necessarily even considered "processed" in the commercial sense. They're considered "preservation" (e.g. smoked fish) or "cookery" (e.g. bread). So almost every process that humans applied to food until the 19th-20th century was basic cooking and preservation, with a few exceptions of convoluted foods.
The modern interpretation of "processing" only begins at the next level. When the process has a lot more added steps and ingredients which in practice are almost guaranteed to be less healthy. But when we say "ultra-processed" it's guaranteed that it has significant health downsides. Ultra processed food has decreased nutritional content due to the processing, and high levels of unhealthy ingredients or components (like sugar, salt, trans fats, preservatives, and all kinds of other additives). Many ultra processed foods have more sugar, salt, or trans fats than they have the purported main ingredient. I'm just looking at a jar of "pistachio cream" that has 50% more sugar than pistachio.
So for all intents and purposes, in practice, processed food makes it less healthy and ultra-processed is synonymous with very unhealthy.
Because a big majority of bad food is extensively processed.
Corn syrup is just a vegetable?
Yeah, so don't call it a vegetable either if you want to focus on its nutritional defects.
https://archive.is/8IavU
Here is where Robert can come in and do something good by disincentivizing ultra-processed foods with the tools he has available at the FDA. Sure, getting bad color ingredients out is good --now go for the gusto and disincentivize ultra-processed foods.
He could, but he's more focused on decreasing vaccine usage.
The quantity & quality of a child's diet determines how fast they age & their health later in life, its just crazy that US children now get 2/3rds of their energy from ultra-processed foods that are designed to be hyper-palatable & maintain hunger. Unfortunately, there’s just a lot of misinformation out there as it relates to diet (food pyramid being one of the most egregious examples). For one, although most ultra processed foods are bad, some can be actually beneficial for those with medical issues.