[HN Gopher] How a scientist is pushing to supersize research int...
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How a scientist is pushing to supersize research into ultra-
processed foods
Author : jyunwai
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-09-14 13:55 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
| hooverd wrote:
| What defines an "ultra-processed" food?
|
| Also, there are some amazing pictures in this article.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| You can use the Nova classification[0] which has 4 groupings.
| First 3 are nutritionally harmless, the fourth is highly
| processed.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
| RevEng wrote:
| You inserted a dichotomy that isn't present in that article.
| The article explicitly points out that it does not say
| anything about the nutritional value. It does not say that
| the first three are nutritionally harmless, nor does it say
| the implied opposite that ultra processed foods are
| nutritionally harmful.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Yes, and while there's a correlation that's worth noting,
| it really bugs me when people don't separate the concepts
| of processed vs unhealthy. If you refuse to tease these
| apart, you open up the door to marketing fruit smoothies
| and pizza and literal goddamn sucrose as health food on
| account of natural-ness or some inconsequential reduction
| in processing. I see this "health aesthetic" all over the
| place and conversations I overhear indicate that people go
| for it. This is not good and it's a direct consequence of
| fudging the distinction between processed and unhealthy.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I don't want to defend what's in those aisles of the grocery
| store I don't visit, but I have a problem with the
| definition. It amounts to a list of ick nobody should put in
| their mouth in any combination. The problem is that some of
| the supposed ick is marginal: Is a Pop Tart(tm) with a dyed
| HFC "berry" filling really, measurably, "worse" than a slice
| of toasted artisanal bread with farm to table butter and jam?
| You shouldn't eat either one in large quantities. One is
| obviously ickier, but, so?
|
| Whey protein vs tofu? One is in your favorite Hunan dish, the
| other is sold in tubs next to dubious supplements. But, so?
| stemlord wrote:
| Perhaps an urban myth but my general rule of thumb as a
| non-expert has been: more processed = more carcinogenic
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| Roughly speaking, if you remove Nova class 4 you are back
| at mid-century eating habits and I doubt anybody would dare
| to claim that they weren't much healthier than today with
| 2/3 of US population being overweight. "Unhealthy"
| groceries still existed, but the quantities consumed were
| much smaller.
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#/media/File
| :Li...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > mid-century eating habits
|
| So pies made with lard, sugar, and served with whole-milk
| ice cream?
| sabbaticaldev wrote:
| pop Tart has literally tens of ingredients, toasted
| artisanal bread with butter and jam has at maximum 10, all
| natural. Seems quite obvious the diference.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| He didn't ask if they were different, he asked if they
| were "worse". It is not obvious at all that having more
| ingredients equals worse.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I know there is a tendency to think of ultra-processed as
| bad, but perhaps a better way to think of these categories
| is that for the first two (or three) categories it is
| scientifically much easier to show that they are harmful.
| For the ultra-processed category there are so many chemical
| products inside the food, it is a lot harder to show harm
| or harmlessness.
|
| Think of risk profiles rather than harm amounts.
| aulin wrote:
| Curious choice of mustard as main picture of the article.
| Dijon mustard has like 4 ingredients: mustard seeds, salt,
| vinegar and bisolfite. Among processed canned condiments it
| must be the healthiest one.
| ufo wrote:
| Dijon mustard is processed, not ultra-processed.
| Pine_Mushroom wrote:
| Per the article: "made mostly or entirely from substances
| derived from foods and additives, with little if any intact
| [unprocessed] foods."
| hooverd wrote:
| Thanks, I missed that line.
| brokensegue wrote:
| So that includes cheese?
| ziggyzecat wrote:
| depends. DIY or that mid priced stuff from the supermarket?
| hirsin wrote:
| Cheese is a processed food, class 3. "Cheese products" like
| Kraft and Velveeta are class four ultra processed given the
| additives and way it's broken down and reformed.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| It is interesting to think of just how massive a shift the food
| industry, supermarkets and consumers would have to undertake to
| cut out high-processed foods (supermarkets would have to empty
| majority of their shelves).
|
| And then additional strides would have to be made to be convert
| restaurants (not to mention school cantinas) into actually
| healthy dining places. I don't think a single burger place would
| survive such an assessment.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > supermarkets would have to empty majority of their shelves
|
| I doubt this. The supermarket I go to would be about 1/2 empty
| if they removed processed foods. The rest is still largely
| taken up by the deli, meat, produce, dairy, and fresh foods.
| None of these are highly processed.
|
| > And then additional strides would have to be made to be
| convert restaurants
|
| Chain restaurants that supply themselves exclusively from
| Sysco. Almost all other restaurants actually cook with mostly
| whole ingredients.
|
| > a single burger place
|
| Everything there can be a whole food except the bun and the
| beverage. You're presenting this is as if it's a huge challenge
| when in reality it barely would be.
| RevEng wrote:
| I welcome some research in to this if only to put some credible
| evidence behind whether or to what extent processing of foods
| affects their nutritional value. I constantly see assertions that
| highly processed foods are killing us and causing obesity, but
| I've yet to see any credible evidence for it.
|
| Even reading the Nova classification, the scientific verbiage
| describing the ultra processed category could easily describe
| making egg noodles at home. Extrusion is how we get noodle
| shapes. Molds are how we get cakes and muffins. Emulsifiers are
| everywhere and are a common reason for adding egg to a recipe.
| Specific protein isolates less so, but we isolate compounds all
| the time when brewing and stewing. The only significant
| difference I see between group 3 and 4 is that they are spoken
| about in completely different registers that make one sound
| familiar and the other foreign.
|
| So please, put some sincere research behind this so we can
| finally get useful clarification on this subject.
| sabbaticaldev wrote:
| this is processed food. Processed food is fine. Ultra-processed
| food is processed food put into a plastic bag, shipped far away
| to be consumed 6 months after it was produced.
| maccard wrote:
| So tinned, or frozen veg?
| sabbaticaldev wrote:
| if it is full of preservatives, yes. Obviously, just frozen
| vegetables isn't ultra processed.
| bloaf wrote:
| This is not at all obvious. Freezing veggies involves
| washing, cutting, and blanching processes and vegetables
| may be subjected to ultrasound during freezing to
| accelerate the process.
| ufo wrote:
| No, those do not count as ultra processed.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Fruits and vegetables get processed, put into plastic bags,
| and shipped far away to be consumed 6 months after being
| produced all the time. None of that makes them ultra
| processed.
| hinkley wrote:
| Ultra processed food is foods broken down into base chemicals
| and stored in vats or boxes like it's baking soda for years
| before being turned back into food. Many things we make from
| corn in particular, and I would probably include commercial
| orange juice in this as well. I don't drink the stuff
| anymore. That's gross.
| dboreham wrote:
| I have/had similar thoughts. For example: it's all just various
| hydrocarbons that are going to be chopped up by enzymes, so
| what's the difference exactly which atom is where?
|
| My guess that the "processed food is poison" people are only by
| chance hitting on something. They have zero evidence and zero
| supporting data.
|
| However, I've come to suspect that the gut is a very complex
| thing, with a computer in it, and highly connected to the
| brain. Once you start to go down that line of thinking, I think
| it's plausible that they've identified a real problem. One
| possibility among many is that "corporate food" is the result
| of a giant A/B test series over a hundred years that has
| machine-learned the model embodied in the gut-computer. It's
| essentially a DoS attack. And so on. Suggest folk consider what
| if the gut has a neural network with various sensors and
| subject to training data.
| bloaf wrote:
| That's why I gravitate towards the 'hyper-palatable' label vs
| 'hyper-processed', to me it captures a more plausible set of
| criteria (engineered via fat/sugar/salt addition to maximize
| its appeal, etc) that cause a more plausible and specific set
| of problems (hijacking reward pathways to cause overeating,
| etc)
| nick3443 wrote:
| There is a Peter Attia interview with Michael Easter that
| explores this concept and anecdotally supports it, where he
| investigates a tribe (Tsimane tribe) with low obesity and
| cardiovascular disease, and his personal experience eating
| their plain and unseasoned diet compared to normal western
| foods.
|
| I normally dislike the typical podcasters/podcasts because
| of their self promoting and low information density nature
| but I thought this one was ok to recommend.
| jamesmotherway wrote:
| There's zero evidence showing the harm of processed foods?
|
| Consider that nutrition labels are largely focused on
| macronutrients. Carbs, fat, protein. Calories in and calories
| out.
|
| What processed food tends to lack are micronutrients found in
| fresh, high-quality produce. This goes beyond vitamins (which
| are becoming scarcer due to agricultural practices).
| Anthocyanins, carotenoids, and other phytochemicals are
| produced by plants as protective agents. Those same chemicals
| help mitigate the entropic forces the body is subjected to
| over time.
|
| Going back to macros, not all of them are created equal.
| Glucose syrup can have the same carbohydrate content as a
| sweet potato, but their glycemic index (how it impacts the
| functioning of the body) will vary. That doesn't get into the
| value of the fiber for the gut microbiome.
|
| The differences are there when looking beyond the surface.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Pray tell, besides satiety, what exactly is the difference
| between carbs from a sweet potato and carbs from glucose
| syrup, or just plain sugar?
|
| You're missing the other good stuff in a sweet potato
| (vitamins, fiber, some protein even), but carbs for carbs
| it's all gonna do the same thing.
|
| The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that it's
| much easier to eat a liter of glucose syrup than a few
| pounds of sweet potatos. If you could resist and turn off
| your body's hunger response, you'd be equivalently
| overweight. That's basically why GLP1 antagonists work. It
| turns that hunger response and makes it easier to say no to
| that extra slice of pizza.
| jamesmotherway wrote:
| Satiety is precisely it, and I would not be so quick to
| minimize its effect.
|
| Reasoning by analogy, most would accept that some people
| are better suited to extended release medication versus
| instant. A drug is defined as something that has an
| effect upon the body when it's ingested, especially in
| the context of the central nervous system.
|
| Carbohydrates are the preferred fuel source of the body,
| the brain included. Glucose syrup is simple (C6H12O6). A
| simple carbohydrate like glucose needs minimal processing
| to become "active," and it tends to be provided without
| fiber which would ordinarily buffer the overall glycemic
| index (impact upon the body). As a result, a spike in
| blood sugar and insulin occurs.
|
| The subsequent drop in blood sugar can lead to craving
| and excess consumption, and eventually insulin resistance
| over the long term. The reason why my initial comment
| seemed dismissive of "calories in calories out" is
| because it takes a myopic view of a complex system.
|
| If we view insulin sensitivity (among other factors) as
| either a positive or negative multiplier of the "calories
| in calories out" metric, I believe we'd be closer to an
| accurate view of metabolism and its impact on human
| health. Sure, we can just take GLP-1 antagonists to curb
| that appetite, but we could curtail it at the source as
| well.
|
| Just eat the damn sweet potato!
| gxs wrote:
| I get your point and I agree, but for me I perhaps inaccurately
| use processed as a proxy for calorie density.
|
| Working at a restaurant in college, I saw that a single plate
| of pasta they made during a busy night when it was hard to keep
| up could easily wind up an entire stick of butter. That's on
| top of the cream.
|
| Soda - tons of sugar packed into 12 oz.
|
| When you don't eat restaurant/processed foods at home, it does
| shock you a bit just what a giant volume of good 2,000 calories
| can be.
|
| This is all it means to me. I'm not out here trying to prove
| science, just trying to stay healthy.
| jampekka wrote:
| > Even reading the Nova classification, the scientific verbiage
| describing the ultra processed category could easily describe
| making egg noodles at home.
|
| It can't because per Nova for something to be "ultra-processed"
| it has to be "industrially manufactured". Unless you're
| involved in cottage industry I guess.
|
| "Ultra-processed" is a ridiculous categorization, a bit like
| some compounds artificially being labeled as "chemicals" and
| some not.
| Symmetry wrote:
| There are certainly certain categories of chemical that might
| be of interest. For instance you don't normally find
| emulsification agents in non-processed food but you do in
| industrial food, whether the particular chemical is made in a
| lab or extracted from some plant or other. But many, many
| other ways that we industrially manufacture food are
| obviously no worse than making our own noodles at home.
| jampekka wrote:
| E.g. agar-agar is an emulsifying agent. It's ground
| seaweed. As is chickpea wash. Both used for at least
| centuries.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Even the more exotic sounding stuff like xanthan gum are
| often stuff like fermentation byproducts. Totally
| organic!
| hinkley wrote:
| Xanthan on the other hand is a bacterial wash, isn't it?
| And we use it because guar got priced up by fracking.
| musicale wrote:
| I was excited when I found that I could actually buy
| xanthan gum in the grocery store; now I can make
| delicious foods at home!
| thoughtFrame wrote:
| My worry with processed food is that precise manufacture opens
| up the doors to producing all sorts of foods with an unhealthy
| imbalance of components. Specifically, that the unnatural
| surplus of, say, hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup,
| or whatever, is something that will have disastrous nth order
| consequences we can't predict, so it looks promising in the
| short term and corporations looking to maximize their profit
| will all doubtlessly do more of this.
|
| I only have slightly more than a passing interest in food
| science and nutrition, but from all I've learned my gut feeling
| is that I ought to avoid this stuff, and rely on cooking my own
| food as much as possible so I don't get into any imbalances
| (it's very hard to get a surplus of any macro or any other
| component via "natural" products)
|
| I don't have any evidence on the nutrition side, but it's
| certainly not an experiment I'd like to do with my only body.
| And in the psychological side, it's definitely something to
| avoid if we value our physical and mental health
| thucydides wrote:
| there are some fascinating hypotheses on what's caused the
| worldwide exponential increase in obesity in humans (and also
| some wild animals). here is the best summary i've seen:
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...
| jampekka wrote:
| Is this really a mystery? People eat more energy wise and
| move less.
|
| As to why people eat more, it's probably due to higher energy
| density food, advertising (especially to children) and lost
| norms about eating (e.g. sugary stuff is not "proper food").
| As to why we move less is less manual labor, more sedentary
| entertainment and increased use of vehicles.
|
| The obesity discussion seems to somehow deliberately try to
| avoid the obvious.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Why do you think none of the thousands of researchers
| within nutritional scientists have considered your
| explanation? That to me seems extremely unlikely.
| jampekka wrote:
| Many do and have a similar view. Maybe restating the
| obvious just doesn't make the news (or bring in grants)?
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1724823/pdf/
| v03...
| hgomersall wrote:
| Nutritional science has come on a little in the last 21
| years. Do you have anything more recent?
| thucydides wrote:
| "Is this really a mystery?" They address your question on
| the first page. Please read a few sentences of the article,
| or hey, even the entire article, before trying to refute
| it.
|
| A brief sample, though their whole argument is more
| complex:
|
| "People in the 1800s did have diets that were very
| different from ours. But by conventional wisdom, their
| diets were worse, not better. They ate more bread and
| almost four times more butter than we do today. They also
| consumed more cream, milk, and lard. Our great-grandparents
| (and the French) were able to maintain these weights
| effortlessly. They weren't all on weird starvation diets or
| crazy fasting routines. And while they probably exercised
| more on average than we do, the minor difference in
| exercise isn't enough to explain the enormous difference in
| weight. Many of them were farmers or laborers, of course,
| but plenty of people in 1900 had cushy desk jobs, and those
| people weren't obese either."
| jampekka wrote:
| They consumed less calories. As to from what diet those
| come from doesn't matter that much.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-
| caloric-...
| thucydides wrote:
| Let's assume this graph is correct. Why did humans 100
| years ago consume fewer calories? The body is a complex
| system with many homeostatic mechanisms. We stop eating
| when we're full (generally). What has adjusted that
| homeostatic thermostat upward? Why did obesity increase
| linearly for half a century and then suddenly increase
| exponentially starting in 1980? Why are wild animals and
| laboratory animals also more obese than 100 years ago?
| jampekka wrote:
| > As to why people eat more, it's probably due to higher
| energy density food, advertising (especially to children)
| and lost norms about eating (e.g. sugary stuff is not
| "proper food").
|
| Animals, wild and lab, are probably affected by human
| food production.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> Why did humans 100 years ago consume fewer calories?_
|
| Because they couldn't afford to eat more. In 1900, the
| average American household spent 43% of their income on
| food.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-
| ame...
| thucydides wrote:
| Guatemala (arbitrary choice) spent 35% of their income on
| food in 2016, but 66% were overweight or obese.
|
| I don't know what's causing obesity, but it doesn't seem
| to be income, given everyone worldwide exploded into
| fatness around 1980.
|
| And I'm not satisfied with flimsy hypotheses, such as a
| historically unprecedented worldwide diminution in human
| "willpower."
|
| https://opendataforafrica.org/atlas/Guatemala/topics/Food
| -Se... https://data.worldobesity.org/country/guatemala-85
| /#data_tre...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Because they couldn't afford to eat more."
|
| But people differ in their incomes. While there always
| were fat rich people, if food prices were the limiting
| factor, your average noble from the House of Lords of
| 1930 would be as fat as average people are today. And yet
| if you look at those black and white photos of important
| politicians, businesspeople etc., they were way less fat
| than an average contemporary student.
|
| This is the Pacific War Council in the early 1940s. Do
| you believe that those people, decision makers whose
| decisions affected lives of millions, couldn't afford to
| eat ad libitum?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wood,_1st_Earl_of_Ha
| lif...
|
| Today, they would weigh +15 kg each at least, and asking
| their doctors for tirzepatide.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Just because folks had access to tons of fats and such
| doesn't mean that this is causal to gaining weight. It
| has to do with how good everything tasted. The ability to
| have food that's just delicious has never been easier.
| Not just access to spices and seasoning, but access to
| premade ingredients that enhance taste. That also doesn't
| even account for access in terms of cost. It's never been
| cheaper to get calorically dense food than the modern
| era.
|
| Honestly, have you looked at a 100 year old cookbook?
| Most of the recipes are... crude in their implementation,
| to put it mildly.
| jajko wrote:
| I am going to be brutally honest here - I see it as some
| form of personal 'character' weakness, very common these
| days, haven't lived for that long to judge previous
| generations so harshly.
|
| To the gist - its supremely easier to be or move into
| position of weakness and victim, look for external blame,
| while staying very deep in comfort zone, aka fix my shit as
| long as I don't have to change anything in my life, I'll
| even throw a lot of money on it. Massive resistance to
| change that's not convenient nor pleasant at first sight.
| People throwing tons of money on diet fads, experiencing
| jojo effects, depressed about their self-image and feeling
| helpless, binging in anxiety attacks. Yet nobody taking gym
| ownership, personal trainer, throwing out all that
| chocolate and other junky food, amking any self-improvement
| plan that 5 year old can put together and sticking with it.
| And of course almost everybody moves much less, but gist of
| the issue is food, quantity and quality.
|
| It doesn't have to be about junk food per se, same is with
| parents basically giving up on raising kids and leaving
| screens and ad companies to do the work. Then complaining
| how young suck and are horrible and have no respect etc.
| While they themselves are glued to phones every day,
| addicted to the core, half laughing about it while
| scrolling further. Telling them to put it down for a day,
| spend time with them and kids (if they are still little,
| not much point pushing teenagers suddenly against their
| well-trodden addictive habits).
|
| Comfort zone is death of one's 'fighting' spirit, I mean in
| fighting-as-hard-as-possible-for-best-life-possible. No
| good stuff comes without some form of a fight, at least it
| didn't in my life. It just doesn't happen in that damned
| zone, not with social media showing folks what they could
| have been if they tried. I don't mean some artificial
| celebrities faking / pretending how everything is glorious,
| I mean your schoolmates or childhood friends who were not
| spectacular in any way, yet rewind 10-20 years and there is
| abyss in how their vs yours life looks like.
|
| I've 'lost' quite a few close people to such envy exactly
| because I was nobody special in any way yet somehow made it
| way further than most, from environment which expected very
| little from me. One way would be 100% quiet about
| everything good in my life or fake complain about
| everything, thats how many successful or rich folks live. I
| refuse to go over the board with that just to keep such, at
| the end subpar relationships. Rather accept people change,
| and one of benefits of non-family relationships is that you
| can finish them and create better ones as you change if it
| feels like the opposite is a mistake. I am currently in the
| process of losing my best childhood friend in same way too,
| not the greatest experience but unfortunately at this point
| unavoidable one.
|
| /end a bit off topic rant
| jampekka wrote:
| People do what's made easy and what makes them feel good.
| And what is advertised.
|
| While it's rather obvious that obesity is caused by
| excess energy intake, it is not obvious how to change
| this. I'm getting weight (luckily not at an alarming
| speed) and I know exactly why I am and how I could stop
| it, but I don't. Knowledge that it's a "character flaw"
| doesn't change that.
|
| I smoked for decades, knowing full well it's waste of
| health and money, and stopped only when smoking was made
| more difficult than not smoking (smoking bans,
| introduction of nicotine replacement products). I
| occasionally eat animal based products knowing they are
| destroying our environment, but eat them less now because
| of better plant based options.
|
| Humans are not rational agents and our free will is at
| most limited.
| vintermann wrote:
| How can personal character weakness be a thing that
| varies by century? That doesn't make sense. If we have
| less willpower than our great-grandparents, whatever that
| means, it has a cause outside ourselves.
|
| You can maybe blame individual differences in outcomes on
| personal character weakness, if you really want to, but
| when millions on millions of people fall to the same
| character weaknesses that very similar people didn't fall
| for before, then "personal" is exactly what it isn't.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| It's a combination of societal weakness/acceptance,
| marketing, and access to easier alternatives (eg, stuff
| that will make you fat) in my view. There's not one thing
| that does it, but years and years of... conditioning
| that's led us to this point.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| One person's problem can be a moral failing. Thousands of
| people are a systemic failing.
|
| Unless you think they literally just don't make people
| like they used to, if you swapped the babies in the
| cradle of the current generation with previous
| generations, we'd be thinner and they'd be fatter.
|
| So saying the problem is people is kind of meaningless.
| d0mine wrote:
| More research wouldn't hurt but is not like there is none e.g.,
| here's video on seed oil that does cite some research
| https://youtu.be/XJ_uyV-ER_g
|
| tl;dr seed oil is better than butter (saturated fat-wise), it
| is ok to heat it at home upto 200 Celsius, not ok "ultra
| processed" fastfood fries due to more heat, reheating (trans
| fat-wise)
| akira2501 wrote:
| > I constantly see assertions that highly processed foods are
| killing us and causing obesity,
|
| "Highly palatable" foods do this. One way to create those is
| through "highly processed" techniques.
|
| > but I've yet to see any credible evidence for it.
|
| Obesity is more common in the world where highly processed
| foods are more common. There is evidence. There is no RCT. This
| has nothing to do with "credibility" it's just "non-standard
| analysis."
| prisenco wrote:
| And highly palatable means processed foods are easier to
| consume in large quantities.
|
| So it's not just an issue of chemical composition but how we
| respond to these foods behaviorally.
|
| A 7.5oz bag of potato chips is made using around 6-8 medium
| sized potatoes. Eating a whole bag of potato chips in one
| sitting is frighteningly easy to do. But I challenge anyone
| to eat 6-8 medium potatoes at once, despite being around the
| same amount of calories.
|
| Going on a whole foods diet often results in weight loss
| without any increased hunger sensation.
| vintermann wrote:
| I agree. To me it always seemed a bit like insisting that foods
| from the first half of the alphabet are bad for you.
|
| Are they? Maybe! Alcohol, Burgers, Croissants, for all I know
| there are more bad-diet things in the first half of the
| alphabet than the last. It could even be that if we convinced
| people to buy less high-alphabet food, they'd be healthier. But
| that doesn't mean it's a sensible category. We don't "need more
| research into high-alphabet foods", we need a _causal_ theory
| of what makes food healthy or not. It 's pretty clear it isn't
| alphabetic priority, and it's also pretty clear it's not simply
| "processing".
|
| Most food needs to be processed in some way or another to be
| edible. I read a terrible catalog many years ago, from an
| alternative magazine, listing a ton of weird diets and
| questionable health practices. There were only a handful of
| things in that catalog of hundreds of things that even they
| warned against, and one of them was the "raw food diet".
|
| If it's benzopyrene from frying that's the problem, talk about
| frying. If it's micronutrients being lost from soaking or
| boiling or long storage with preservatives, talk about that!
| But don't dumb us down by putting it all in a box and refusing
| to engage with what actually makes it bad.
| spatalo wrote:
| upf is known to be bad for the microbiome and increases gut
| issues
| ufo wrote:
| Arguably the whole point of the ultraprocessed classification
| is to spend _less_ time micromanaging the nutritional value.
| The purpose is to separate the kinds of food that you can
| prepare and cook at home, from the kinds of food that only
| exist in a highly industrial setting.
|
| The latter optimizes for using the cheapest possible
| ingredients, with the longest shelf life, and to be hyper
| palatable. Part of the problem is that, to achieve those goals,
| industrialized food tends to be high in sugar, fats, salt, and
| calories in general. But looking at only those nutritional
| numbers is shortsighted. In the last decades we have seen all
| sorts of junk food that used their nutrition labels to
| masquerade as healthy food: diet colas without added sugar,
| sugary breakfast cereals that are "rich in vitamins", and so
| on. And those did little to stop the obesity epidemic.
| ziggyzecat wrote:
| Great to read someone wants to scale this!
|
| It would be amazing if the tech to test samples of anything
| edible could become a target of the DIY & Maker community. This
| has to be a citizen science effort.
|
| Production results vary. Just recently an acquaintance who owns a
| small coffee shop in a small town got a visit form the local
| public health administration telling him that they got a notice
| from a company that he purchased a product that is being called
| back due to xyz.
|
| We were all surprised that this system works so incredibly well.
|
| But in terms of health, there are just too many factors that
| impact individual bodies and brains while being barely relevant
| in samples of the general population. We need to build a database
| of human profiles whose health was impacted by something in their
| food. Of course, there's allergies, and nutritional coaches, and
| so on but those processes are incredibly long and people get lost
| and give up or often enough, nothing is found and the person is
| left to his or her own devices.
|
| I have a friend who reacts bad to some dairy products, whipped
| cream for example, but the intensity varies with the producer!
| And he tried some of the most expensive products and some are
| 'ok' while others produce pain. There must be traces of something
| that is simply not looked at when tested by food safety labs. And
| labs like that of the dude from the article are rare and cost a
| lot.
|
| A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned fertility rates and why
| some generations had worse ones than others. Not birth rates,
| fertility rates. Apparently there are periods in time where
| causes for worse fertility can't be deducted from research and
| economic data of the time. Microplastics and such didn't play
| that big of a role back then and the water, soil weren't even
| remotely as bad back then. Pre WW1 to post WW2. So I proposed it
| must be something that was in the food that nobody looked at.
| Might even be sabotage, who knows.
|
| So yeah, I really hope the Maker community can up the game a
| little and pave the way for more citizen science in food safety
| and in the research of how different compounds &/or combinations
| impact energy metabolisms.
| technotarek wrote:
| Tangential...Anyone from the HN community using Yuka app. (Scan
| barcodes to get info about dangerous additives and other health
| info about food and healthcare products.) I discovered it in
| France where it's rather popular and continue to use it state
| side. Has changed a lot of my buying/consuming decisions. No
| affiliation.
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| I really hate the notion of "ultra-processed" foods. The NOVA
| food classification system[1], which established the term, is
| loose and unscientific about what "ultra-processing" means, and
| different articles use the term interchangeably with different
| types of foods, many of which could barely be considered to be
| processed beyond what a home cook might do.
|
| For example, pictures of potato chips or bacon are often pictured
| and vilified as ultra-processed foods. The NOVA system describes
| these as "processed" (but not "ultra-processed") foods, and
| that's almost certainly the case. A home cook can make bacon by
| curing pork belly in salt and natural spices and then cooking it
| in a conventional fashion, or frying potato slices in oil and
| then salting them. Many bacons and potato chips list few
| ingredients beyond pork or potatoes, salt, and in the case of
| chips, oil. These can hardly be considered "ultra-processed",
| even if the American diet of cured and smoked meats may not be
| optimal for cardiovascular health. These are things people were
| eating for centuries, long before modern grocery stores and
| preparations.
|
| But even then, the NOVA system is obtuse. Ice cream is listed as
| an ultra-processed food, even as you can pick up Haagen Dazs
| vanilla at Walgreens with only "cream, milk, eggs, sugar and
| vanilla." You can certainly make a simulacrum of it of similar
| quality at home using the same ingredients and an ice cream
| maker. Is it "healthy"? Almost certainly no! Is it ultra-
| processed? Also, almost certainly no!
|
| Other "ultra-processed" foods according to NOVA are "sweetened
| and flavored yogurts including fruit yogurts" which again can be
| made at home using no artificial ingredients with... sugar and
| fruit, hardly ultra-processing. Chocolate milk is an ultra-
| processed food according to NOVA, consisting of... milk, cocoa
| and sugar, which again, you can certainly make at home and is not
| some sort of industrial concoction.
|
| We are all well aware of the issues with excessive sugar and salt
| in the diet, and this was established long before any of us were
| born.
|
| Everything you read about "ultra-processed foods" is junk
| science. There may well be certain preservatives or preparations
| that aren't good for us, but the classifications in place are
| total garbage, and don't point us to any actual risks beyond the
| natural ingredients we have all known to be problematic from time
| immemorial.
|
| [1] The NOVA classifications: https://ecuphysicians.ecu.edu/wp-
| content/pv-uploads/sites/78...
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's an example list. It's not exhaustive nor is it exclusive.
| The hint is in the paragraph preceeding that section:
|
| "Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made
| entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils,
| fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food
| constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch)"
|
| > Haagen Dazs vanilla at Walgreens with only "cream, milk,
| eggs, sugar and vanilla."
|
| Yes, that's an "ice cream" according to the FDA. The problem is
| the definition is so loose that any product with 10% milkfat or
| milkfat solids can be called ice cream. Which means that "ice
| cream" may or may not be highly processed.
|
| You'll need to examine the ingredients to know. Which is why
| Ben & Jerry's can't call themselves "all natural" anymore,
| because, they happily include many more industrial ingredients
| over your Hagen Dazz.
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| If the list contains preparations like ice cream and fruit-
| sweetened yogurt that have been made for centuries in non-
| industrial kitchens, perhaps the list is not only non-
| exhaustive, but it's also just not a very good list? Perhaps
| it should actually quantify the industrial ingredients or
| preparations that are problematic and evidence of the "ultra"
| in ultra-processed, rather than just wave its hands towards
| extracts or derived ingredients and include foods that are
| easily made at home (albeit in a time-consuming way)?
|
| The only ingredients in Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream that
| aren't in Haagen Dazs are guar gum (which is a ground bean,
| and natural enough to be sold in a bag for your kitchen by
| Bob's Red Mill) and carageenan, which sure, can be considered
| a derived ingredient but is ultimately derived from seaweed
| and is almost certainly not the cause of any health issues.
| Those thickeners are a far cry from industrial concoctions
| like hydrogenated oils.
|
| I mean, canned soups are on the list an ultra-processed food.
| Oh no!! I assure you we're not suffering a health crisis due
| to canned soups in the generic. It's all nonsense.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > it should actually quantify the industrial ingredients or
| preparations
|
| As I pointed out it does.
|
| > Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream
|
| They make more than vanilla ice cream I presume.
|
| > canned soups are on the list an ultra-processed food
|
| Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup Ingredients:
|
| "Chicken Stock, Enriched Egg Noodles (Wheat Flour, Eggs,
| Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin,
| Folic Acid), Chicken Meat, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt,
| Chicken Fat, Water, Monosodium Glutamate, Cornstarch,
| Modified Cornstarch, Natural Flavoring, Dried Chicken
| Broth, Sugar, Beta Carotene For Color, Onion Powder, Soy
| Protein Isolate, Sodium Phosphate, Yeast Extract, Dried
| Chicken, Garlic Extract."
|
| This does not seem 'ultra-processed' to you? It even has
| MSG in it.
|
| > It's all nonsense.
|
| It's a guideline. You need to do the work and read the
| labels yourself. I cannot hand you a list of anything other
| than "whole foods" an expect it to be useful or accurate. I
| can give you a guide which may highlight some previously
| unexpected categories of food which you should now know to
| inspect carefully before assuming they aren't ultra
| processed.
|
| Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| ah yes, mention "ultra-processed foods" in the title and all of
| the comments are about the definition of ultra-processed foods
| and none about the article
|
| which maybe would be fine, if people made a modicum of effort and
| researched the definition. Instead everyone is playing word games
| "what about this, what about that", "does it mean cheese is
| ultraprocessed", and implying a vague coverage at the edges means
| the whole concept is worthless
| 99_00 wrote:
| Smart. Cash in on the fad while you can.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Compared to eating raw wheat, baked bread is an ultra-processed
| food...
| doug_durham wrote:
| I find it interesting that a most of Vegan meat substitutes fall
| into the ultra-processed categories. It seems to be an issue
| across all diets.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| I do think one day we'll look back at the "best practices" of the
| processed foods industry as being fundamentally at odds with the
| best practices of nutritional ensemble signaling for our bodies.
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