[HN Gopher] Does veganism have an ultra-processing problem?
___________________________________________________________________
Does veganism have an ultra-processing problem?
Author : belter
Score : 31 points
Date : 2024-10-12 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| thyristan wrote:
| We do mostly have a problem with ultra-unspecific, ultra-
| unsubstantiated, ultra-agenda-driven and ultra-useless
| nutritional advice.
|
| The lacking proper definition of ultra-processed foods is just
| one part of it. How much is "much"? How often is "occasionally"?
| What is the confidence level and effect size of that advice? What
| are the alternatives?
| apwell23 wrote:
| Everytime there is a post about upf, there is always someone
| trying some pedantic " but what exactly is processing"
|
| Article acknowleges the issue with definition and there a
| section titled 'Identifying ultra-processed foods'. Why not
| just run with it .
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| The definition given there is pretty useless, imo:
|
| > In the Nova system, a food product is considered ultra-
| processed if at least one of its ingredients is a substance
| that home cooks generally don't use (such as high-fructose
| corn syrup or hydrolysed protein), or is an additive designed
| to increase the product's appeal (such as a thickener or
| emulsifier).
|
| Whether or not home cooks use an ingredient has little to do
| with the health of that ingredient. And, at least from the
| abstract of the linked article, the additional details don't
| inspire confidence that this is a meaningful category.
|
| "Processed foods" is yet another example of the trend of
| giving something vague a name, attaching an emotional valence
| to the name and then using that anti-scientific emotional
| valence to influence public policy. (See also the politics of
| nuclear power)
| at_compile_time wrote:
| The scientific thing to do would be to only use novel food
| additives when they have been proven to be safe, when
| they've been tested for toxicity, effects on the microbiome
| and the digestive tract specifically.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Many of the additives people complain about aren't
| particularly novel.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Why not just run with it .
|
| Because it is a waste of time at best, and disinformation at
| worst.
| thyristan wrote:
| Because the definition given is useless. Additives I wouldn't
| use as a home-cook, thickener or emulsifier make it ultra-
| processed.
|
| So anything with a thickener or emulsifier is ultra-
| processed? So now my potato-soup is ultra-processed because
| potato-starch acts as both (same with any kind of
| beans/lentils/starchy things)? What about that sauce where I
| intentionally add starch or flour? That pasta, where the
| cooking water emulsifies the sauce? That mayonaise where
| mustard and egg yolk act as an emulsifier? Risotto, where the
| rice starch thickens? What about roux? Reductions? Blood?
| Thickening with paprika powder?
|
| By definition practically everything home-cooked is also
| ultra-processed. Anything containing any kind of starch is
| ultra-processed. This is either a completely useless
| definition, or the actual message is "don't cook food, ever".
| pastage wrote:
| You do list things that are not that good. As someone
| pointed out when you limit yourself to one thing it is
| usually not good. Potato starch is great but not if you
| only use that, and there is a problem of eating processed
| potatoes instead of unpeeled.
|
| More greens and more fibers is a good thing, but also takes
| more work to cook well. The definition is not useless if
| you just use it as one part of understanding your
| ingredients, not the only way.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The UN FAO definition cited above still at the very least
| _sounds_ like a slightly dressed up version of
| "industrialized food production bad" (nevermind that it is
| responsible for all of the wins against malnutrition in the
| world). "a series of industrial processes, many requiring
| sophisticated equipment and technology" - like literally any
| industry? "fractioning of whole foods into substances" - like
| milling flour or extracting corn or potato starch from said
| plants? "assembly of unmodified and modified food substances
| using industrial techniques such as extrusion" - like
| extruding pasta? "use of additives at various stages of
| manufacture whose functions include making the final product
| palatable" adding stuff to make taste more godder describes
| literally any kind of food preparation? "sophisticated
| packaging, usually with plastic and other synthetic
| materials"?
|
| Hello, are you describing oreos or dried pasta from 1950
| here?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Such a dogshit definition makes it impossible to target any
| specific chemical or process. With that definition and a
| meal, I can't tell you whether that meal is "ultra-processed"
| or not. Just tell me the processes, and show me the studies
| on them. If there aren't studies on them, _do_ studies on
| them. But talking about "processed" foods actually seems to
| use generalization as a smokescreen that somehow still allows
| deceptive labeling, an enormous number of chemicals, and _no
| specific criticism of the industry._
|
| Food preservation is important, Fortifying foods with
| vitamins can be awesome. It's good when foods are cheap, food
| "preparation" and food "processing" are the exact same thing
| in English. There's always going to be processing. Finding
| out which processes can cause disease or ill-health is
| reasonably straightforward, if you want to do it rather than
| throw around political and marketing rhetoric.
|
| 72% less processed!
| polmos wrote:
| I've long advocated for nutrition labels to include what I call
| "antinutrition" information.
|
| Things like high oxalate content that, without hydration, can
| put you at risk of kidney stones.
|
| As a ~vegan I once contracted gout!
|
| What that taught me (via internet knowledge shares, the doctors
| were completely stumped) was an excess of nutritional yeast.
|
| The daily recommended amount was 3-4 tablespoons per day. I was
| easily eating 15.
|
| Apparently nutritional yeast has a thing called purines, also
| found in red meat, and is a cause for gout.
|
| Cut it down to normal consumption levels, and the problem went
| away.
|
| https://multimedia.efsa.europa.eu/drvs/index.htm
|
| Some of the entries in this public nutrition database have
| daily maximum values.
|
| That information needs to be more readily available.
| namaria wrote:
| Apart from ethical or environmental concerns, one of the best
| decisions you can make nutrition wise is to vary your intake
| a lot and one of the worst is to try and subsist on a limited
| range of foodstuffs.
| polmos wrote:
| The paradox is that by restricting my diet, with an
| ethically, morally, environmentally and health conscious
| move to ~veganism, it expanded the variety of food I eat.
|
| When you are unable to rely on old faithfuls, especially
| meat and dairy, you have to explore other possibilities and
| really dip into the weird.
| namaria wrote:
| I have zero intention to comment on vegetarianism or
| veganism with this observation, I am solely talking about
| seeking variation in whatever dietary spectrum you may
| choose to follow...
| polmosalt wrote:
| I absolutely agree.
|
| One quick and easy trick is to eat "colorful food".
|
| Eating a meal that has lots of different colors increases
| your odds of getting a broader variety of nutritional
| content.
| namaria wrote:
| That is good advice, but I'd like to clarify that I meant
| variation over diversity. Eating the same 15 things every
| week is better than eating the same 5 things, no doubt.
| But changing it up over the week, month, is even better
| because is diminishes the chances you're getting too much
| of something that might be bad in great quantities and
| works with the adaptability of the body.
|
| Fasting seems to be good for you, for example, because it
| stimulates the body to consume malformed proteins.
| Changing intake up from one day to the next also should
| help the diversity of the gut biome and the activation of
| several metabolic pathways without 'overheating' any of
| them.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Double that, restricting my food leaded me to explore new
| beans, roots and fungus.
| tzs wrote:
| The article links to a definition of ultra-processed foods.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Real world phenomena can never be cut by clean lines. This
| isn't math definitions. That said, there are fairly
| comprehensive definitions of these things. The UN's FAO defines
| ultra processed food as:
|
| > Formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial
| use, made by a series of industrial processes, many requiring
| sophisticated equipment and technology (hence 'ultra-
| processed'). Processes used to make ultra-processed foods
| include the fractioning of whole foods into substances,
| chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of
| unmodified and modified food substances using industrial
| techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; use of
| additives at various stages of manufacture whose functions
| include making the final product palatable or hyper-palatable;
| and sophisticated packaging, usually with plastic and other
| synthetic materials. Ingredients include sugar, oils or fats,
| or salt, generally in combination, and substances that are
| sources of energy and nutrients that are of no or rare culinary
| use such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or
| interesterified oils, and protein isolates; classes of
| additives whose function is to make the final product palatable
| or more appealing such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours,
| emulsifiers, and sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming,
| bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling, and glazing agents; and
| additives that prolong product duration, protect original
| properties or prevent proliferation of microorganisms.
|
| This definition makes most sense when compared with the
| definitions of the other three categories [1]. I am pretty
| sure, that any two people trained on these definitions will
| only disagree less than 5% of the time.
|
| [1]
| https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/527...
| treflop wrote:
| You're missing the point. It's not defining what constitutes
| ultra processed -- it's that no one really knows if it's bad
| for you.
|
| Because when you study people who eat a certain thing, they
| also all tend to eat another thing.
|
| I religiously read nutrition labels and a lot of vegan ultra-
| processed foods are not particularly healthy, but not
| necessarily because they are ultra processed but because they
| mimic non-vegan foods which themselves are unhealthy.
|
| Even if you cook all your meals, it doesn't mean that you are
| eating healthy because it still depends on your ingredients.
|
| And as the article hinted to, a lot of people who initially
| start eating vegan foods tend to buy non-vegan analogues
| which are not healthy. The better analogues tend to be ultra
| processed. Are these people at higher risk of certain
| diseases because they are eating ultra processed foods or
| because they've limited themselves to unhealthy vegan
| substitutes? Hard to say.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| The world is complex. There are thousands of basic foods
| that are combined, processed and cooked in countless ways.
| You can't figure out which of these are good or bad
| individually. You have to make categories to simplify the
| problem.
|
| There are dozens of categorizations that are studied in
| literature. Vegan/Veg/Carnivore is one. Each diet becomes
| its own category to be studied, such as keto.
|
| Level of processing is another such categorization. It
| won't give you the final answer on what is good or bad,
| only a partial answer, that will indeed have to be combined
| with results of other categorizations to get a final
| answer.
|
| Please understand that nutritional science is a few decades
| old at this point. Demanding physics (a 500 year+ academic
| discipline) level of clarity from a discipline which is
| many times more complex is not going to happen in our
| lifetimes. The only thing we are going to get are bad
| partial answers; just like you point out. Everyone knows
| they are partial answers, but they are partial answers
| because of complexity, not because of malice.
| CuriousSkeptic wrote:
| > It's not defining what constitutes ultra processed --
| it's that no one really knows if it's bad for you.
|
| If I remember correctly, the book on the subject[1] makes a
| compelling case for the source of that classification,
| Monteireo[2], to have pretty solid data on just that
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Processed_People
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Augusto_Monteiro
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Mmm... I love my food with proliferation of microorganisms!
| polmos wrote:
| This is carnivore cope.
|
| Ultra processed food eaters have an ultra processed food problem.
|
| I eat a ~vegan diet. (~vegan meaning someone a vegan would refuse
| to call a vegan, but that anyone else would call a vegan, ie. I
| eat honey)
|
| I cook all of my food, and it's all fresh produce, spices, evoo,
| quinoa, and oats.
| apwell23 wrote:
| > I cook all of my food, and it's all fresh produce, spices,
| evoo, quinoa, and oats.
|
| Are you on low protein diet ?
| polmos wrote:
| I eat in excess of the daily recommended protein amount for
| my age, body weight, and activity level because I weight
| train.
|
| My protein comes from beans, quinoa, oats, vegetables, and
| nutritional yeast.
| apwell23 wrote:
| i used https://www.calculator.net/protein-calculator.html
| and it gave me ~ 120gm average for my bodyweight and
| activity level ( with a cdc high of 202gm). I dont' weight
| train.
|
| quinoa - 8g/cup , 8 gm
|
| beans - That is equal to approximately 1/2 cup per day.
| Thats about 20g protein
|
| oats - 6 gm protien
|
| So thats about 44g/day.
|
| Are you eating like ~ 3 cups of beans/day ( ~120gm )? That
| would be around 350gm of carbs which sounds really
| excessive to me.
|
| All the things in your diet are listed as "examples of not
| complete proteins" on that page. not quite sure what that
| means.
| xnx wrote:
| I can't speak for them, but adding a scoop or two of pea
| or brown rice protein makes it very easy to achieve any
| target amount of daily protein while getting a good amino
| ratio.
| david-gpu wrote:
| _> a scoop or two of pea or brown rice protein _
|
| Very apropos for an article that discusses ultra-
| processed foods in the context of a plant-based diet.
| xnx wrote:
| Definitely processed, but not so different from whey
| powder or flour.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Pea protein starts with pea flour, but there are several
| additional processing steps afterwards. Presumably rice
| protein follows the same rough steps.
|
| As for whey protein isolate, isn't it also considered an
| ultra-processed substance as well?
| grvbck wrote:
| > All the things in your diet are listed as "examples of
| not complete proteins" on that page. not quite sure what
| that means.
|
| Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids
| in consistent amounts. Most of those are stuff like fish,
| poultry and dairy, whereas grains or vegetables usually
| don't contain all the needed amino acids.
|
| So if you're on a veg diet, mixing and matching those
| protein sources is recommended to get you all the amino
| acids your body needs.
| polmosalt wrote:
| I was a little too vague. That's my bad.
|
| Also, per serving: lentils (?g), peas (5g), peanut butter
| (8g), flax meal (3g), hemp hearts (10g); and more I'm
| sure I'm missing.
|
| That said, I could easily eat 3 cups of beans per day.
|
| As to "complete proteins" mixing quinoa and oats, which
| each have some of the necessary amino acids, makes their
| combination a source for complete proteins.
| stevebmark wrote:
| In the year of our lord 2024 I am baffled that anyone doesn't
| know about the protein content of quinoa, oats, and other
| starchy grains.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Why not just call your diet plant-based then?
| polmos wrote:
| You are free to call it whatever.
|
| I am without allegiances.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Bees aren't plants.
|
| More seriously, if they follow a nearly vegan diet for
| ethical reasons, except they don't give a shit about bees, it
| makes sense to describe their choice as approximately vegan,
| rather than plant based, because it is approximately vegan.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Because most people to this day don't know what the hell
| "plant-based" means. Products in the market often dilute this
| term too, unfortunately.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| > A 2021 French study found that ultra-processed ... accounted
| for 37% and 39.5% of energy intake for vegetarians and vegans
| ... 33% figure for meat eaters [1].
|
| The data suggests that in whatever population the study sampled
| from all types of food eaters are eating roughly the same
| amount of ultra-processed food.
|
| That said, I agree with you that the numbers are too high. I
| eat meat, cook my own food, and I am pretty sure my percentage
| is less than 10%.
|
| [1] Deleted shoddy analysis in the article.
| imjonse wrote:
| I heard someone with a similar diet jokingly refer to himself
| as a 'fuck the bees vegan'
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| News flash - vegans and vegetarians do not need "meat
| substitutes", as we do not crave meat. Difference between 33%
| (non-vegetarian) and %39 (vegan)percent of "UPF" is trivial, and
| probably won't matter and will be offset by lack of carcinogens
| prevalent in fried meat etc.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Doesn't frying anything, including vegetables, create
| carcinogens? Besides, plenty of meat eating cultures that
| rarely fry meat.
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| Frying meat creates more carcinogens AFAIK; my point was not
| that though, I was arguing that ultraprocessed herbal food is
| not same processed meat food, almost certainly less harmful,
| as it does not require as much nitrites etc.
| michael9423 wrote:
| I don't think you can speak for all vegans and vegetarians.
|
| I was vegetarian for a couple years until meat cravings became
| so strong I started eating meat again.
|
| 84% of vegans and vegetarians return to meat:
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animals-and-us/201...
|
| Many because they crave it.
|
| Several vegan influencers have been caught eating meat and fish
| secretly. Conversely the same - some carnivore influencers have
| been caught eating fruit and other plant products.
|
| Only 2% of US-Americans are truly vegan or vegetarian (and even
| those tend to cheat here and there).
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| I am sorry to hear that, but your experience actually
| conforms what I said, only those who transition needs the
| fake meat substitute. I have about 12 years of vegetarian
| experience, and after 0.5 years of switching |I stopped
| having any cravings.
|
| I have no way to verify your statements about cheating, but I
| personally do not cheat, as I have no need in it, but my
| advice to everyone who crave meat to stop torturing
| themselves and it imitations, you'll abandon vegetarian/vegan
| life anyway.
| xnx wrote:
| > vegans and vegetarians do not need "meat substitutes", as we
| do not crave meat
|
| Speak for yourself. I might only have them once/month, but I
| enjoy the flavors of Impossible Foods and Beyond products.
| neilv wrote:
| > _News flash - vegans and vegetarians do not need "meat
| substitutes", as we do not crave meat._
|
| This news flash is news to me. Vegetarian diet (and not much
| ovo nor lacto) for 25+ years.
|
| I eat fake meat almost every day.
|
| And in the summer, when neighbors cook some unidentified real
| meat on their grill, and it wafts over, I feel a twinge of
| carnivore frenzy, ready to fight them for their kill, with my
| claws and teeth.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| I tried going vegan once. I found my craving for a burger
| increased the longer I went without. That told me I was
| suffering a nutritional deficiency. I don't observe the same
| increase in cravings over time for generic tasty food like
| chocolate cake.
|
| (I suspect it was the heme iron in the burger btw)
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| You should not switch straight to vegan, you should've
| started with vegetarian.
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| I think you are torturing yourself and need to stop. I have
| no craving for meat, and occasionally, when I am forced to
| eat by cooks mistake or for social reasons (funerals etc.) I
| feel uncomformatable as if I've eaten soap.
| neilv wrote:
| I'm not a quitter. :)
|
| But seriously, after 25+ years, though some of the _taste_
| of meat dishes would be good, the _idea_ of eating meat is
| personally unappealing. Plus, I don 't know that my system
| would even be able to process it. So, I'd expect to be
| grossed out, have GI plumbing and nutrition problems, and
| maybe frequent food poisoning.
|
| I'm neutral on whether other people should go vegetarian,
| but personally I feel stuck with it.
| downut wrote:
| I've been cooking community dinners for nearly 50 years,
| including, for most of that, for
| vegetarians/pescatarians/vegans. I even was camp cook on 4
| week-long raft trips.
|
| It never fails: someone wants a fake turkey, or fake bacon, or
| fake burgers, or whatever. Unwrap the plastic, heat it up, it
| sez on the label it's vegan. Also you omnivores are killing the
| world.
|
| So I now refuse absolutely to cook for vegetarians/vegans. I
| always did make somebody else buy the fake industrial vegan
| meat substitutes, and amazingly, I caught friction for that. My
| wife and I are chemical engineers who have been inside quite a
| few food processing plants and we refuse to touch the output of
| those. I will eat potato chips every once in a while but
| nothing vegan at all. I want my vices honest.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| You don't eat anything "vegan"? Potato chips are vegan!
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| I apologise, but you sound ultraprovincial, like "dayumn
| liberals" way. Vast majority of food non-vegans eat is vegan.
| stevebmark wrote:
| The only relevant study linked in the article is
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...
|
| > Plant-sourced UPF contribution showed a positive association
| [with CVD risk]
|
| The study is using an existing dataset on food recall. That
| doesn't necessarily the results are correct or incorrect, but
| it's lower on the pyramid of science quality. There is nothing
| else of substance in this BBC article.
| bsdz wrote:
| I put the article through an SEO external link extractor and I
| saw many more external links to various studies from various
| organisations. Why are the other studies irrelevant?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Are you going to be specific, or make the person you're
| replying to do all of the work? They told you what they
| thought was relevant. If you've reviewed one of the others
| and found it relevant, say which and why, and ask why they
| disagree.
| bsdz wrote:
| The person I replied to had apparently already done that
| work. That's why I asked the question. I haven't made any
| judgements on which studies were relevant / irrelevant.
| loeg wrote:
| Ultra-processing is still not a real thing. There's no consistent
| definition, there's no good scale of what is more or less
| "processed" despite the name implying some degree of severity.
| The actual definition is circular -- "if you already think it's
| unhealthy, it's ultra-processed."
|
| I'm all for dunking on the vegan lifestyle, but not through
| pseudoscience.
| reliablereason wrote:
| There is the NOVA system used to classify food where category 4
| is ultra processed food:
|
| Monteiro, C., Cannon, G., Lawrence, M., Louzada, M. L., &
| Machado, P. (2019). FAO. Ultra- processed foods, diet quality,
| and health using the NOVA classification system.
|
| But to add to that.. ultra processing is not the issue in
| itself (well not if you use the definition as described in the
| NOVA system), the issue is certain steps or ingredients used in
| certain types of ultra processed foods. So blaming "ultra
| processing" is technically an over generalisation.
| xnx wrote:
| "ultra-processed" is a non-specific scare term for more specific
| descriptors, most specifically "low fiber". Foods with their
| fiber removed are consumed faster, keep you feeling full for less
| time (low satiety), and spike blood sugar more rapidly (higher
| glycemic index). Seitan (gluten) is a useful source of
| concentrated protein for those eating a plant-based diet.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Note that the Nova definition of "ultra-processed foods" includes
| foods such as tofu and many unsweetened soymilks, along with
| foods like potato chips and Oreos.
|
| So the article discusses multiple studies which find increased
| consumption plant origin ultra-processed foods is associated with
| an increased risk of disease and mortality. Seperately, another
| study found vegetarians and vegans eat a higher proportion of
| ultra-processed foods than the general population.
|
| Does the subset of ultra-processed foods of which vegetarians and
| vegans eat more significantly overlap with the subset which
| increases risk of disease and death? We don't know; that's not in
| the data and the article doesn't discuss any articles linking
| vegetarian and vegan diets to higher risk of disease and death.
| What if vegetarians and vegans eat a ton more tofu and soymilk
| but less potato chips and Oreos?
|
| The article sort of adresses this, but not very directly. Also,
| vegetarian and vegan diets are more of a footnote in the article;
| it's more about ultra-proccessed foods in typical diets. And the
| actual article title better reflects the focus, so I wonder why
| the post changed it so significantly.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| In the supplementary information of the study, there is a Table
| that breaks down the 22 food groups [1]. You can look at it
| yourself, but below are the consumptions for the "unhealthy"
| categories. Seems like Vegans eat more salty snacks and less
| sweet/fatty food. |
| | Meat-Eaters | Vegetarians | Vegans | |----
| ------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
| --------------| | Salty snacks and crackers (g/d) |
| 3.69 +- 0.06 | 5.28 +- 0.34 | 10.50 +- 0.48 | |
| Sweet and fatty foods 6 (g/d) | 125.00 +- 0.52 | 122.00 +-
| 2.86 | 73.90 +- 4.00 | | Sugary drinks (mL/d)
| | 23.40 +- 0.48 | 27.10 +- 2.65 | 22.40 +- 3.71 | |
| Sugar-free drinks (x103 mL/d) | 1.08 +- 4.16 | 1.14 +-
| 22.70 | 1.05 +- 31.70 |
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002231662...
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Sure, and the study even finds vegetarian and vegan diets
| have a higher proportion of "healthy" foods overall. But as
| far as I've found, neither that study nor the other linked
| articles investigate which of these specific groups of foods
| are linked to increased risk of disease and death (regardless
| of how obvious it may seem for some of the groups), only
| ultra-processed foods in general, which is a very broad
| category.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| You will have to pry my pressure cooker out of my cold, dead
| hands. "Processing" - it's another word for "cooking". Also I
| love technological progress.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Processing damages long chain molecules, ie molecular weight
| decreases.
|
| Whether we evolved to handle this well is under study, but these
| studies usually have too many confounding variables to make a
| conclusion.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Everyone knows these lists of produce that enumerate the vitamins
| and minerals they contain, and other beneficial micronutrients,
| and so dietary recommendations often say, "try adding X to your
| diet, because it's high in Ps and Qs!"
|
| But I've become aware of issues like impoverished soil and the
| concept of _terroir_. Many crops are grown outside of their
| natural habitat, and who knows what 's gone on with their soil,
| water, fertilizer, and general environment.
|
| So I would say that whenever these plants were tested for levels
| of micronutrients, I am dubious that those assessments hold true
| throughout space and time, especially for minerals that would
| necessarily be absorbed, rather than vitamins manufactured
| through biological processes within the organism itself.
|
| So I guess it's not wrong to fortify and process, if you're going
| to add something back in that should've been there already.
| 3np wrote:
| Unnecessarily editorialied an misrepresentative title.
|
| Original: "What explains increasing anxiety about ultra-processed
| plant-based foods?"
|
| TFA does not mention "veganism" even once.
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