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Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#81

Post by froasty »

phonypc wrote: post #72
froasty wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot Pockets are not a rebranding. Hot Pockets are economically adulterated putrescence masquerading as a meat pie. Ingredients: ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, COOKED BEEF PATTIE CRUMBLES (BEEF HAMBURGER, WATER, TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN [SOY FLOUR, CARAMEL COLOR], SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, LESS THAN 2% OF THE FOLLOWING: SALT, SPICE…

I'm no fan of hot pockets, but what exactly is the point here? That the list of ingredients is long? Most of the list is regular food ingredients or vitamins/minerals added to the "enriched flour". The stabilizers and emulsifiers with scary chemical names are present in tiny amounts regulated by various health departments. If hot pockets are unhealthy, it's because of the qualities they might share with a homemade me…

I'm not going to engage with someone who didn't read the original article, nor is familiar with the domain. Sorry.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#82

Post by froasty »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #71
froasty wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot Pockets are not a rebranding. Hot Pockets are economically adulterated putrescence masquerading as a meat pie. Ingredients: ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, COOKED BEEF PATTIE CRUMBLES (BEEF HAMBURGER, WATER, TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN [SOY FLOUR, CARAMEL COLOR], SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, LESS THAN 2% OF THE FOLLOWING: SALT, SPICE…

ok, slightly reformatting the above and excluding "2% or less" ingredients for the first approximation we get: - flour, water, beef, soy, cheese, ketchup, corn syrup, vinegar, salt, onion. - the rest is "2% or less" which we can ignore for the first order approximation To my taste it's too much salt and I also don't like sugar in my food, but other than that the ingredients are pretty benign. It's 250 calories per 10…

I'm not going to engage with someone who didn't read the original article, nor is familiar with the domain. Sorry.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#83

Post by scruple »

dragontamer wrote: post #69
chubot wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pork-belly contains a ton of fat and is just innately unhealthy Citation needed. Not all fats are created equal. For example Inuits consume 50% of their calories from fat [1]. They do not have the "western diet disease" (obesity, heart disease, etc.) It really IS the processed fats that are bad for you. You can see this all over the world when Aboriginal peoples are introduced to industrial cooking / ultra-processed…

> Citation needed. Not all fats are created equal. Filipino diet, consisting of fresh chicken, fresh pork, fresh fish, and fresh rice will lead to heart attacks at relatively young ages. Nothing against my family or heritage. But these things are known. Balancing it out with some "processed" canned veggies for +Fiber intake can grossly help and improve overall health. And cutting out the fatty Lechon (aka: "Island Po…

Yes, but... How much lumpia and stir-fry is going along with the fresh chicken, pork, fish, and rice? My personal anecdote of around a dozen Filipino friends shows me that they're eating their mothers fried food far too often. Preparation matters.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#84

Post by dragontamer »

watwut wrote: post #74
dragontamer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Are there bad foods that are ultraprocessed? (Ex: Frosted Flakes) * Are there good foods that are ultraprocessed? (Ex: Grain Berry) * Are there good foods that are unprocessed? (Ex: Brown Rice) * Are the bad foods that are unprocessed? (Ex: Pork Belly) If "ultraprocessed" fails to distinguish good from bad, then the word itself is worthless.

You can actually eat pork belly without it having bad effect on your health. You just have to avoid to do it too much. Is grain berry in the amount that satiate you actually good for you to be eaten every day for breakfast? It is puzzling to me why low-fat cereal would be some kind of win or automatically should be considered great thing. You get energy from fat, sugar and proteins. Healthy human can and should eat a…

> It is puzzling to me why low-fat cereal would be some kind of win or automatically should be considered great thing. You get energy from fat, sugar and proteins. Healthy human can and should eat all three, but I really dont understand why specifically amount of low-fatness of some cereal box would be advantage.

Dietary fiber is a huge part of nutrition and you're ignoring it in your above analysis. In particular, dietary fiber allows you to feel full without consuming ludicrous amounts of calories.

A high-fiber, low-sugar, low-fat cereal provides "stomach filler", so to speak. It makes you feel full, it provides vitamins, minerals, and fiber (important nutrients to live).

The psychology of a full stomach has a huge effect on whether or not someone is going to overeat later in the day. If you eat high-calorie foods like lard (_unprocessed_ fat from pork belly), you're simply not going to have as full of a stomach as someone who was filling up on fibers (even if those fibers are "ultraprocessed").

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#85

Post by Junk_Collector »

watwut wrote: post #74
dragontamer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Are there bad foods that are ultraprocessed? (Ex: Frosted Flakes) * Are there good foods that are ultraprocessed? (Ex: Grain Berry) * Are there good foods that are unprocessed? (Ex: Brown Rice) * Are the bad foods that are unprocessed? (Ex: Pork Belly) If "ultraprocessed" fails to distinguish good from bad, then the word itself is worthless.

You can actually eat pork belly without it having bad effect on your health. You just have to avoid to do it too much. Is grain berry in the amount that satiate you actually good for you to be eaten every day for breakfast? It is puzzling to me why low-fat cereal would be some kind of win or automatically should be considered great thing. You get energy from fat, sugar and proteins. Healthy human can and should eat a…

It's only useful it it allows you to reason correctly about stuff in contemporary stores. The argument is that the label does not supply information that is actually relevant to crafting a healthy diet.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#86

Post by dragontamer »

scruple wrote: post #83
dragontamer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citation needed. Not all fats are created equal. Filipino diet, consisting of fresh chicken, fresh pork, fresh fish, and fresh rice will lead to heart attacks at relatively young ages. Nothing against my family or heritage. But these things are known. Balancing it out with some "processed" canned veggies for +Fiber intake can grossly help and improve overall health. And cutting out the fatty Lechon (aka: "Island Po…

Yes, but... How much lumpia and stir-fry is going along with the fresh chicken, pork, fish, and rice? My personal anecdote of around a dozen Filipino friends shows me that they're eating their mothers fried food far too often. Preparation matters.

Stir-Fry is unprocessed foods. Its just rice, veggies, and meats.

That's what's so ridiculous about this "unprocessed" vs "processed" label. Lumpia is just flour + water for the wrappers, and then fillers (beef+rasins is pretty common, but maybe you're a veggie-lumpia person). Ultimately, its just flat + fresh dough wrapping fresh foods. Nothing processed about it at all.

I bet you that frying your food and filling it up with oils and salts probably has more to do with your health than how "processed" those foods are.

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If you've been to the Philippines, you can watch people literally rip the plantain (a bananna-like fruit) from a tree, wrap it, and deep fry it for you. Its about as fresh and "unprocessed" as it gets. Literally, these people just sit on the side of the road selling this stuff. Its kind of awesome. (Or they'll climb a tree and cut a fresh Buko / Coconut for you. Etc. etc.)

That doesn't make it any healthier. Now it makes it really, really tasty and a really good experience. But no way in hell am I going to call that healthy eating.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#87

Post by ev1 »

jasode wrote: post #50
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

This statistic from the article is mind-boggling: > Ultra-processed products now account for nearly half of the average dietary intake of some high income countries, with consumption rising rapidly in most other countries. Note that they aren't just referring to processed foods. They classify ultra-processed foods as a step beyond what we typically think of as processed foods: > Ultra-processed foods and beverages ca…

>, but in my experience most people prefer these foods because they think it's more convenient. [...] Everyone should learn how to cook some boring, staple meals using basic ingredients from the store. It's amazing how many people don't know how easy and cheap it can be to prepare simple crock pot or stir-fry meals that are healthy and delicious. I'm a strict health food eater but I have to be realistic and concede t…

Disappointingly, some people quite literally cannot cook - I don't have a stove.

This is a lot more common[0] than one might think, and arguably hits the worst demographic for it - university students and fresh out of university students, where the only affordable place is $2-3k for barely a hundred square feet with a microwave and minifridge.

There is a fair amount of places near tech companies where it's quite common that someone renting there pre-COVID would just have been getting meals catered at work or similar.

[0] https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/rent-...

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#88

Post by wongarsu »

watwut wrote: post #52
wongarsu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And apples are full of sugar. Drawing the line is hard.

Apples are not processed at all. Coincidently, they have tons of fiber and you wont actually get fat from eating apples. Unless you eat them dried, in the form of juice or in other "processed" form.

You eat the apple the way it comes from the tree, but trees today make very different apples from those 5000 years ago. We have changed most fruit substantially.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#89

Post by scruple »

dragontamer wrote: post #86
scruple wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but... How much lumpia and stir-fry is going along with the fresh chicken, pork, fish, and rice? My personal anecdote of around a dozen Filipino friends shows me that they're eating their mothers fried food far too often. Preparation matters.

Stir-Fry is unprocessed foods. Its just rice, veggies, and meats. That's what's so ridiculous about this "unprocessed" vs "processed" label. Lumpia is just flour + water for the wrappers, and then fillers (beef+rasins is pretty common, but maybe you're a veggie-lumpia person). Ultimately, its just flat + fresh dough wrapping fresh foods. Nothing processed about it at all. I bet you that frying your food and filling i…

That's a good point, and I agree with everything you've said, especially anecdotally that oils in particular have more to do with nutritional health than processed foods... But, my original point was that oil _is_ highly processed.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#90

Post by dragontamer »

scruple wrote: post #89
dragontamer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stir-Fry is unprocessed foods. Its just rice, veggies, and meats. That's what's so ridiculous about this "unprocessed" vs "processed" label. Lumpia is just flour + water for the wrappers, and then fillers (beef+rasins is pretty common, but maybe you're a veggie-lumpia person). Ultimately, its just flat + fresh dough wrapping fresh foods. Nothing processed about it at all. I bet you that frying your food and filling i…

That's a good point, and I agree with everything you've said, especially anecdotally that oils in particular have more to do with nutritional health than processed foods... But, my original point was that oil _is_ highly processed.

> But, my original point was that oil _is_ highly processed.

You're not familiar with this new "unprocessed" vs "processed" vs "ultraprocessed" designation then.

https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/...

Oils are a "Group 2", low-processed food. Page 5:

> Group 2 items are rarely consumed in the absence of group 1 foods. Examples are salt mined or from seawater; sugar and molasses obtained from cane or beet;honey extracted from combs and syrup from maple trees; vegetable oils crushed from olives or seeds; butter and lard obtained from milk and pork; and starches extracted from corn and other plants

Group 2 foods are apparently NOT processed. For some reason, I didn't make this designation, I just make fun of it on the internet.

Group 3 foods are "processed", and Group 4 foods are "ultraprocessed". This designation is completely and utterly meaningless in regards to health.

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That's why something like LOL Lumpia + Stir Fry dinners is at worst... "Group 2", unprocessed by this designation (Both Oil and Flour are just Group2 designations, the most processed items in Lumpia). But if you eat a low-fat cereal + yogurt + applesauce, you're eating ultraprocessed stuff.

I bet you that "Group 4 Ultraprocessed" Low-fat fortified cereal + yogurt + applesauce meals are healthier than "Group 2 Unprocessed" Lumpia + Stir Fry dinners with fresh Lechon + Rice.

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