Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 345 posts

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

#191

Post by mssundaram »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #114
dcolkitt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, cooking healthy may be "easy" but it's still more work than junk food. One advantage of intermittent fasting is that it's much less burdensome to make a single, large healthy than it is to make three healthy meals plus snacks. (Though this can be a double-edge sword. If you wind up eating junk food, like pizza, for your large meal, then it becomes the equivalent of eating junk food for breakfast, lunch and din…

Who the hell makes 3 meals a day anyway? Unless you include reheating something prepared in bulk several days ago in that count?

Hm I definitely do, for my whole family. I work at home, though

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

#192

Post by nmfisher »

dragontamer wrote: post #159
chubot wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you think that Lard is axiomatically unhealthy, which may have been a common view 20 years ago, but no longer is. Lard doesn't contain trans fats, which is what fast food is full of. Lard is a time-tested animal product that has been used by many long-lived civilizations. "trans fats" wasn't a thing until ~20 years ago, so basically science is catching up with the implicit knowledge people have had for…

> It seems like you think that Lard is axiomatically unhealthy Nope. Just less healthy than a high-fiber, low sugar, low-fat breakfast cereal. If you disagree: explain to me how 1-bowl of lard is possibly any healthier than 1-bowl of Grain Berry breakfast cereal.

Because no one eats a bowl of lard?

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

#193

Post by Damorian »

Miraste wrote: post #186
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's scary is that you said UK and not US. Coming from other Anglo cultures and going to the US feels similar to what you describe moving from Russia. instant increase in added sugar and serving sizes.

I live in the US and recently tried to find bread--standard, sliced bread--without sugar in it at my local store. They don't have any. The lowest I could find was a gram of sugar per slice!

I bake various types of bread on a weekly basis, and have never seen a recipe that doesn't require sugar or honey. I'm pretty confident it's needed to fuel the yeast for the rising process vs the flour alone.

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

#194

Post by chithanh »

bumby wrote: post #177
curryst wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is whether some foods are inherently addictive, at least for some people who are more predisposed to food addiction. In some sense, yes, because to get to extremely high weights, you need to consume extremely high amounts of food. Your stomach will grow, but I would imagine a person would struggle to eat enough carrots to weigh 500 pounds. Quick napkin math says some obese people eat 6700 calories a da…

> If we added a 10% tax to soft drinks, fries and pizza The argument against this is that it becomes a regressive tax scheme. Many in the lower income strata disproportionately eat these foods because they are convenient and relatively cheap. A 10% increase in the food budget of someone at or near poverty isn’t trivial. Talk to chefs at high-end restaurants and you’ll see how much fat is inherent in (or gets added to…

The WHO found that the consumption of sugary soda declines when it is taxed[1].

> A 10% increase in the food budget of someone at or near poverty isn’t trivial.

The goal is to decrease the consumption.

[1] https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/fiscal...

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

#195

Post by hnick »

dolni wrote: post #11

People throwing out "processed food" as some catch-all term for packaged stuff that is bad for you is a major pet peeve of mine. Yes, foods that are pre-packaged tend not to be good for you. You _should_ eat fresh foods and vegetables. But saying that all "processed" foods are bad for you is a gross oversimplifcation that promotes ignorance about nutrition. In the many conversations I've had about processed foods, pe…

> In the many conversations I've had about processed foods, people never seem to be talking about things like milk, yogurt, or cheese, all of which undergo _heavy_ processing.

The faddish 'paleo/caveman diet' definitely says you shouldn't eat these, and I think that's the poster boy for the unprocessed diet. But it also depends on your genetics, if you're from a lineage that has no issue with lactose then it's probably fine. They are very calorie dense though if weight loss/maintenance is a goal.

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

#196

Post by chithanh »

whatshisface wrote: post #155
curryst wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is whether some foods are inherently addictive, at least for some people who are more predisposed to food addiction. In some sense, yes, because to get to extremely high weights, you need to consume extremely high amounts of food. Your stomach will grow, but I would imagine a person would struggle to eat enough carrots to weigh 500 pounds. Quick napkin math says some obese people eat 6700 calories a da…

> Honestly, I think the best way to tackle it is not to outright ban the foods, but just add an excise tax. If we added a 10% tax to soft drinks, fries and pizza, it probably wouldn't make a huge difference to the average citizen's spending. It would be a 10% increase in your food budget if that's all you eat though. If you want to go crazy, add a program that lets you earn that back by doing healthy things, like rid…

The price of products does have an impact for shoppers. Also especially with poor people, raising prices limits the amount they can afford.

"It was concluded that there is reasonable and increasing evidence that appropriately designed taxes on sugar sweetened beverages would result in proportional reductions in consumption, especially if aimed at raising the retail price by 20% or more. There is similar strong evidence that subsidies for fresh fruits and vegetables that reduce prices by 10–30% are effective in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption."

https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/fiscal...

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

#197

Post by hnick »

dolni wrote: post #187
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe no one has quoted Michael Pollan yet, but his 7 rules still ring true (see #4 for your question): 1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says. 2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or in…

There are some good rules of thumb here, but this: > 2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce. This just smacks of so much ignorance as to be disgraceful. Something isn't good for you just because there's a short word for it, or bad for you because it has a scientific name. And it's definitely not bad for you just because it has more than 5 ingredients. I remember hear…

This is true but the purpose of such lists of rules is that they are easy to follow for people who otherwise would have no idea what to do. Every rule has exceptions and once someone tries such a system for a time they'll probably learn them. Having them avoid such food until then and start eating healthier right now would be more beneficial than waiting.

Most of rule #2 would be encapsulated by rule #1 anyway, it just reinforces it.

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

#198

Post by hnick »

mike00632 wrote: post #35
silicon2401 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really what you ate like on a day to day basis? Not snarky or anything, just genuinely shocked and curious

Yes. It was actually even worse than that on most days. The portions were bigger and I didn't include snacks and desserts. My whole family was overweight and most of us were obese (myself included). This is the majority of Americans. I'm sure that this style of eating is extremely common.

While that food doesn't look healthy I don't think it would be enough to become obese alone from a calorie perspective, unless portion sizes are massive (you said one sandwich but maybe it was multiple?). Especially with a teenage metabolism.

Snacks, desserts, and sugar drinks in between meals are a huge contributor for a lot of people.

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

#199

Post by ccallebs »

dragontamer wrote: post #22
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…

If half of our food is ultraprocessed, then that's a problem with the definition of ultraprocessed. Breakfast cereal is "ultraprocessed" by the definition of the article. But Grain Berry cereal is going to be grossly different from a nutritional perspective than Frosted Flakes. For both to be lumped into the same category of "ultraprocessed" is a bit ridiculous. ----------- Its not like "processing" makes something m…

> Its not like "processing" makes something more or less poisonous.

At scale, processing food often introduces challenges only solvable by introducing chemicals and practices that are considered harmful to humans.

Phthalates become more common in foods the more times it changes hands. Sterilized environments necessary for processing must be sanitized by using chlorine, some of which is exposed to the food itself. Most processed foods have ingredients that are also processed, so the effects of this are compounded. Many preservatives, past and present, have positive correlations with various types of cancer and neurological diseases.

I agree with base premise — you don't automatically start eating healthily by choosing whole foods. But I think it's harmful to consider processing as benign.

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

#200

Post by wongarsu »

watwut wrote: post #153
wongarsu wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was still taking about contemporary apples. What makes you think I reference 5000 years old one? I don't even think people 5000 live healthier lifes on average.

The point I'm trying to make is that saying "Apple's aren't processed at all" is a pretty arbitrary line after everything we've done to apple trees. Modern Apples are as much a product of civilization as pasta.
Post reply on HN