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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

#201

Post by hoka-one-one »

johnyzee wrote: post #162
inglor_cz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"have no idea when they've eaten enough food and often don't stop eating until they're in pain" Our hunger / satiety feelings are driven hormonally by hormones called ghrelin and leptin. Ideally, those two take care of a perfect equilibrium. If something messes this self-balancing mechanism up, feelings of hunger and satiety may no longer respond to actual caloric intake - a recipe for a slow-motion disaster.

Worth noting that satiety (to a large degree controlled by leptin) is triggered much more by fat than by other macro nutrients. So white rice, and all other carbs, are worse on that axis too - high in calories but not very filling, thus promoting overeating. The decades of war on fat have contributed to people indulging in these foods.

Why do you think this? I've never seen a satiety index that scores butter over white rice.

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

#202

Post by dolni »

hnick wrote: post #197
dolni wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ju…

If your argument is that people need simple rules to follow, that list is way too complicated. You only need one: "eat a variety of vegetables".

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

#203

Post by TheIshtar »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #73
dilap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread, pasta, fruits, and vegetables: all things we've been eating for at least a couple thousand years; no fat or mostly saturated fats. Twinkies and Oreos: signicant quantities of novel ingredients that have only existed in the last 150 or so years; high quantities of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats.

True, but there's also a distinction to be made among kinds of carbohydrates. I think of it in two categories, coal and jet fuel. Coal is stuff like potatoes - it's fuel, but it lasts a long time. Twinkies, white bread, and even white rice are jet fuel - they burn really fast, and then they're gone. Eat carbs that are coal, not jet fuel.

What you’re referring to is (and I’m over simplifying here) glucose versus sucrose.

Potatoes have glucose, and aren’t sweet.

Twinkies and the like are full of sugar aka sucrose (which is half fructose) which is the real issue.

Avoiding all food with fructose is a good idea. Not only is it bad because only your liver can process it (none of your other cells can use it, unlike glucose) but fructose is in some emerging studies to prohibit lepton signaling. Leptin is the hormone that tells your brain you’re full and no longer need to eat. Many obese people have impaired signaling.

Food addition is not a good term. Food addictive addiction is better. No one would eat the cookies if it wasn’t for the sugar. Or get addicted to coffee without the caffeine.

Sugar is the same as alcohol - it has calories, sure, so could be considered an energy source. But it has no other nutritional value. Yet it is regarded as a food.

One cigarette is not harmful, yet we know smoking everyday will cause you some ill effects. It’s the same with sugar. An acute dose in itself is not dangerous. But over time it does.

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

#204

Post by woofyman »

Damorian wrote: post #193
Miraste wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

French bread is water, flour, yeast, and salt.

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

#205

Post by bumby »

chithanh wrote: post #194
bumby wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

That’s a given. Increase the cost of anything and you’ll decrease the consumption (in general, exceptions exist).

My point is that the discussion is centered around only taxing the sugar/fat disproportionately consumed by those in the lower economic strata, meaning it becomes a de facto regressive tax.

Like I said above, I’m not against the idea. I’m against the way the implementation is typically discussed. Tax it, but tax it across the board. Tax caviar and truffles as well as hamburgers and sodas, that’s all.

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

#206

Post by lexpar »

Damorian wrote: post #193
Miraste wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm afraid that's just not true. I've made sourdough bread for years, and never added any sweeteners.

There are plenty of bread recipes that require no sweetener, and it's definitely not needed for yeast to develop.

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

#207

Post by dota_fanatic »

hoka-one-one wrote: post #201
johnyzee wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that satiety (to a large degree controlled by leptin) is triggered much more by fat than by other macro nutrients. So white rice, and all other carbs, are worse on that axis too - high in calories but not very filling, thus promoting overeating. The decades of war on fat have contributed to people indulging in these foods.

Why do you think this? I've never seen a satiety index that scores butter over white rice.

You can resolve this for yourself experimentally. Or just look at the math (pulled from google's nutrition facts):

Eat two cups of cooked white rice, ~412 calories, 316 g.

A day later with the same starting conditions, eat 316 g of butter, or ~2,265 calories. I bet you're going to feel way more full after eating the same "amount" of butter vs rice.

As for 500 calories of rice vs 500 calories of butter, hopefully someone else can chime in with references, but again, do the experiment for yourself: how soon after eating an entire meal of rice vs butter do you find yourself getting hungry? This is complicated by what kind of macro ratios a given person's gut is used to, but generally, I find myself ready for more after the rice much sooner.

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

#208

Post by petertodd »

dilap wrote: post #170
petertodd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The honey isn’t your store-bought, pristine golden syrup smelling faintly of HFCS. It’s straight up honeycomb, teeming with bees and larvae and pollen and the queenly secretions called royal jelly. In fact, studies tend to emphasize that the Hadza get 15-50% of their calories not from honey, but from “honey and bee larvae.”" - https://www.marksdailyapple.com/hadza-honey/ They aren't eating the honey that your or I e…

That's a good point (especially for anyone considering making store-bought honey a staple of their diet), and an interesting observation, but even so, they would still, at the extreme end of 50% larva, be getting something like overall 25% of their calories from a "rocket fuel" of simple sugar. So I remain convinced that the main problem with modern processed food is not the amount or makeup of the carbs, but more li…

2 hours average of "moderate to vigorous" physical activity is not a trivial amount. I've personally lost a lot of weight (~12kg) doing less than that amount of average exercise consistently, while eating a crap diet (I moved, and started commuting to work and school via bike).

Anyway, at the end of the day calories in/calories out is a hard limit. Sure, they may be getting even 50% of their diet from "rocket fuel". But if they're calorie constrained by a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, why would that matter?

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

#209

Post by dnhz »

Damorian wrote: post #193
Miraste wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's empirically not true. Yeast do just fine with the starches in the flour. Here's a simple recipe without sugar (and the oil is optional too): http://www.thebreadkitchen.com/recipes/simple-whole-wheat-br...

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

#210

Post by likpok »

Damorian wrote: post #193
Miraste wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeast will do just fine on the carbohydrates in the flour. I find that whole-grain flour tends to lead to more yeast activity, which is sort of the opposite direction.

A lot of the packaged supermarket bread has additives to keep it fresher longer, one of which is sugar. Go either a little upmarket or to the baked-in-store section and you'll find some without it.

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