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Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

cnn.com

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Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#31

Post by garettmd »

lezojeda wrote: post #18
pessimizer wrote: post #3

> “People need to know they should cook more and prepare their own food from scratch. I know. We say we don’t have time but it really doesn’t take that much time,” Suemoto said. This is bullshit in a very important way: you have to know how to cook. Bring back home economics classes.

And tbh, it really does take time to prepare a good meal, including washing dishes and all that. For those of us living alone it takes a good chunk of our free time after work.

Not arguing with you that it takes a considerable amount of time to prepare and clean-up a home cooked meal. But as someone who is not living alone (have a wife and kids), I'd say you probably have a lot more free time than you think you do, and I'm not sure that cooking just for yourself takes up any more time than it would cooking more food, for more people with varying tastes, allergies, etc. Add to the fact that most of the people being cooked for (kids) are basically freeloaders, I think that people living alone really have less excuse to eat healthy.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#32

Post by the_doctah »

pessimizer wrote: post #3

> “People need to know they should cook more and prepare their own food from scratch. I know. We say we don’t have time but it really doesn’t take that much time,” Suemoto said. This is bullshit in a very important way: you have to know how to cook. Bring back home economics classes.

Cooking is literally as simple as following a recipe.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#33

Post by brightball »

pessimizer wrote: post #3

> “People need to know they should cook more and prepare their own food from scratch. I know. We say we don’t have time but it really doesn’t take that much time,” Suemoto said. This is bullshit in a very important way: you have to know how to cook. Bring back home economics classes.

I've long been an advocate for a 4 year program that coincides with the entire high school experience.

Students should grow, harvest and cook their own food. While doing so, every subject should be involved.

Chemistry and Biology are the more obvious ones for sake of soil testing, plant biology, cross pollination, and composting. Chemistry also should be involved in cooking.

Math and science classes for sake of grids, spacing, growth charting, control groups, etc as well as conservation.

Economics for understanding all of the costs involved from planting, to harvesting, to buying equipment and hiring labor, shipping to grocery stores, disposal of food that isn't purchased. Additionally, budgeting for ingredients to prepare meals.

History can bring a lot of this to life by studying agricultural history and the accompanying economics, including the world events surrounding them. I'm sure there's plenty of literature go to along with it as well.

And you can even get into computer science, engineering and robotics by setting up FarmBot's in schools, which are open source. Students can learn to use them as designed as well as program new functionality.

Help students learn by making it both beneficial, relatable and connected.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#34

Post by cortesoft »

omginternets wrote: post #14
mjburgess wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that required housewives. We're missing a full day's domestic labour.

Nah. I work long hours and still find time to cook. Dinner takes about 15 mins to prepare, on average. I think the issue has more to do with people not knowing how to cook things that are both simple and nutritious. I really feel for people who are trying to learn; every beginner's cookbook is full of things that require specific ingredients, complicated prep work, or a shit-ton of chopping. I've toyed around with th…

> Dinner takes about 15 mins to prepare, on average.

This doesn't include time to meal plan, grocery shop, and clean dishes. Also, 15 minutes isn't a ton of time, but it isn't nothing.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#35

Post by garettmd »

omginternets wrote: post #5
photochemsyn wrote: post #2

There are a wide variety of heavily promoted dietary identities - from vegan to carnivore - but I'm convinced that in terms of one's health, eliminating these processed food items from one's diet is the one that has the most long-term benefits. The only downside is that relying only on 'real food' ingredients requires a fair amount of cooking, but the effort is well worth the payback. There's no snappy one-word term…

Incidentally, I think this is also why many extreme diets seem to have some evidence in favor of their health benefits. From where I'm standing, it seems like veganism/paleo/etc start being linked to various problems right around the time the agro industry starts cranking out specialized (read: highly-processed) products. Relatedly: I'm taking bets regarding lab-grown meat.

Which direction are you betting on lab-grown meats?

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#36

Post by sideshowb »

rendang wrote: post #15

As a layman non-scientist, I wonder why we see so many relatively low-value observational studies in diet/nutrition, often with results that get contradicted or fail to replicate a few years later. What would prevent us from doing a study like this: take 1000 diverse subjects, assign each of them a lab assistant, and for 2+ years, diligently track everything they eat, their exercise, sleep, etc. You could pay each pa…

What you describe is still an observational study, just a very expensive one now. It's still quite possible you'd fail to measure something important you hadn't thought of.

Better to spend some of that budget instead on a randomised controlled trial but there are likely issues with getting people to follow their prescribed diets to the letter

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#37

Post by kayodelycaon »

omginternets wrote: post #14
mjburgess wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that required housewives. We're missing a full day's domestic labour.

Nah. I work long hours and still find time to cook. Dinner takes about 15 mins to prepare, on average. I think the issue has more to do with people not knowing how to cook things that are both simple and nutritious. I really feel for people who are trying to learn; every beginner's cookbook is full of things that require specific ingredients, complicated prep work, or a shit-ton of chopping. I've toyed around with th…

I don’t know anything how to cook anything from fresh ingredients that takes just 15 minutes from entering the kitchen to going to the table to eat. It takes 7 minutes for my kettle to bring 1.5 L of water to boil. (Yay 120v…)

Instant oatmeal I guess? Anything requiring dairy or eggs won’t work.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#38

Post by vkk8 »

doliveira wrote: post #25
omarhaneef wrote: post #8

I wish I knew what was ultraprocessed. > "Ultraprocessed foods are defined as "industrial formulations of food substances (oils, fats, sugars, starch, and protein isolates) that contain little or no whole foods and typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives," according to the study. But if I have a package that says it is whole grain or whatever, how do I know if it is or isn't…

Ultraprocessed for me means "truly delicious and dopamine-inducing". Not that I don't find other food tasty, but something that feels engineered to please your tongue is usually ultraprocessed.

> "People who consumed more than 20% of daily calories from processed foods had a 28% faster decline in global cognition and a 25% faster decline in executive functioning compared to people who ate less than 20%,"

I wish they just showed a graph of "decline in cognition" vs "percentage of calories from processed foods" instead of making me try to parse the relevant information out of sentences like that. What 10% of my calories come from processed foods? I'm I completely safe or is the effect linear in percentage of calories or what?

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#39

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #3

> “People need to know they should cook more and prepare their own food from scratch. I know. We say we don’t have time but it really doesn’t take that much time,” Suemoto said. This is bullshit in a very important way: you have to know how to cook. Bring back home economics classes.

[deleted]

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#40

Post by cortesoft »

arnejenssen wrote: post #20
omarhaneef wrote: post #8

I wish I knew what was ultraprocessed. > "Ultraprocessed foods are defined as "industrial formulations of food substances (oils, fats, sugars, starch, and protein isolates) that contain little or no whole foods and typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives," according to the study. But if I have a package that says it is whole grain or whatever, how do I know if it is or isn't…

The sorry state is that a chain is not stronger than the weakest link. And a food is not healthier than the worst ingredient/compound. A "good" nutrient does not make up for the bad/ultra processed additives. Stay off the granola bar with high fructose corn syrup. It is more important to avoid the bad anti-nutrients than to eat a particular food for a certain "miracle" nutrient.

> And a food is not healthier than the worst ingredient/compound. A "good" nutrient does not make up for the bad/ultra processed additives.

This can't be true in an absolute sense. There is no way that adding a single drop of high fructose corn syrup to a meal would completely ruin any health benefits of the rest of the meal. There is also no way that adding a bit of corn syrup to a plate of broccoli would be equally as unhealthy for you as a bowl of lucky charms. Obviously the mix of ingredients matters.

Where do you get the idea that a single bad ingredient ruins the entire food?

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