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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

#61
"...typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives,"

I'm thinking it's probably relates to all the additives in foods today. I would love to see some sort of study comparing these commercially processed foods containing additives to more traditional processing (like my grandparents eating tons of homecanned and home processed foods).

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Non-instant oatmeal takes 5 minutes. Eggs 2 minutes (but fine if you won't eat them). Broiling a steak takes 6 minutes. Broiling a salmon filet takes 15 minutes. A single serving of rice in a saucepan takes about 15 minutes. Steaming or sauteeing vegetables takes about 10 minutes, plus a few more to chop them up at the start (though not the insane time to dice tomatoes or onions). Boiling and mashing potatoes takes about 10 minutes.

These are the basic staples I use personally. Three meals a day, hand-cooked from scratch. Add to that something pre and post workout consisting of whey protein, fresh fruit, and possibly some maltodextrin or blended frozen berries, that don't need to be cooked, and that's my entire diet.

I never had to take a home ec class and my mom did not teach me to cook. The basics are pretty simple. Apply heat until what you're heating is sufficiently palatable or above a safe temperature for meats that is indicated directly on the thermometer. Working from home is pretty key, though, since I don't have to eat super early in the morning, super late at night, or reheat a soggy lunch in the break room microwave. I guess a more powerful stove helps, as it doesn't take me anywhere near 7 minutes to bring a pot to boiling.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#64
Whenever I see any nutrition article like this, I am extremely skeptical. The definition of "ultra-processed" is completely arbitrary as I read it [1]. The control diet is generally worse on non-processing related attributes. The processing angle really only serves to confuse the nutrition debate as the attributes of ultra-processed food (excess sugar, use of partially hydrogenated oils) are already well established health risks. By putting things in the context of the processing, it ignores the possibility of processed foods that avoid these ingredients. By limiting the processing concern to an arbitrary definition of ultra-processing, actual causes might be left uncovered, while non-causes are left in. Whey protein, which I know many very healthy people eat, is considered ultra-processed. Meanwhile, pasta is considered merely processed, while if the pasta is ready to eat, it is ultra-processed. This distinction doesn't seem to be a useful way to make intelligent decisions, and is simply a spurious correlation actually caused by the food ingredients, or just some side effect of people eating less when food isn't ready-made, because they have to do more work to consume it...

[1] https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/CA5644EN/

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry. You are right. The amounts matter as well. My bad.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Totally. But I make one meal each night, if you don’t like it, you are on your own. I don’t mind cooking but I am not a short order cook! My son was making peanut butter and jelly at on his own 4 when he didn’t like what I made.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you truly cannot find 15-30 mins for this, then I have no advice to offer. For the rest, having your groceries delivered is one solution. Life is about trade-offs.

Maybe we could unionize the tech industry so we have the time to cook healthy meals.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those of us living alone it takes a good chunk of our free time after work. It takes even more time for people preparing food for a family. Throw in kids who are picky eaters, and it is even harder.

You can make your kids not picky by putting a plate in front of them and providing the choice of either eating it or going to bed hungry. Kids aren't born only wanting to eat chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese.

>You can make your kids not picky by putting a plate in front of them and providing the choice of either eating it or going to bed hungry. Kids aren't born only wanting to eat chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese.

Yep. I never understood the whole "my kids won't eat $x" thing.

When I was a kid, i ate what was given to me (which was the same as everyone else got) or I didn't eat.

And not because we were poor and couldn't afford to indulge me either. We were a family and ate the same food together. There was never any discussion or expectation of anything different.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those of us living alone it takes a good chunk of our free time after work. It takes even more time for people preparing food for a family. Throw in kids who are picky eaters, and it is even harder.

You can make your kids not picky by putting a plate in front of them and providing the choice of either eating it or going to bed hungry. Kids aren't born only wanting to eat chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese.

I thought this, too, until I had kids. I tried this... they didn't eat, then couldn't fall asleep because they were hungry, so stayed up all night crying because they were hungry. Tried again, they took a few bites then threw it all up.

Maybe they would have broken after a few more days of starvation, but I didn't have it in me to do it.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those of us living alone it takes a good chunk of our free time after work. It takes even more time for people preparing food for a family. Throw in kids who are picky eaters, and it is even harder.

You can make your kids not picky by putting a plate in front of them and providing the choice of either eating it or going to bed hungry. Kids aren't born only wanting to eat chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese.

It's not as easy as "going to bed hungry". It requires work by parents to provide a positive environment when it comes to food - never giving certain foods a stigma, not putting pressure on them to "eat their vegetables", never reminding them what they like or don't like, always making meals positive, letting them choose what to eat, etc.. The concept is, I believe, called "baby-led weaning"; my wife discovered it and both of our kids are phenomenal eaters as a result.

But yeah, it's absolutely not as simple or easy as, "Well, if ya don't eat you'll be hungry" - because congratulations, now they will carry that hatred towards that food with them and it'll come out the next time you serve it to them. And even then, if they're not picky, cooking still takes time because there's a kid running around who often doesn't give a shit about the fact that you have to tend to whatever's cooking at the moment, or they're too little so you need to modify your food prep in order to eliminate/reduce choking hazards.

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