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Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

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Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#91

Post by clairity »

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…

you could distinguish a loaf of bread, which is processed, from boxed bread products like crackers or cookies (ultraprocessed), but i doubt that distinction matters much for our health, as they'll both likely include said additives in varying amounts. in shopping and food prep, i'd consider them synonyms--as in, things to avoid (but not dogmatically, sometimes you want some potato chips).

processed foods only comes in a box, bag, or can; that is, most of the center aisles in a grocery store. buy mostly fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, and dairy--things found on the outer ring of the store. if you want grains or beans, prefer buying the grains/beans directly, not the boxed form of them.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#92

Post by jfim »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #37
omginternets wrote: post #14

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.

I was struggling with that until I started prepping ingredients ahead of time.

If you already have diced onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms in the fridge, then it doesn't even take fifteen minutes to make an omelette, a salad, or some sauteed vegetables with sausage.

The only thing that you need is that after bringing groceries home you need to prep the vegetables and put them in the fridge. The good thing is that all that labor is amortized for the rest of the week, and it makes home cooking easier and faster than ordering delivery.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#93

Post by samatman »

omginternets wrote: post #51
cortesoft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy corn you have to husk, meat you have to cut, fish you have to filet, wine you have to uncork, bread you have to slice, etc. Ok, this is just silly. Cutting your own meat doesn't make it healthier than having a butcher cut it for you. Box wine is no more or less healthy than bottled wine with a cork. Slicing bread yourself doesn't change its health contents. Its statements like these that make the whole argument…

It's a rule of thumb, friend. It actually does make a difference in the aggregate, as evidenced by the extra ingredients you will find in pre-processed supermarket meat. Have a look at what's in your hot dogs, for example. Obvious exceptions apply, such as going to the butcher, as you have astutely observed. These do not invalidate the rule-of-thumb.

The issue is rather that nothing in your rule-of-thumb works.

Frozen corn vs whole corn? Were you planning to eat the cob? Does it help my diet to cut corn kernels off manually? How?

Meat you have to cut? Maybe you're thinking hot dogs here, my first thought was ground beef. Does breaking out the meat grinder, and cleaning it, help me eat right? How?

Fish you have to filet? Can I just buy the filets? Or is it 100% necessary that fish skin rot in my garbage can.

Boxed wine? Generally I consider corked wine undrinkable, and I struggle to think what other contribution a cork per se can offer to wine.

Sliced bread? I mean. Look it's a really bad set of rules so I'll have mercy here, the kind of bread which is available only sliced is not great for you, so at least here I can infer your meaning.

Not that it matters because the #1 source of extra pounds on my waist is whole loaves of sourdough bread. I slice them myself.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#94

Post by sudden_dystopia »

cortesoft wrote: post #69
kaesar14 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What were you trying to feed your kids that they wouldn’t eat anything at all for days? I let my son choose breakfast and lunch, within reason. And then mommy and I choose dinner. If he doesn’t like dinner he can have some fruit or sometimes he makes a pb&j if he is hungrier. If he eats dinner we made, he can have a treat. No dinner, no treat. There is no fight or arguing, that’s just the established rules now and he is aware of them.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#95

Post by hypertele-Xii »

cortesoft wrote: post #42
omginternets wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rules of thumb: 1. Don't buy meals; buy ingredients. 2. The longer the list of ingredients, the more likely it is to be "highly" processed 3. The way you avoid 'highly' processed stuff is to avoid processing altogether. Buy corn you have to husk, meat you have to cut, fish you have to filet, wine you have to uncork, bread you have to slice, etc.

> Buy corn you have to husk, meat you have to cut, fish you have to filet, wine you have to uncork, bread you have to slice, etc. Ok, this is just silly. Cutting your own meat doesn't make it healthier than having a butcher cut it for you. Box wine is no more or less healthy than bottled wine with a cork. Slicing bread yourself doesn't change its health contents. Its statements like these that make the whole argument…

These practices listed correlate with ultraprocessing though. Pre-sliced bread is more likely to be processed in other ways, too, than bread loaves.

It's a heuristic.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#96

Post by Claudus »

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.

Depends on how efficient you are, I prepare 18/21 meals a week at home, and have been doing this for years).

I spend 1 hour every two weeks getting groceries for ~$120. I spend 1.5 hours every two weeks (5 minutes a day + 20 minutes to prep 14 “containers”) preparing breakfast and rinsing dishes from the previous day for the dishwasher). My breakfast is cooked oat bran with walnuts, flax seed, wheat germ, Ceylon cinnamon, cacao, blueberries, raisins, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, 4oz orange juice, fish oil, vitamins d3, k2.

I spend 2.5 hours a week (5 to 15 minutes a day) preparing lunch, typically steamed vegetables + 150 grams chicken + 1 cup dry instant brown rice cooked OR salmon + simple salad + sweet potatoes OR 8oz unsalted black beans with fresh guacamole OR lentils OR potato and egg tacos with homemade salsa OR “fried” rice, etc.

I spend the same preparing dinner with same / similar dishes as lunch.

I also snack on fresh fruit / vegetables between meals sometimes.

Roughly $240 and 15 hours a month (30 minutes a day) for all food prep + cleanup, and yes, the numbers are accurate as I have timed myself over a two week period in the past, if anything I’m probably faster now. I’m sure there are other factors that can add extra time, but for me, a single guy in the US, I spend less time and money cooking healthy delicious meals at home than I did going out to eat, and only slightly more time than heating up frozen dinners, which I think is more than compensated for by the resulting health benefits.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#97

Post by EricE »

One of the best thing about the "meal in a box" companies is they remove a lot of the friction from cooking from scratch. I use Blue Apron and love the convenience. They gather ingredients that aren't practical for a single person to normally source/maintain yet I get to have interesting and tasty meals. When it comes to a lot of fresh herbs or specialty items, the cost of meals through them can actually be lower since you have far less waste.

They also help force me out of my comfort zones. There are a lot of recipes that would never try cold out of a cook book, but because they are bundling everything needed the risk/reward tilts more firmly into the "why not try it" column.

Even if every meal was at a premium it's still worth it to me for the connivence.

I've shared free meal codes with friends/family - had a co-worker who's teenage daughter wanted to cook more but was overwhelmed. They tried the service, used it for a year and after she got her skills and confidence up they ended up dropping it, but remade their favorites from the last year and used those for ideas of other recipes to try that they probably otherwise wouldn't have.

You don't have to take them every week too - I currently skip around and do it maybe one or two times a month just to supplement my other cooking. The variety is nice. It is a bit of a pain requiring some micromanaging since they are obviously motivated to keep you on the weekly treadmill.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#98

Post by justsomehnguy »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #57
lezojeda wrote: post #18

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.

No doubt. But how much time and money could obesity and cognitive decline cost you? There are plenty of less complicated, one pot meal recipes littering the internet. Have you tried an Instapot or a nice air fryer?

I find it is quite troublesome to:

find a recipe

get the ingredients

make the meal

So most of the time I just substitute on pasta with a tomato/cucumber/whatelseIgrabbedintheshop salad.

~20 mins to shop for a two-three days worth of food, ~20 mins to make, even less if I'm lazy and bouggt frozen dumplings.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#99

Post by drewcoo »

brightball wrote: post #33
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…

My high school had vocational agriculture classes that included much of that. Well more mechanics and weather science than history or lit, but still . . . that exists.

Pro tip: If they teach Vo-Ag in your area, look for the FFA (Future Farmers of America) kids. They fund-raise by selling wonderful produce.

Re: Cognitive decline linked to ultraprocessed food, study finds

#100

Post by EricE »

antisthenes wrote: post #72
lezojeda wrote: post #18

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.

Having a sharp knife and preparing food in bulk for at least 3-4 meals is key to time savings. Most single men that I know like to prep food for the entire work week in advance. If you're making a single serving (e.g. single dinner for yourself), then the overhead of cleaning dishes and pans makes it uneconomical to do so. Also, certain things in cooking don't need supervision and you can perform other chores during…

Yup - when I was at my most organized I would make a normal family sized meal, eat one portion then portion up the leftovers on a plate, slip the whole thing in a bag and seal with a vacuum sealer and toss 'em in the freezer. Home made TV dinners! Now I'm spoiled with services like Blue Apron, but I still will occasionally make my favorite meals and portion them up into my own frozen dinners :)
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