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Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

cam.mbi.ufl.edu

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Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#131

Post by sqeaky »

gnz11 wrote: post #107
pixl97 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the US is housing density and dependence on cars. In the average US city a street may have an order of magnitude fewer people than a moderately dense city.

Zoning laws generally exclude businesses from opening in residential neighborhoods. So no neighborhood bakery, butcher, produce, pub, etc within walking distances. Change the zoning laws, change the car dependencies.

This is also a major shift in culture and is likely to have unexpected side effects. Maybe those side effects are good, or bad, I don't know but zoning is a big deal and complex to the point of having emergent properties that should be considered.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#132

Post by sqeaky »

dangwhy wrote: post #96
loeg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the major problem is that no one can define what "processed" means in any consistent or objective sense. It's just a retcon'd category of things people already think of as unhealthy.

> no one can define what "processed" means this is 'ultra processed' food that is defined by NOVA classification system.

Links to that? I am entirely unfamiliar and could easily find the wrong item.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#133

Post by yurishimo »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #11
strict9 wrote: post #5

> Even packaged breads, including those high in nutritious whole grains, qualify as ultra-processed in many cases because of the additives and preservatives they contain. However much I'd like to alter my diet to be more healthy, including flavored nuts or bread as ultraprocessed means I have nearly zero chance avoiding a sizable portion of what academic scientists label as ultraprocessed. These studies and press rel…

Then again, the advice really just cashes out into buying whole foods like produce, beans, frozen bags of veggies, etc. Better food items will get caught in the crossfire of someone naively avoiding the worse "processed foods", but maybe that's still a net win. Even your fancy nuts example, if one of the main problems with ultra-processed foods is that they are hyperpalatable, then I see good reason to avoid fancy nu…

If you like eating nuts, I suggest buying them with the shells. Pecans, pistachios, walnuts, heck even peanuts. You can still roast them so they taste better, but the shell slows you down a lot. Get a small bowl and when the bowl is full of shells, you stop eating them.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#134

Post by forgetfulness »

orangepurple wrote: post #123
beepbooptheory wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe its just me, or maybe I've spent too much time working in kitchens, but there is an overriding sameness to restaurant food even if you are considering the full spectrum of McDonald's to fancy steakhouse takeout. Something about the necessary restrictions and specificity in cooking commercially in big kitchens creates certain tendencies around flavors and salt and such that I just personally need a break from if…

In the big chains it's overwhelming consolidation and cost cutting that completely eliminated flavor. Sugar and heat compensate for the lack of flavor. Finally, overweight and obese people perceive the things they eat differently than if their BMI was normal (personal experience going from obese class 1 to normal). If the majority of your clientele are obese or overweight, you will update the menu to appease their pa…

> Finally, overweight and obese people perceive the things they eat differently than if their BMI was normal

Besides asking for studies that may or may not be there, what was your experience with this? I hadn't heard of this before.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#135

Post by Oxidation »

idopmstuff wrote: post #50
GloriousKoji wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint to the carb reduction is fresh baked bread is so delicious and scaling bread recipes is easy so you end up eating twice as much bread compared to store bought.

Yeah, my wife bakes bread and it's usually just her and I. Can't leave that bread overnight, so I end up eating half a loaf of bread instead of the two slices of store bought bread that I usually have each day.

> Can't leave that bread overnight

Is that a climate thing? In my (temperate) experience, bread lasts for several days, even in summer.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#136

Post by jrsj »

outworlder wrote: post #72
strict9 wrote: post #5

> Even packaged breads, including those high in nutritious whole grains, qualify as ultra-processed in many cases because of the additives and preservatives they contain. However much I'd like to alter my diet to be more healthy, including flavored nuts or bread as ultraprocessed means I have nearly zero chance avoiding a sizable portion of what academic scientists label as ultraprocessed. These studies and press rel…

> These studies and press releases seem counterproductive. If sliced bread or fancy nuts is in the same category as aerosol cheese or high calorie soda, a lot of people are going to struggle to understand what isn't ultraprocessed and give up trying to select better items at the grocery store. Well, that's because they are. The question is why they are unhealthy. Take an Apple. You eat it, it is healthy. Slice it. Yo…

Is faster absorption really that big of a deal? Highly developed countries like Japan and South Korea that eat a lot of white rice seem considerably healthier than the U.S. as an example.

I don’t really know much about this topic but I always assumed additives were a much greater problem than white rice, white bread, etc.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#137

Post by Tobias42 »

crazygringo wrote: post #67
alanbernstein wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's commendable. It's "simple" as in not complicated and easy to understand. It's "difficult" as in it requires an incredible amount of discipline, and potentially time, compared to the alternative.

And as parent pointed out, more expensive. You can easily double or triple your food costs if you're getting most of your calories from organic veggies and non-grain-fed animals.

You don‘t have to do that. You can buy cheap meat and cheap vegetables. That way you will still eat much healthier than eating ultra-processed stuff, and probably even save money.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#138

Post by jrsj »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #8

I like the whole food based diet; essentially buying fresh items simple ingredients. Stick to the meat and produce isles, maybe go to the butchers or bakery for local meat and bread, and a greengrocers for local veg. Make things like sauces from scratch. I enjoy cooking which helps. I believe that no matter what Scientists decide are good/bad for that particular year I'm going to be okay because it's simple, fresh, a…

A lack of knowledge about cooking is imo the single biggest cause of health issues in the United States. People generally know that real food is healthier, but it’s not convenient and they don’t know how to cook so it’s really not even an option most of the time.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#139

Post by parineum »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #127
parineum wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mixer. I made pizza dough the other day in about 10 minutes. It takes a while to stretch into pizza and add toppings but, if you're just making bread, that'd be ready to bake by morning. Are you actually trying to argue that bread, ine if the simplest things to make and the bedrock of civilization for thousands of years, is too difficult to make?

I didn't say too difficult, no. But there are so many super-local bakers around the world. Single neighborhoods are willing to pay full-time wages to a baker just so they don't have to make their own bread. Explain why they do that if daily bread-making isn't a pain in the ass. Or is this just that you don't think I should use the word "hard" to mean "pain in the ass"? It comes out of your money/time budget either wa…

There's a bit of a conflict between your post and it's grandparent.

> Freshly baked bread can be hard to obtain in many parts of the US. For me if I wanted fresh baked bread every day and not make it myself, I'd be looking at like 40-60 minutes of extra time per day if I drive there every day.

and

> But there are so many super-local bakers around the world. Single neighborhoods are willing to pay full-time wages to a baker just so they don't have to make their own bread. Explain why they do that if daily bread-making isn't a pain in the ass.

Which I have two thoughts on, first, I'm pretty sure most people are buying bread at the grocery store. So, the availability of fresh bread (which is also frequently available in the grocery store bakery) has more to do with lack of demand than it does with lack of availability. It seems like the convenience of pre-sliced bread that doesn't go bad in a couple days is just vastly preferred over fresh bread.

As for the local bakeries, I'd argue that those bakeries exist because they bake a variety of bread (and cakes) that are more involved than simple bread. I'd be shocked if the majority of the money they make wasn't from specialty items with wide margins.

The top level point I'm trying to get across has to do with the article and top level comment though, fresh bread is available to anybody with an extra few minutes every couple days. And, frankly, if you're doing any amount of cooking during the day, you can do it at the same time. There's usually some down time in a recipe that you could sneak in throwing a few ingredients into a mixer. Or put it together while watching whatever netflix show you're watching or podcast you're listening to.

Bread was certainly much more work but a stand mixer is not that expensive, especially compared to the amount of time it will save you if you cook semi-frequently (and even better if you make the bread you eat frequently). There are a plethora of modern conveniences that make bread so much easier to make than it used to be (and it was already pretty easy...).

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#140

Post by steponlego »

dfxm12 wrote: post #109
orangepurple wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). The average American may assemble food from time to time but generally does not cook. That said, there are hundreds of millions of people in that country, so this is obviously a generalization, and should be treated as such. That said Lidl is making aggressive inroads into…

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). This is the crux of the matter: we can only buy what is on our shelves. If we have to start looking at ingredients lists, I think we've already lost the plot. Why are these questionable things on our shelves in the first place? Likely because they're cheaper to make, or wor…

Walmart sells flour, eggs, milk… and it’s doubtful that plastic tube bread is cheaper when you can make a loaf yourself for about thirty cents.
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