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How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

nytimes.com

301–310 of 387 posts

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Greek Yogurt is not the same as Yogurt, it's a different product. Those two items are not "essentially the same thing". Also, low/zero-fat yogurts dominate the market in the US. Plain Whole-Milk traditional yogurt is more available now than it was a decade or two ago, but it's still nowhere as common as the high-sugar flavored ones.

I am continually astounded that zero fat/low fat yogurt is just seen as normal. Ditto for oatmeal with added sugar.

I hate the obsession with low/no fat that has stuck around for decades here. Taking out the fat makes the food less tasty and less satiating. Not to mention that extra sugar tends to be added to try to compensate for the taste, thus making it at least as bad for you if not worse than if had more fat.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#302
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about cooking rice here...

Clean up is much easier with a ceramic vessel and properly sealing rice cookers use less water.

We are talking about a cup of water here. And cleanup wise its pretty easy. I use a stainless steel pot. After I've finished with it, soak in water, come back in 10-20 mins, it just sloughs out.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#303
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bailey is all this stuff about how we need to rid the food chain of stabilizers and glutamates and nitrates and preservatives because "bizarre lab concoctions" endanger people. In my case, I'm arguing that doing away with these things, regardless of any health effects they may have, has the effect of eliminating the entire class of foods you have a problem with. > "UPF-free" logos for cane-sugar-sweetened bever…

>The latter has been in decline since around the mid-90s. I'm curious about this. Do you have a reference for this? What is in decline specifically? Number of people drinking sugary soda? Number of sugary sodas consumed per person (on average)? Amount of sugar consumed by drinking sugary soda? I'm curious because it seems the amount of sugar per can of soda has drastically increased since the 90's. If my memory serve…

Gallons of soda per capita.

I think what you're observing is larger cans and bottles are available now. I haven't seen an increase.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-drinking-way-less-s...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#304
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bailey is all this stuff about how we need to rid the food chain of stabilizers and glutamates and nitrates and preservatives because "bizarre lab concoctions" endanger people. In my case, I'm arguing that doing away with these things, regardless of any health effects they may have, has the effect of eliminating the entire class of foods you have a problem with. > "UPF-free" logos for cane-sugar-sweetened bever…

>The latter has been in decline since around the mid-90s. I'm curious about this. Do you have a reference for this? What is in decline specifically? Number of people drinking sugary soda? Number of sugary sodas consumed per person (on average)? Amount of sugar consumed by drinking sugary soda? I'm curious because it seems the amount of sugar per can of soda has drastically increased since the 90's. If my memory serve…

I don't think your memory is serving you very well. A 12oz can of Coca-Cola contains 39g of sugar, which hasn't changed in a long time. (Some people claim that switching the sugar from sucrose to high-fructose corn syrup had harmful effects but there's little evidence for that.) Other brands have a little more or less sugar but that's probably the one most commonly consumed.

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/faq/ingredients

Sugar consumption per capita has been trending up slightly in the last few years. But ironically it was actually higher back in the 1970s when the population was less obese.

https://www.helgilibrary.com/indicators/sugar-consumption-pe...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#305

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The comment is still true regardless of the fact that Whole Foods exists. It is genuinely more difficult to find healthy food in the US than abroad. (i'm ignoring the additional fact that the US has many more food deserts than abroad. even within rich neighborhoods with many expansive grocery stores, those stores have more unhealthy options and fewer healthy options than abroad, unless it's specifically a "health foo…

I wholeheartedly disagree. Grocery stores in the US are typically much larger than grocery stores abroad. A Kroger, Publix, Piggly Wiggly, Schnuck's, or HyVee will typically have just as many healthy food options as a grocery store abroad. The difference is these US grocery stores also stock a much larger variety of unhealthy options. As someone else in this thread used sweet yogurt as an example, it is trivially eas…

You might think that based on a cursory anecdotal comparison, but studies show it is not true.

"Ultra-processed food staples dominate mainstream U.S. supermarkets. Americans more than Europeans forced to choose between health and cost" - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.16.24302894v...

"Price and availability trends by level of neighbourhood deprivation however, remain unclear; while studies in the US have tended to find differences between neighbourhoods and prices for availability of healthier food items, studies conducted in other countries have generally reported no association" - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3679513/

"The distribution of the FPro scores in the three stores shows a high degree of similarity: each store exhibits a monotonically increasing curve (Fig. 2a), indicating that minimally pro-cessed products (low FPro) represent a relatively small fraction of the inventory of grocery stores, the majority of the offerings being in the ultra-processed category (high FPro). Although less-processed items make up a smaller share of the overall inventory, they likely account for a proportionally larger portion of actual purchases, highlighting a discrepancy between sales data and available food options. Never-theless, systematic differences between stores emerge: Whole Foods offers a greater selection of minimally processed items and fewer ultra-processed options, whereas Target has a particularly high pro-portion of ultra-processed products (high FPro)." - https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-024-01095-7.epdf?shar...

"“Our research shows that consumers prioritize taste and price when shopping for food, with nutrition coming in a distant third,” Balagtas said. “So the fact that consumers associate healthy eating with high costs and low taste is a challenge for food manufacturers and public health advocates.”" - https://ag.purdue.edu/news/2025/08/how-americans-make-health...

We have more ultraprocessed foods, fewer healthy options, the healthy options are more expensive, and their distribution is uneven (less healthy food depending on the store). Consumers' associations confirm this.

Meanwhile abroad there is less ultraprocessed food, the healthy food is more often subsidized (so it's cheaper), and healthy food distribution choices are more evenly distributed.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaningless how? A lot of significant effects were found, it can't be entirely meaningless.

Correlation != causation. Your correlation can identify a hugely important effect without pinpointing its mechanism. In this case: I think it's very likely that ultraprocessing has not-very-much to do with food health, but UPF foods tend to be hyperpalatable and low-satiety, which almost certainly does . The ultraprocessing isn't what's making the foot hyperpalatable or low-satiety (the macronutrient mix and sweeteni…

Yes, I think much of the research is trying to find out what thr cause is, and I agree itslikely to be that hyperpalatable part.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a short train ride away, what's the qualifications fir food desert?

Here's a very detailed article https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/537685fafa614d80ac83a60...

> There are no set few factors, but some other influences that affect food deserts may include: mobility, existing health issues, working irregular hours, fast food culture, lacking adequate knowledge about nutrition, and many more.

Seems like the qualifications are whatever they want them to be.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just that "UPF" isn't the right metric for isolating those foods I've heard this criticism a fair bit, and I sort of agree. The only thing is, what is the right metric? And if we don't have one, and know these foods are causing harm, should we just use UPF as a term anyway?

Honestly, UPF feels like a food industry plant word to make legislation a hot mess full of holes. Just regulate added sugar and saturated/trans fats and be done with it.

Saturated fat is not processed food and is not unhealthy. It is the most common kind of natural fat in the human diet for most people through most of history.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confusing pink slime and meat glue?

No, "pink slime" refers to processed meat trim that is packaged and made palatable with meat glue.

Do you have a source for transglutiminase used to put the pink slime back together? This is the first I'm hearing it. I thought they just stirred it into the ground beef.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#310

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> which is on the order of calling dashi a UPF because of the kombu when you use a comparison like this, you choose an example that people will understand so they can then, by analogy, extend that understanding to the point you are trying to make... like the kombu in the dashi, you say? dash-it-all, that's a combunation I hadn't considered!

If you don't do a lot of cooking, just think "this is a definition that suggests virtually all traditional Japanese cooking is UPF".

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