Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#101

Post by internet_points » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

nubinetwork wrote: post #32

breezybottom wrote: post #6

Ultra-processed is a meaningless word used to get media attention. The state of nutrition science is abysmal.

I've heard people say that even bread is ultra processed... I guess we're supposed to go back to eating twigs and berries.

Some bread is! Check the ingredient list. When I bake at home, I use whole wheat flour, water, yeast, a tiny bit of salt and oil.

Things I do not include when I bake at home, which I found from the first hit I got by searching for "bread" in a local Norwegian store's web site: E 472e emulgator, E 471 emulgator, margarine, dextrose, E 300 flour treatment, amylase enzymes, xylanase enzymes.

And that's a fairly short list compared to Walmart bread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48411980

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#102

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

tornikeo wrote: post #73

Tobacco companies should've just announced that "This new tobacco we made is super good, but too dangerous to release, so we are smoking it ourselves and giving it to only the select C-level smokers"

[deleted]

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#103

Post by picofarad » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

nickserv wrote: post #84

cm2012 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it seems like the authors of this article are implying this is bad? I mean ultra-processed is a meaningless term but generally processed food lasts longer, is less perishable, often cheaper, etc.

It's absolutely not a meaningless term, it's a classification in the Nova standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification And regarding health risks, please ask your doctor about your consumption. You may be surprised.

Yeah, it kinda made me laugh too. I'm glad you could pull something out. I'd never heard of that Nova classification system. I'll have to read some more on it. The whole doctor thing, the more processed the food is, the less work your body has to do, which means the more available the calories are, which generally means the worse it is for you.

And usually the fats have to be processed because fat is generally not shelf-stable.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#104

Post by Arkhaine_kupo » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

mjdv wrote: post #19

mapotofu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t. The advice on nutrition is abundantly clear and has been for a long time: eat food, mostly plants, not too much. That science has pushed GRAS as “food” is abysmal. Lots of you have just been punked.

> eat food, mostly plants, not too much. If the state of physics was "stuff falls, heat sticks around, light goes fast" I think it'd be fair to describe that as "abysmal".

The state of physics for most human bodies is "avoid things that are too hot/cold, electricity and heavy things requiere more energy to move, things fall when thrown up"

With those kind of basic ideas you can mostly survive and figure your way around. No one needs to check spin on electrons when living their day to day. Or the mass of a neutron star versus a blackhole

Similarly, nutrition science can be extremely specific about gut microbiome compositions and its effect in regulating specific hormones and so on. But most humans just need the guidelines of dont over eat, have mostly fish/legumes and veggies and be active (strength training and regular walks) to have a healthy life.

no one needs to know the exact frequency and voltage of your plug to be taught to not stick your giners on the wall, and no one needs to know the exact victamin C and iron content of spinach to know its healthier than ultraprocessed chips

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#105

Post by cm2012 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #80

cm2012 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comedy is about putting butts in seats. No comedian can be successful without promoting themselves to get attendees at their shows, and Bill Hicks was no exception. Bill Hicks clearly did the normal career-promotion work of a comedian: he auditioned, performed constantly, toured, did TV spots, recorded specials/albums, cultivated UK audiences, and made repeated appearances on shows like Letterman. He opened for Jay L…

That's performing, not marketing. The analogy would be if whatever company releases a product that people see out in the wild and it's so good at what it does that they want more of it based on word of mouth.

Performing is just showing up at comedy shows and doing your bit. That alone would not have made him successful.

He aggressively promoted and marketed himself!

Biggest example: Going on Letterman and other corporate talk shows / interviews (he went on Letterman 12 times to promote himself, not making much money, purely for driving awareness - classic pr marketing technique that he used repeatedly)

He also went far beyond live acts when he started monetizing his recorded acts that were playing/distributing through corporate partners. Those recordings and specials were heavily marketed and he benefited from it because it created scale.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#106

Post by SauntSolaire » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

bandofthehawk wrote: post #52

cm2012 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco is an addictive product that on average hurts the people who use it as a negative utility. Almost every other product people buy has a positive utility. Tobacco, along with other drugs, is uniquely bad.

> Tobacco, along with other drugs, is uniquely bad. How can it be "uniquely bad" if it's "along with other drugs"?

I took that to mean "addictive drugs are uniquely bad compared to the general category of 'consumer goods'"

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#107

Post by nickserv » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #43

toasty228 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ultra-processed is a meaningless word used to get media attention. Yes, and cigarettes cure cancer amirite ? We all know what they mean by ultra processed food, it's 75% of your supermarkets. 45% of the US is obese, the rest is overweight, food is one of the main factor in the top 2 leading causes of death in the US, if you can't see the problem you're blind There is a very good definition on wikipedia btw, and yes…

Weight gain has basically happened across the whole developed world because cost per calorie has gotten so low that people just eat more calories on average. This is why semi-glutides are the first thing ever to reduce weight gain and actually make people lose weight because they encourage reduced consumption. Don't need ultra-processed food to be unhealthy. Rich guys in the 1800s would get fat and get gout and all t…

> Weight gain has basically happened across the whole developed world

Could it be that maybe, maybe, there is a link to this and the subject of the paper being discussed?

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#108

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #69

breezybottom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We all know what they mean by ultra processed food Very scientific!

This may shock you, but Hacker News isn't a scientific journal. The focus is on communicating useful information and being understood, not necessarily scientific rigorous terminology.

[deleted]

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#109

Post by ImaCake » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #30

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #23

I wonder about the folks who work for tobacco and industrial food conglomerates. Are they not aware of the part they play? Do they rationalize it somehow? Do they just not care? Did they end up there through mergers? Cynical arguments are facile. I'm not interested in hearing that people are dumb or evil. I am genuinely curious how these companies attract talent.

idk about tobacco but the vast majority of normal people see no great problem with industrially produced food. By my reckoning if you say at a party you work for Unilever or something the most you'll get is an "oh that's cool I guess".

People are not (yet) aware what has been making everyone fat, but ozempic is making it harder to ignore that ultraprocessed foods are the culprit. So hopefully this will change.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#110

Post by ptaffs » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #90

Forgeties79 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you do an incredibly painful graft right? I have a buddy who had to do that in college and man it seemed incredibly unpleasant. They harvested the skin from the roof of his mouth IIRC Edit: yikes sounds like it gets worse and might not even work

My dentist has been peddling this procedure to me for years. It sounds incredibly invasive and painful and they don’t even promise it’ll cover 100% of the recession, nor that it won’t recede again unless one goes for an even more invasive jaw realignment which involves, I shit you not, intentionally fracturing the palate bone to make more space to align the teeth. That was the “let me stop you right there” moment. (N…

i had this suggested to me by a locum dentist, and i agree. This is totally off topic and going further so but if you didn't already, you should change your dentist.