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

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

#111

Post by gaiagraphia »

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.

It's horrifying to see the state of bread in some nations.

I really don't get why/how one of the simplest processes known to civilization needs a stock ticker and a Hogwarts-worth of chemicals thrown into it. It's really quite baffling.

The state of some of the processed packs of 'bread' I've seen/tasted shouldn't be allowed to trade using the name, tbh.

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

#112

Post by margalabargala »

breezybottom wrote: post #98
margalabargala wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soros bucks? You're spouting a right wing position, not a progressive one.

I didn't know right-wing means rejecting bad science and progressive means accepting it.

It doesn't, so there's something you're correct about!

But certainly pro-processed-foods stuff gets pushed by the right, and Soros is on the left, so there's the contradiction.

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

#113

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

AngryData wrote: post #4

And this is different from all other marketing how? If tobacco style marketing is a problem that needs to be solved, then 95% of marketing needs to be banned.

> 95% of marketing needs to be banned.

I could get behind this.

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

#114

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

internet_points wrote: post #101
nubinetwork wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Shorter ingredient lists can be a good rule of thumb, but things like E-XXXX can just be regulator names for regular things.

E-330 is citric acid which is lemon juice

E-621 is MSG which is just more meaty tasting salt from seaweed sources instead of rock.

The E classification is for regulation testing, not a label of how processed something is.

Another rule of thumb other than ingredient list is who made it. Your local baker will probably have a less processed method than a mega factory like Bimbo Hovis or any other macro manufacturer that can put 1000 loaves in every supermarket in the country every day

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

#115

Post by DanielHB »

embedding-shape wrote: post #97
seethishat wrote: post #53

The newer synthetic nicotine pouches (Zyn, On, Velo) are everywhere in the USA and are being used by kids as young as 13. They are ruining the gut health of an entire generation of kids. Edit: Both boys and girls are dependent on these things now and they seem socially acceptable (no smoke, no spit, just swallow the chemical nicotine). Get ready for a huge wave of GI problems due to this.

Is your problem with them that they're synthetic, or that it's nicotine? Pouched tobacco like that been used for decades in some places in the world, or even without pouches, just making your own ball and sticking the tobacco under your lip. I'm not sure these countries have a higher rate of GI/gut problems than other places, which kind of would invalidate your entire argument here.

Snus (tobacco pouches you put under your gums) is super popular in Sweden:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus

It is basically the same thing but not synthetic. Supposedly nicotin pouches are not as harmful because they do not have tobacco leaves.

I am a bit ambivalent about it, on one hand people don't smoke as much because snus which means I don't get as much second hand smoke.

On the other hand it is WAY easier for kids to get started on it as they don't need to hide it after they put it in their mouths. I know a few people who are heavily addicted to it (one even keeps one in when he is sleeping) and they all started in their early teens.

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

#116

Post by mpalczewski »

jjice wrote: post #50
flossly wrote: post #46

Tobacco, wine and fresh bread are usually few of the consumables that in many western countries do not have to disclose their ingredients. Why do we allow this? Just behave like all others. Now we want to push for smoke-free societies: but non of ways to achieve this even dares to talk about "just make tobacco giants list all the ingredients/additives".

Tangential but similar nonsensical secrecy for consumables: alcohol not requiring a nutrition label always irks me.

One beer company tried to do it. But because beer has vitamins in it, they were prohibited from doing it as it might have made the beer seem healthy.

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

#117

Post by picofarad »

herbst wrote: post #74
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…

People are pissed because they don't want to accept that a) most of supermarkets food is bad and b) you need to cook yourself in order to eat properly.

We call it shopping around the outside of the supermarket, and it's how you find the food that won't kill you I'm 46. I'm obese, but in otherwise perfect health by every biological marker and test that they can run. Blood pressure is normal. Cholesterol is great. Glucose is great. A1c test is fine. Liver and kidney functions are fine. Everything's fine.

The key is, eat things from the outside ring of the store, not the middle cookie sections.

I haven't gotten that "not too much" part down yet.

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

#118

Post by SauntSolaire »

toasty228 wrote: post #47
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.

> ultra-processed is a meaningless You'd find plenty of definitions if you looked for them > generally processed food lasts longer, is less perishable, often cheaper, etc. Go ahead and list the negatives too lmao... what do you think the additives meant to prevent living organism from developing on the food do in your gut for example ? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11901572/ Ultra processed food benefit co…

> You'd find plenty of definitions if you looked for them

Having a greater number of competing definitions does not generally make a term more meaningful. (Take "art" for example.)

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

#119

Post by svpk »

oytis wrote: post #21
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this objection a lot, even from folks I respect. Its ubiquity makes me wonder it is astroturfed. The definition I have heard is "food made with ingredients or processes not commonly used in ghome Unfortunately, when I looked to leading scientific orgs, they are dithering on releasing formal definitions, but all say something like what I'd heard. Conflicting information doesn't mean an abysmal situation. I'…

How should using processes not used at home make something harmful? If we make the same processes commonly available to use at home, will these foods become less harmful? I know there is science around it, but the very concept looks very unscientific, it's almost like talking about "unnatural food"

The idea is that you could ban any set of "unhealthy" inputs and give the big food companies some time and they'll come out with something just as unhealthy that complies with your rules.

The underlying issue is some mix of what industrial processes make possible combined with food scientist working with taste test panels to hyper optimize food. When you spend all this time and effort trying to create a snack where people are always left craving just a bit more you end up with the kinds of junk food that we have.

We want there to be some simple answer of "it's these ingredients, or this specific combination" but the actual answer seems to be that when you use industrial processes and science to min-max cost and palatabillity you always end up with junk. Whereas when you cook food with typical home methods and ingredients you don't.

Food health science has always had difficulties with just how complicated the actual processing of food in our bodies is and the more we look the more complex it gets. But the "ultra-processed foods" test seems to be working out as a successful heuristic to identify especially unhealthy foods. Given the issues health science has had with coming up with exact answers a heuristic that's pretty reliable (even if imperfect) is a pretty big win!

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

#120

Post by picofarad »

xg15 wrote: post #99
cm2012 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes not gonna pull it but there's data that shows calories got meaningfully cheaper and easier to access in the United States and more plentiful from the 1980s to the 2020s.

That shift might have been plausible if it happened in the 40s or 50s when the economy switched from war to consumption - but in the 80s? What kind of massive breakthrough in food production happened there that we mysteriously never heard of?

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