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California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

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Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#121

Post by baq »

camel-cdr wrote: post #24
crummy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for the tip. The text is not on that page, but here's a link to it if anyone else is curious: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

> 104661. (a) (1) For purposes of this article, except as provided in subdivision (b), “ultraprocessed food” or “UPF” means any food or beverage that contains a substance described in paragraph (2) and either high amounts of saturated fat, sodium, or added sugar, as described in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (3), or a nonnutritive sweetener or other substance described in subparagraph (B) of paragraph (3). > (3) (A)…

> (3) Not more than 35 percent of its total weight shall be composed of sugar, including naturally occurring and added sugar. This paragraph shall not apply to fruits, vegetables that have not been deep fried, or a dried fruit and nut and seed combination.

wonder who'll be the first to argue that HFCS isn't sugar.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#122

Post by ptero »

redeux wrote: post #107
jjcob wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went on a trip to South Korea recently. There are very few overweight people there. But the food that people eat doesn't seem healthy at all. - every meal is served with white rice ("empty calories") - every meal is served with Kimchi (high sodium) - most dishes are flavored with soy sauce, gochutan, rice syrup... they are extremely high in sodium + msg - people love fried chicken with syrupy sauces - korean barbeq…

It’s actually pretty simple. Despite what you’re calling unhealthy foods (I’d argue kimchi has health benefits from the fermentation), they have a lower overall caloric intake and societal pressure to conform to a thin appearance. If you want to be skinny eat less calories. If you want to be healthy, eat highly nutritious foods and the right amount of calories for your lifestyle.

I am not sure there is a strong societal pressure to be thin. Last several years, probably. But older generations, nor so much (see deities in any buddist temple). And there was enough time after food became abundant for the older generations health to tank if that diet was very bad for them. My 2c.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#123

Post by rayiner »

londons_explore wrote: post #40
contrarian1234 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a typical blanket baseless unscientific attack of everything deemed "unnatural". Lots of the typical insane stuff, sugar is okay, but "Nonnutritive sweeteners" are not. Spices are okay, but MSG is not. Just a laundrylist of the typical alternative medicine mumbo jumbo. Kind of pathetic, but not unexpected from the state legislature I'm sure they extensively deliberated the health effect of Luo Han Fruit Co…

I think it points to a failure of the scientific community to identify better criteria. There is plenty of data showing diet has a big impact on health and other outcomes, yet far less data on specifics. Since science doesn't give specific things to ban, legislation is pretty much headed towards "let's have everyone eat what they eat in the south of France where people are really healthy".

> Since science doesn't give specific things to ban, legislation is pretty much headed towards "let's have everyone eat what they eat in the south of France where people are really healthy”

Exactly. Science can’t give us actionable information, so appeal to established practice it is.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#124

Post by rayiner »

jjcob wrote: post #93
contrarian1234 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the scientific community has done just fine. When these individual substances are tested they're by and large not found to have negative health effects. Then the loonies just refuse to believe it and thing the chemicals are making their kids gay. The problem isn't the MSG. It's providing a well balanced diet. We have a relatively clear idea of what constitutes "well balanced". You can quibble about the specif…

I went on a trip to South Korea recently. There are very few overweight people there. But the food that people eat doesn't seem healthy at all. - every meal is served with white rice ("empty calories") - every meal is served with Kimchi (high sodium) - most dishes are flavored with soy sauce, gochutan, rice syrup... they are extremely high in sodium + msg - people love fried chicken with syrupy sauces - korean barbeq…

Koreans intensely shame each other about gaining weight, which helps people control calories in and calories out. East asians eat very little food. Tik Tok is full of videos of Chinese making fun of Japanese for their “sad, tiny lunches.”

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#125

Post by chithanh »

KempyKolibri wrote: post #104
chithanh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (i) The food or beverage contains 10 percent or greater of total energy from saturated fat. Interestingly, dairy products like butter are explicitly allowed, despite the fact that 50%+ of its fats are saturated > I'm not a nutritionist, but there are some basics that are braindead simple that don't involve banning Sucralose. I'm in favor of banning artificial sweeteners. Just look at why they are used in animal far…

As I wrote elsewhere: If someone is habitually consuming sugar sweetened beverages, replacing those with ASBs will, the evidence strongly suggests, reduce your risk of obesity and various chronic diseases. We can say "just don't consume either" but we have decades of attempting such policies that shows people don't work that way. Someone who wants to drink a can of coke will drink a can of coke, why would we ban the…

The evidence actually suggests that soft drink consumption is equally associated with higher all-cause mortality and artificially sweetened is every bit as bad as sugar sweetened. Even when controlling for smoking status, BMI, physical activity, and alcohol consumption.

https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478

It was suggested elsewhere that the primary mechanism for soft drink associated mortality is acidic fluids causing tooth decay, which in turn causes cardiovascular disease. (Bacteria entering the bloodstream through inflamed oral mucosa, and forming plaques along arterial walls.)

And the evidence for artificial sweetener benefits on population level is practically non-existent. In fact animal farming points to a detrimental effect.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#127

Post by StackRanker3000 »

chithanh wrote: post #100
ReptileMan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but "Nonnutritive sweeteners" are not They fuck up your microbiome and the insulin response. There is absolutely no reason to use them ever. Grow up and embrace the bitterness.

Some do, some don't. Worse is that artificial sweeteners increase feed conversion efficiency (an effect which has been known since 1960s experiments with rats and Cyclamate), and are for this reason frequently added to animal feed. For humans however this effect is undesirable, as it exacerbates the problem which they are supposed to solve.

This seems like a fancy way of saying “it’s a cheap approach to make animal feed taste better, so the animals eat more and thus gain more weight/produce more milk/etc”.

What impact would pouring a bunch of refined sugar on animal feed have on feed conversion efficiency?

What do studies on humans say on the actual real-life effects of people using artificial sweeteners instead of sugar?

If you permit me to be a bit glib, if we outlawed everything that people think tastes good, almost no one would overeat, and we would have solved obesity. Without going to that extreme, surely there are other interventions that can help limit the problem of overeating, and isn’t there evidence that artificial sweeteners are actually helpful in doing that? Remember that the starting point for humans isn’t hay and the slop we feed to pigs, it’s ice cream and McDonald’s.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#128

Post by k2enemy »

frereubu wrote: post #3

I'll be very interested to see the definition of "ultra-processed" in this legislation. I couldn't find one at a first glance - it seems to mandate that someone defines it, but doesn't contain a definition itself from what I could see. Edit: Found it. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... (thanks to @crummy for the correction). Seems like a reasonable start. Amusing to see that alcoholic dri…

>> In July 2025, the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 32.7 percent of children and youth between 12 and 19 years old are prediabetic.

> Wow.

Sadly, I'm not too surprised. My state also has free breakfast and lunch in public schools and it is possible for them to get served over 100g of added sugar between the two meals and classroom provided snacks. Then add to it whatever the kids are eating at home.

It also creates added difficulty for kids to concentrate on lessons when their blood sugar is spiking and crashing repeatedly throughout the day.

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#129

Post by twoodfin »

camel-cdr wrote: post #24
crummy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for the tip. The text is not on that page, but here's a link to it if anyone else is curious: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

> 104661. (a) (1) For purposes of this article, except as provided in subdivision (b), “ultraprocessed food” or “UPF” means any food or beverage that contains a substance described in paragraph (2) and either high amounts of saturated fat, sodium, or added sugar, as described in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (3), or a nonnutritive sweetener or other substance described in subparagraph (B) of paragraph (3). > (3) (A)…

I don’t think kids should be having boutique, hand-crafted “bean to bar” chocolate in their school lunches, but I also don’t think most Californians have products like that in mind when they think of “Ultra-Processed Foods”.

Also as quoted elsewhere: Deep frying is ultra-processing?

Re: California passes law to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches

#130

Post by adrian_b »

jjcob wrote: post #93
contrarian1234 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the scientific community has done just fine. When these individual substances are tested they're by and large not found to have negative health effects. Then the loonies just refuse to believe it and thing the chemicals are making their kids gay. The problem isn't the MSG. It's providing a well balanced diet. We have a relatively clear idea of what constitutes "well balanced". You can quibble about the specif…

I went on a trip to South Korea recently. There are very few overweight people there. But the food that people eat doesn't seem healthy at all. - every meal is served with white rice ("empty calories") - every meal is served with Kimchi (high sodium) - most dishes are flavored with soy sauce, gochutan, rice syrup... they are extremely high in sodium + msg - people love fried chicken with syrupy sauces - korean barbeq…

The quantities of those ingredients are what matters most.

Every meal must contain more empty calories than everything else combined, but not in an excessive amount.

I do not know about Korea, but I have been in Japan, where also every meal is served with excellent white rice. However, there was never too much of it and in general the quantities of all ingredients were right for a balanced diet, much more so than I have seen in most other countries.

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