Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 437 posts

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#211

Post by standardUser »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #202
standardUser wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If I have a bowl of oatmeal, and I sprinkle sugar on top, it does not magically become ultra-processed.

It does make sense if we're talking about yogurt. The sugary yogurts sold at super markets etc don't have sugar sprinkled on top, but mixed in. Normally, you can't do that. If you make yogurt the standard way [1] and try to add sugar to it while it's still a fluid, it will all sink to the bottom and then you'll just have some yogurt with a layer of sugar on the bottom. If you add it when it's not a fluid anymore, the…

There are many brands of yogurt with "fruit on the bottom" or otherwise unmixed that use plain sugar. Not every store-bought product is the worst possible version of a store-bought product. There's a huge variation.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#212

Post by bityard »

standardUser wrote: post #164
marcuskane2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is absolutely not "a necessary nutrient" and we haven't gone far enough in demonizing it. Literally every study, from rats to humans and from obesity to cancer to gut microbiome to mood to oral health to chronic inflammation shows that dietary sugar is harmful. Modern Americans eat unprecedented amounts of refined sugar compared to any point in history. Sugar should be consumed in moderation akin to alcohol, no…

If you don't eat sugar directly your body will produce it. And unless you plan on eating no fruits or vegetables I can't imagine a diet devoid of all sugar.

Maybe you can't imagine it, but lots of people do it all the same.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#213

Post by cush »

AmVess wrote: post #113
taeric wrote: post #19

Looking at the amount of processed food available in Japan, it is hard to think it is just the processed food that is to blame. I think it is a cheap observation, such that I expect people to push back on me, but it is hard to ignore portion sizes. Will try and take a dive on some of the data around that. But a personal level, it is hard to grapple with the fact that I just got less food per place that I went. And it…

In the US, portion size, calorie density, frequency of eating high calorie foods are contributing to people getting a lot fatter a lot faster than before. We now have instant gratification in food delivery services. Get anything you want without leaving home. In fast food, people are eating a day's worth of food in one sitting. Triple burger, large fries, large drink. People are doing this once a day every day of the…

These people you describe are experiencing very real eating disorders. Even if they aren’t counting calories, they are keenly aware that they’re destroying their body. They aren’t silent, they’re addicted.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#214

Post by blueyes »

Robert Lustig has been preaching this for years:

https://www.amazon.com/Metabolical-Processed-Nutrition-Moder...

A good rule of thumb if you care about avoiding UPFs but don't want to overly limit your diet is to only buy foods with 5 ingredients in them (plus or minus 2 :).

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#215

Post by andybak »

blablabla123 wrote: post #188
Kirby64 wrote: post #17

From the article: > Even if the results show conclusively that processing, and not just nutrients, leads to poor health, policymakers will face another difficulty: the definition of upfs remains woolly. The Nova classification has no tolerance at all for artificial ingredients. The mere presence of a chemical additive classifies a food as a upf, regardless of the amount. This can lead to confusing health outcomes—a r…

> This to me is the most damning evidence against the current classification of 'ultra-processed foods' being absolutely, totally worthless. It's quite funny that even 15 years after labeling UPF as such there's still a struggle to "officially" mark it as unhealthy and I don't understand why it should be challenged. I would think that most children growing up are being told that candy, fries and Gatorade aren't healt…

> Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients.

(From a quick 30 second search) E300 is Vitamin C, E101 is Vitamin B2

And yes - I'm aware that vitamins that are naturally present are probably better than "fortifying" food - but still.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#216

Post by troyvit »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #208
Kirby64 wrote: post #17

From the article: > Even if the results show conclusively that processing, and not just nutrients, leads to poor health, policymakers will face another difficulty: the definition of upfs remains woolly. The Nova classification has no tolerance at all for artificial ingredients. The mere presence of a chemical additive classifies a food as a upf, regardless of the amount. This can lead to confusing health outcomes—a r…

I think there's some fudging of the terms here. When the article is talking about "bread" being healthy- well, there's bread, and then there's bread. Supermarket bread (sliced, packaged) typically lists a couple dozen ingredients. Ordinary bread... you know, bread-bread, like the one some of us bake at home, is made of: flour, water, salt, leavening agent (yeast or sourdough for those as have the patience). Bread-bre…

There's a cool book I didn't finish White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-Strain. It talks about the history of store bought bread supplanting home baked bread, and the marketing wars waged both for and against store bought bread. I'm gonna start it up again and I recommend it.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#217

Post by r00fus »

andybak wrote: post #215
blablabla123 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This to me is the most damning evidence against the current classification of 'ultra-processed foods' being absolutely, totally worthless. It's quite funny that even 15 years after labeling UPF as such there's still a struggle to "officially" mark it as unhealthy and I don't understand why it should be challenged. I would think that most children growing up are being told that candy, fries and Gatorade aren't healt…

> Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients. (From a quick 30 second search) E300 is Vitamin C, E101 is Vitamin B2 And yes - I'm aware that vitamins that are naturally present are probably better than "fortifying" food - but still.

I've never seen Vitamin C listed as E300 on a label. So while you are correct, the heuristic (avoid E-numbers) works in practice.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#218

Post by Jensson »

r00fus wrote: post #217
andybak wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients. (From a quick 30 second search) E300 is Vitamin C, E101 is Vitamin B2 And yes - I'm aware that vitamins that are naturally present are probably better than "fortifying" food - but still.

I've never seen Vitamin C listed as E300 on a label. So while you are correct, the heuristic (avoid E-numbers) works in practice.

Yeah, anything good wont be listed as an E number, you use the name people recognize.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#219

Post by kalaksi »

disparate_dan wrote: post #207
klik99 wrote: post #205

Putting aside the vague hand wavy definition of what "highly processed foods" literally means, my suspicion is that there are two things making processed food worse for you. I've heard drinking juiced fruits is worse for you than eating the equivalent fruits, as the sugars in the fruit are wrapped in fiber that make the sugars "slow release" into your body, and those are broken down when juiced so the sugars hit you…

I agree. I think there is a third thing: processed foods are more likely to contain additives like colorants, emulsifiers, preservatives and stabilisers that humans have been eating for decades rather than centuries so we don’t have the same body of knowledge about them or their health-related impacts.

And maybe to a lesser extent the plastics in packaging.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#220

Post by samaltmanfried »

snapcaster wrote: post #170

From reading these comments, i wish nobody was allowed to post on threads like this without posting a pic of their body so we can calibrate their opinions

Agreed. It's clear that most people don't understand basic nutrition, and most people have a very distorted view of what the human body should actually look like. The average American is very overweight. If you raise your arm above your head in front of the mirror, you should see your ribs, and you should see the clear outline of your latissimus dorsi. If you can't see these two things clearly, you are overweight.
Post reply on HN