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Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

economist.com

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

#251

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

snapcaster wrote: post #174
nitwit005 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smokers are often experts on why cigarettes are bad for you.

I don't meet smokers arguing smoking isn't actually bad though...

I haven't met one that argued it isn't bad, but many have certainly downplayed it, or they have wildly different standards.

Like...15 years ago, I dated a girl that smoked, but wouldn't eat anything with artificial Blue or Red color because supposedly those cause cancer. I said, "You know those cigarettes cause cancer, right?" and got met with a "yeah whatever".

That relationship didn't last (for many reasons), and I'll never again date a smoker. I always felt we were limited on the things we could do because she HAD to have that cigarette every ~30 minutes.

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

#252

Post by cgh »

swatcoder wrote: post #241
pizzathyme wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best exception is high quality protein powder. Additional protein consumption is extremely healthy for you, short and long term. But it's technically an ultra-processed food. It's probably better to each 4-5 chicken breasts per day instead of protein powder. But as far as I know there hasn't been a measured difference.

That's not a clear exception at all. Within some mental model, isolated protein powder is healthy because we generally treat high protein consumption as low-risk for most people and recognize that protein isolates can be very effective for professional and amateur athletes to consume a lot of while building muscle. In no way does that imply that these protein isolates are "extremely healthy" for the general public or…

Protein isn't bad for you and 4-5 chicken breasts is around 120g a day, a healthy amount for an adult. By way of comparison, indigenous people where I live ate hundreds of grams a day in their traditional diets. I've run into this whole "don't eat too much protein, oh man you will die!" nonsense meme before and I wonder where it came from.

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

#253

Post by olejorgenb »

andybak wrote: post #222
r00fus wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK but then why would a manufacturer ever use a E number - considering the stigma attached? Only when the other name "sounds worse"? Is there a legal threshold where you have to use the E number?

Limited space on the label maybe :D Some of the real names of the E's are very long.

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

#254

Post by cthalupa »

samaltmanfried wrote: post #220
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.

> 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.

This is kind of an absurd metric. You can be at ~20% BF (which is by any standard a healthy percentage - some studies show best all cause mortality outcomes in men at 22%) and still not have visible ribs or lats with one arm above your head.

Different people carry weight differently as well, no visual test like this is going to be blanket accurate.

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

#255

Post by luckycharms810 »

I think the rub is actually here:

"The participants received either ultra-processed or minimally processed foods for two weeks before swapping diet for the next fortnight. Participants in both diets had access to the same amount of calories and nutrients like sugars, fibre and fat. People were free to eat as much or as little as they wanted. The results were striking. People on the ultra-processed diet ate about 500 more calories per day than those on the unprocessed one"

My understanding is that caloric intake is king.

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

#256

Post by a3w »

ninalanyon wrote: post #42

According to the BBC Inside Health podcast I recently listened to they are often bad for you because the processing removes fibre and vitamins and also makes sugars more available. And that to make them int4eresting enough to eat excess salt is added.

WHO says "eat 30 grams of fibre every day". Which is a lot, unless you use whole grains without sweeteners, fat or meat on top (which reduces fibre per calorie). Or eat lots of roots or cabbage, and salads. Especially since you have to think of eating until 30 grams of pure fibre content is reached every. Single. Day. Of. A. Year.

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

#257

Post by d1sxeyes »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #239
roywiggins wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's pretty processed compared to sugarcane at least

So homemade bread is ultraprocessed because the wheat was processed into flour?

From what I understand, technically yes.

I think there’s a lot of work to be done on categorisation but the underlying principle tends to be fairly decent: the more stuff you do to your raw ingredients, the less healthy they become.

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

#258

Post by willy_k »

goalieca wrote: post #242
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But supermarket bread? I don't think so. Why? The point of the quotation was to question if this was a problem in the quantities listed. I know I’d rather eat whole grain enriched supermarket bread than refined white flour bread from some low protein source wheat.

The whole grain bread is definitely preferable, but it is still very likely to have added oils, gums, and/or preservatives. I think their main point is that supermarket bread is rarely made of just bread. There are exceptions but that requires one to first take the time to identify them and then fork up the extra dough (punintended).

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

#259

Post by johnyzee »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #239
roywiggins wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's pretty processed compared to sugarcane at least

So homemade bread is ultraprocessed because the wheat was processed into flour?

You can process wheat into flour at home. You cannot process sugar cane into table sugar without an industrial plant.

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

#260

Post by makeitdouble »

snapcaster wrote: post #168
makeitdouble wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding manufactured food is absurd to a level I didn't think needed explanation. Even from a logistics POV we're 8 billion on this planet, concentrated in cities. Everyone following that philosophy would bring a food chain collapse.

If we were on less censored forums would just ask you to "post body". Since that's not considered a valid argument here instead i'll just gesture to the countless innovations that have been developed by humans that turn out to have massive negative health consequences. What gives you the confidence that our current food manufacturing techniques won't turn out to be one of those things? Would you have made this argume…

People are forgetting we had famines a few centuries ago in the west, and still have famines in many places. Sure, they are also usually associated with governing issues and other complicating factors, but still. The number of peoole being alive is my answer to whether food manufacturing is a net negative or not.

While the pendulum has swung way past the equilibrium for us, rejecting whole categories of food that tend to be nutrious, easily preserved is just not realistic.

To me there are dozens of other levers we can pull to deal with health improvement. As pointed out in the other threads, not all OECD countries are facing what the US are facing.

PS: do I get all my points accepted as truth if I can prove a BMI that satisfies you ? Would 22 do it ?

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