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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

#301

Post by jaggederest »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #180
julianeon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point and one that I think would change many minds. If you say "more calories" or "hyperpalatable", many people will think "I can control that with portion control - I just won't binge them." But if you say "it changes the physical form of the food" or "it has contaminants in it," it's clear that no amount of portion control can fix that.

Well that depends on what the form change does . Most form changes are just fine. And whether portion control can fix contamination depends on what the contaminant is. A lot of things are only potentially harmful above a certain level.

> Well that depends on what the form change does. Most form changes are just fine.

Agreed, I just think that e.g. mastication probably has more subtle effects than just breaking up food, so I wonder about peanut butter vs peanuts kind of effects on the human body.

> A lot of things are only potentially harmful above a certain level.

I question this. I think the more we see trace effects, the more we realize that there are things in the built environment that are problematic in parts per billions and parts per millions that we wouldn't have ever thought that from acute exposure testing. I think a lot of our current understanding of GRAS and friends is pretty badly flawed - obviously a lot of substances aren't doing massive harm, but there's a lot that's suspect still.

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

#302

Post by marcus0x62 »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #257
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, homemade bread would be NOVA group. 3. The flour itself is group 2 (processed culinary ingredients.) Mixing the group 2 ingredient (flour) with group 1 ingredients (water, yeast, salt) and baking it makes it group 3 (processed food.)

If you added something like Xanthan Gum to your "homemade bread", that would make it group 4 (ultra processed foods.)

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

#303

Post by iterance »

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.

This strikes at a problem with the definition of "processing" foods. Nixtamalization is "processing," but is mandatory to ensure one does not develop a vitamin deficiency on a maize diet.

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

#304

Post by groos »

bityard wrote: post #230
zby wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article starts with > The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy Keto diet is low-carbs - not completely carbs free.

To split hairs, "low carb" means different things to different groups of people. Lifelong adherents of the keto diet put the limit at around 20g of carbs per day. But you can find research studies and the like where they take a normal Western diet (75-90% carbs) and reduce it to say, 60% carbs and then refer to THAT as "low carb."

It's not splitting hairs. Unless you are extremely physically active, even ~100g of carbs a day will inhibit ketosis where the liver converts fats into ketones for powering your brain and body. This is easily seen by using ketone strips to detect ketones in urine.

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

#305

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #266
samaltmanfried wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is not health advice, that is "how to be anorectic" advice. If you are at the weight with longest lifespan, you are somewhere at the top of "normal" bmi range and wont see ribs. You wont seen them in the middle of "normal" range and plenty of thin wont see them either. Otherwise said, for quite a lot of people accomplishing this would mean underweight. Underweight is less healthy the overweight.

[deleted]

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

#306

Post by GuB-42 »

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

And what will it tell you? Let's say you have one guy who is morbidly obese, another who is visibly in top shape, a seriously underweight fashion model, and an average guy. Who are you going to trust the most?

The obese guy obviously has some problem with nutrition, but he may also the one who is most interested the subject and the most knowledgeable. Obesity is also a mental disorder and while he may know a lot about nutrition, he has trouble applying this knowledge.

The guy who is in top shape most likely has good nutrition, but he may also simply have good genetics, do a lot of physical activity, and not care much about what he eats.

The fashion model probably knows how to lose weight, which may be as simple as not eating enough. But how much she knows about health is completely unknown.

As for the average guy, that's the most "no idea" you can get.

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

#307

Post by binoct »

Kirby64 wrote: post #282
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…

Nova makes this distinction already. “Freshly made” bread is considered category 3 (processed). That said, what distinguishes supermarket bread from freshly made bread? Literally the only difference is typically some sort of preservatives, some added vitamins, and possibly a dough conditioner. In general, bread is just not that healthy if you make the fluffy white kind. The preservatives and slicing have little to do…

The biggest nutritional change in bread in what type of flour is used (and if any other grains/seeds are used). The bran and germ of the wheat berry contain a decent part of it's nutritional value in protein, fat and insoluble fiber. The more refined a flour is the less of those parts it contains. Even unbleached white flour naturally has a decent micro-nutrient profile of vitamins from the endosperm.

What really sets apart the typical white flour seen in most processed products in the US is the bleaching process, which mostly serves to make the flour more visually appealing. It also destroys a large percentage of the micro-nutrients. For many flour products the added vitamins you mention are added back in making the flour "enriched", but really this is just trying to match the nutrient profile of unbleached white flour. It's unlikely the added vitamins you see in the nutrition label alone would make a bagged, commercial pan loaf healthier than even the equivalent you would make at home.

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

#308

Post by leptons »

standardUser wrote: post #163
sabbaticaldev wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one has added sugar and the other not, it’s clear which one is ultra processed

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.

Oats also don't grow as individual flakes, they are processed too. Separating and concentrating a single ingredient is "processing" it. If you want the healthiest oats, you probably need to grow them yourself and eat them directly off the stalk. I'm joking, of course - sort of.

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

#309

Post by DevX101 »

0xEF wrote: post #66

Living in the US, my takeaway is this: Food manufacturers do not care if we stay healthy, but they're also not interested in harming us on purpose. Their goal is to maximize profit, which usually means cheapest ingredients with addictive properties produced as quickly as possible by low-cost labor. But they also know this only works if the market allows it. If nobody bought their snack cakes (random example), they wo…

A side effect of maximizing profit is harming our health. Doesn't really matter to me whether it's malicious intent or in the pursuit of shareholder value.

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

#310

Post by navaed01 »

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…

Obesity and diabetes are western societies biggest health issues and the best research we have is a small n for a 4 week trial. Clearly there’s regulatory capture at play here.

Once we better understand what is driving the poor health outcomes we can work back and better classify problem foods and ingredients. Right now it’s all a bit unknown and doesn’t seem to have the right resourcing. There’s research that shows that UPFs are so simple that the body gets all the bad stuff in all its unfettered glory. Compare that to a date fruit, very high in sugar, but packed with fiber, the body metabolizes the date much more slowly, no sugar spike and gets some nutrition

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