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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

#321

Post by dzhiurgis »

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…

Japanese people are much smaller so explains smaller portions.

But I am too surprised how processed (but tasty) their convini food is.

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

#322

Post by akira2501 »

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…

> when I eat potato chips I eat more because they never quite satisfy me.

This is why I have paper bowls. Pour out a portion of chips. Eat that. If you're not satisfied after eat something _else_. This is probably as much about ingredients as it is about packaging and delivery.

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

#323

Post by Kirby64 »

binoct wrote: post #307
Kirby64 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 set…

Lack of whatever mythical micro-nutrition you speak of in bleached white flour is not going to meaningfully make any difference in folks dietary outcomes. It's certainly not what is making people fat, or what is making them crave to eat too much bread.

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

#324

Post by xvedejas »

cgh wrote: post #252
swatcoder wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's possible to die of "protein poisoning" but you really have to be in a survival situation with no sources of fat. Hunters and trappers are known to have died this way when only lean meat was available in far northern winters. Maybe this is where the idea came from.

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

#325

Post by staunton »

dekhn wrote: post #191
atombender wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some are better than others. The NIH is currently running a study (N=36, expected to complete in 2025) on ultra-processed foods where the participants are sequested as inpatients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center's research facility and strictly monitored 24/7. They can't leave without a chaperone that ensures they're not cheating. They've done prior studies such as this one [2] (N=20) in 2019.…

Even though I'm a scientist and thoroughly trained in statistics, the idea that we can to sequester 36 people and monitor diet 24/7 and made general conclusions doesn't sound completely right to me. Partly in the technical sense and partly in the "why do the folks working on human health get away with sample sizes that would be laughed about in any other field?"

> why do the folks working on human health get away with sample sizes that would be laughed about in any other field?

Because it's really hard and expensive to do such studies with more participants

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

#326

Post by owlninja »

SoftTalker wrote: post #281
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost correct, except sugar consumption has been declining for decades. The peak was prior to 2000 IIRC

Yeah there used to be a children’s breakfast cereal called Super Sugar Crisp and the cartoon character promoting it in commercials was named Sugar Bear. Foods in the ‘70s and ‘80s were loaded with sugar.

Pretty sure this still exists and in the US it is called "Golden Crisp". I personally always loved it :)

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

#327

Post by illusive4080 »

djoldman wrote: post #320

Seems like the cited studies confirm things we already know: when humans are given tasty high caloric-density foods, they consume more calories than when not given those foods. I didn't see a cited study showing that these ultra-processed foods led to worse outcomes when caloric intake was held constant. Did I miss something?

No you didn’t miss anything. Everyone is freaking out about “processed” and “chemicals” and ignoring the obvious answer: high calories and low nutrition.

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

#328

Post by stephen_g »

Kirby64 wrote: post #61
snapcaster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it leaves a lot to be desired but i wouldn't say it's totally worthless. It's clearly identifying something and even a poorly understood adherence to avoiding UPFs would likely make the average person healthier. Overall though we obviously need to come up with better terms for this

Adherence to avoiding UPFs, by the current Nova classification, would lead to most people having to radically change their diets, assuming you actually follow the Nova classification of UPFs to a tee. And assuming they're already reasonably healthy, there would be no meaningful health benefits I suspect.

Potentially there could no noticable health improvements but potentially far less health degradation over time when you think about things like risk of type-2 diabetes with high sugar and high-UPF diets.

But it's true that we mustn't focus only on UPFs but it is looking more and more like a significant factor (even if the definitions could be improved).

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

#329

Post by resonious »

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…

Why on earth do they include the word "ultra" when the definition is "literally any amount of any additive"?

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

#330

Post by wnevets »

chrchr wrote: post #316
wnevets wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't understand that basic task like washing is "processing" the food and can be frustrating when talking to them about this subject.

Food that is merely washed might be processed, but is not ultra-processed according to the Nova classification [1]. There's an actual criteria that's being applied in these studies that concern ultra-processed food. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

And have you read their definition?
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