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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

#331

Post by zahlman »

mchannon wrote: post #49

The article name is "Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad for you", the opposite of this thread's title. Everyone's ignoring the elephant in the room: fiber. Fiber locks up calories and makes the body miss a lot of them, or absorb them later in the digestion process. If we reduce the word "processed" to a single action, it's removing fiber. It's turning wheat berries into flour. It's ripping off…

> If I eat 1000 calories of whole oats, a lot of those calories are passing through my body.

Humans are extremely efficient at extracting energy from food, regardless of the fiber content. We owe our survival as a species to it, as food was much less plentiful in the ancestral environment.

I've heard of fiber meaningfully affecting insulin response to food, satiety, and some other things - perhaps even gut microbiomes - but not metabolic efficiency.

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

#332

Post by zahlman »

mchannon wrote: post #181
nritchie wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to say this: Eat foods with low glycemic index. Avoid foods that spike blood-sugar levels.

That's a completely different thing. Honey, for instance, has a high glycemic index. Watermelon has a high glycemic index. They will not get you fat the same way cane sugar and watermelon juice will. A juice made of celery, kale, and spinach, will still have a low glycemic index. But it's still nowhere near as good for you as unprocessed celery, kale, and spinach.

>Honey, for instance, has a high glycemic index. Watermelon has a high glycemic index. They will not get you fat the same way cane sugar and watermelon juice will.

Aside from not being evidenced, this is irrelevant to your hypothesis. Watermelon contains little fiber even on a per-calorie basis (https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/167765/wt1) and honey (https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Honey_nutritional_value.html) contains almost none.

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

#333

Post by Kirby64 »

stephen_g wrote: post #328
Kirby64 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Again, I’m not saying “all UPFs are safe/healthy”. I’m saying the definition is worthless when you include potato chips and protein bars in the same category.

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

#334

Post by zahlman »

robnado wrote: post #89

Evolution has selected animals that, when they have access to foods with high caloric density, will gorge on them. This has been advantageous to their survival, because the history of life has been characterized by famine feast cycles for most species. Now, what UPF foods are is foods that have had most of their non-caloric content removed or been processed to increase calorie content, triggering this gorging behavio…

>Now, what UPF foods are is foods that have had most of their non-caloric content removed or been processed to increase calorie content, triggering this gorging behaviour. This is probably 80% of the obesity epidemic today.

It's been possible to buy prepared pure sugar (even granulated) and pure oils and fats for centuries, and eat them straight out of the container if one wished. Yet the obesity epidemic is much newer than that, and hardly anyone gorges themselves in that particular manner even today. There is clearly far more to it than "had most of their non-caloric content removed".

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

#335

Post by bobthepanda »

Kirby64 wrote: post #323
binoct wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the root cause, at least for bread, is pretty simple; US supermarket bread has a lot more sugar than freshly baked bread, because sugar is a preservative.

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

#336

Post by vel0city »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #270
vel0city wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so when does a butcher shop become a factory? When does a fruit farm become a factory? Is candied bacon an ultra-processed food? And even then, things made in a bakery can be made at home so I don't get how your above standard still makes any sense. Is homemade bread with flour milled at home ultra-processed as well? Candied bacon can be made outside of a factory as well. If so, it's not really a "was it made in…

Ah yes, the ol' I can't tell a fruit farm from a factory shtick

Ah yes, the old completely ignore the question shtick.

And yeah, most fruit around me went through various inspection, sorting, washing, labeling, packaging, and potentially even cold storage places that are in big buildings with loads of trucks moving pallets of materials around with loads of automated machines. All things that seem very "factory". What is the final delineation where it goes from some guy in his backyard to a factory operation?

And I still ask, is candied bacon still a processed food if I slaughter my own pig and press my own sugar cane? What if I buy a pig belly and cure it myself? What if I get it pre-cured? At what point is my own kitchen a factory? I guess it's the point I get an oven because then I've got the equipment necessary for it to be a bakery and we all know bakeries are off limits too!

This guidance you're giving me isn't making much sense.

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

#337

Post by Spooky23 »

resonious wrote: post #329
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"?

Because the whole premise is being bike-shedded out of existence.

On paper, fruity pebbles and Cheerios are pretty similar. But the dyes, sugar, etc make it a very different product. Sorta how we pump sugar into yogurt, spray it on as a frosting and peddle it like it’s actual, healthy yogurt.

A great way to undermine the argument is to make the terminology and classification impossible.

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

#338

Post by paulpauper »

zahlman wrote: post #331
mchannon wrote: post #49

The article name is "Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad for you", the opposite of this thread's title. Everyone's ignoring the elephant in the room: fiber. Fiber locks up calories and makes the body miss a lot of them, or absorb them later in the digestion process. If we reduce the word "processed" to a single action, it's removing fiber. It's turning wheat berries into flour. It's ripping off…

> If I eat 1000 calories of whole oats, a lot of those calories are passing through my body. Humans are extremely efficient at extracting energy from food, regardless of the fiber content. We owe our survival as a species to it, as food was much less plentiful in the ancestral environment. I've heard of fiber meaningfully affecting insulin response to food, satiety, and some other things - perhaps even gut microbiome…

Yeah he's posting nonsense. If it were true you'd be passing huge chunks of undigested food and be sick. Very little of the calorie content of oats and other so-called fiber rich food is actually undigestible. Sorry...beating obesity is not as easy as eating cereal and oats all day. wish it were.

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

#339

Post by Kirby64 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #335
Kirby64 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the root cause, at least for bread, is pretty simple; US supermarket bread has a lot more sugar than freshly baked bread, because sugar is a preservative.

You’d be wrong about that, though.

Wonder bread white has 140 calories, 1.5g of fat, 5g of protein, and 29g of carbs for two slices. 5g of claimed added sugar.

In comparison, a recipe I’ve used to make very good white bread (the zojirushi recipe for their bread maker, for reference) has, for an equivalent weight of bread: 137 calories, 2.2g of fat, 3.9g of protein, and 24.8g of carbs. The recipe has roughly 2.5g of “added sugar” per that bread weight.

I wouldn’t consider 4g more of carbs per equivalent weight, or 2.5g more sugar, to be a “lot” more sugar.

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

#340

Post by paulpauper »

nritchie wrote: post #172
mchannon wrote: post #49

The article name is "Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad for you", the opposite of this thread's title. Everyone's ignoring the elephant in the room: fiber. Fiber locks up calories and makes the body miss a lot of them, or absorb them later in the digestion process. If we reduce the word "processed" to a single action, it's removing fiber. It's turning wheat berries into flour. It's ripping off…

Another way to say this: Eat foods with low glycemic index. Avoid foods that spike blood-sugar levels.

Of course if you add water it will lower it the index. All food that is not diluted in water will trigger an insulin response. That is how digestion works. Otherwise you'd have type 1 diabetes.

How is possible for people to crave steak and eat lots of steak despite having no sugar if the theory is that sugar causes a huge reaction and people to crave more sugar after eating it?

Blaming sugar ignores that all food triggers a spike of dopamine and insulin reaction, unless it's diluted in a lot of water. This is why vegetables are safe for diabetics, due to being so diluted. Jason Fung, Taubes and other fitness/health influencers keep spreading this carbs-insulin nonsense.

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