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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

#401

Post by Kirby64 »

quacksilver wrote: post #379
Kirby64 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you’re generally not eating only two slices of bread; Aren't you? What meal typically has more than 2 slices of bread? A sandwich is two. Breakfast meals where toast is used is typically 2 slices. And, if we limit ourselves to the 50g of added sugar a day, I'd say 10% of that for a component of one meal is pretty reasonable.

I was regularly eating around 8 to 10 thick slices per day of bread at one point * 4 for breakfast as toast * 4 for lunch to make 2 sandwiches (1 sandwich would be too small and I would be hungry all afternoon) * sometimes another 2 with soup or an evening snack.

I think that speaks more to your diet than anything else. Regardless of the amount of added sugar, that’s an absurd amount of carbs to be getting just from bread and cannot be particularly healthy, no matter the type of bread.

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

#402

Post by UncleMeat »

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…

A fries ultra processed? Potatoes cut into strips, cooked in oil, and salted. Is the deep frying what makes it ultra? Or is a pan fried chicken breast ultra processed since it is cooked in the same oil?

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

#403

Post by bobthepanda »

bdangubic wrote: post #348
bobthepanda wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

most definitely not. sugar doesn’t even make top-10 list

Not saying it’s the top ten ingredients of supermarket bread but it certainly has more added sugar than homemade bread

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

#404

Post by marssaxman »

Kirby64 wrote: post #401
quacksilver wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was regularly eating around 8 to 10 thick slices per day of bread at one point * 4 for breakfast as toast * 4 for lunch to make 2 sandwiches (1 sandwich would be too small and I would be hungry all afternoon) * sometimes another 2 with soup or an evening snack.

I think that speaks more to your diet than anything else. Regardless of the amount of added sugar, that’s an absurd amount of carbs to be getting just from bread and cannot be particularly healthy, no matter the type of bread.

That is a surprising assertion, given that eating the majority of one's calories in the form of bread was the normal human experience for thousands of years - practically since the beginning of agriculture - throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa!

"Give us this day our daily bread", the old prayer goes: because bread was food, and everything else was accompaniment.

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

#405

Post by tremon »

cmiller1 wrote: post #393
4gotunameagain wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick mention of your staple vegetarian protein sources ? :)

Cottage cheese, tofu, edamame, greek yogurt, seitan, whey isolate.

To circle back to your first assertion: tofu is also one of the most "processed" foods you can find. You go from beans to milk to cheese to solid cake, that's more processing for a single ingredient than you need to get from e.g. wheat to naan bread.

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

#406

Post by hyeonwho4 »

code_biologist wrote: post #190
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…

It's not in the food industry's interest to harm us beyond pursing profit margin, but it is in the health and pharmaceutical industry's interest to harm us — treatable chronic disease is recurring revenue. The more chronic disease, the more revenue. Pharma companies are making fistfuls of money from GLP1 agonists. This incentive to harm is translated into the food system when captured groups like the American Diabete…

The word "captured" was very apt, as food companies make donations to the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association in return for their stamps of approval. This is not a conspiracy theory, but has been documented:

ADA takes money to promote Splenda: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ex-director-accuses...

AHA takes money to promote foods like ham which raise heart disease risk: https://huffpost.com/entry/health-news_b_4398304

AHA advisory cherry picks trials to reference, on the back of funding from Procter & Gamble (Crisco) and Bayer (soybean oil): https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-saturated-...

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

#407

Post by hyeonwho4 »

HPsquared wrote: post #18

Is there even a proven causal link? It could just be another case of "poor people do thing X, and poor people have higher mortality".

The highlight of this article is the Randomized controlled trial:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31105044/

So yes, causal for obesity.

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

#408

Post by vlod »

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.

I can't eat supermarket bread for that reason. I didn't grow up in the US and find the bread here too sweet. (i.e. any added sugar)

I bake my own bread (can't remember the last time I bought some) without sugar.

You don't need sugar if you use sourdough starter with an overnight fermentation in the fridge.

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

#409

Post by johnyzee »

Suppafly wrote: post #284
johnyzee wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>You cannot process sugar cane into table sugar without an industrial plant. That's obviously false.

The refined sugar you buy in the store ('table sugar') is clarified with phosphoric acid and bleached using a number of other chemicals. In addition to this, it goes though a number of other industrial processing steps that you would not be able to perform at home. Hence, it is 'highly processed'.

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

#410

Post by johnyzee »

hackingonempty wrote: post #298
johnyzee wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refined sugar is extremely concentrated compared to the natural sources. You need like 50 kilos of sugar cane to produce one kilo of refined sugar, and through multiple steps of heavy industrial processes. You could make a case for honey, but, like all other natural sources, it contains other ingredients that somehow limits ingestion or metabolization.

Sugar is literally evaporated sugar cane juice. You need a lot of cane to make a little sugar because water is heavy. "refinining" is just separating out the molasses to make it white and so the molasses can be sold separately. You only need "heavy industrial processes" to make it profitably at scale.

The refined sugar you buy in the store ('table sugar') is clarified with phosphoric acid and bleached using a number of other chemicals. In addition to this, it goes though a number of other industrial processing steps that you would not be able to perform at home. Hence, it is 'highly processed'.
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