Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by cynicalpeace » Sun, Dec 01, 2024, 12:59 AM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #366

cynicalpeace wrote: post #26

Seems pretty obvious to me. Humans didn't have factories until a couple hundred years ago. This means we are not adapted to factory made food. This entire debate is hilariously overcomplicated by smarty pants "show me the study" or "aren't cooked carrots processed?" types. 40-60% of nutritional studies cannot be replicated. It's called the "replication crisis". Google it. Rules of thumb are greatly underrated on HN.…

> Here's one: if it couldn't be made outside of a factory, don't eat it. I'm not sure I understand. Every food made in a factory was first made outside one.

Margarine? Fruit loops? Canola oil? Snickers?

I dare you to make actual snickers with the same ingredients outside a factory. Refining the sugar alone is a huge industrial process.

Even the US's entire grain supply is sprayed with folic acid. So pretty much all wheat and rice that you find at the grocery store is also disqualified.

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

#432

Post by throwup238 » Sun, Dec 01, 2024, 10:43 AM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #417

throwup238 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honey and agave syrup have oligosaccharides that act as stabilizers. Fructans in agave, specifically. As does molasses like when making refined sugar. Most unrefined sources of sugar naturally contain chemicals that act as stabilizers because it’s a side effect of many polysaccharides.

Right, but honey and agave syrup can also act as mild adhesives. I'm not sure anyone would consider them an adhesive any more than they would a stabilizer.

Wut? The point wasn't that honey and agave are adhesives, it was that they don't need stabilizers when mixed with yogurt _because they already contain stabilizers_. Emphasis on the "already contain" and "stabilizer" parts.

People do use honey and agave as stabilizers in salad dressings, so obviously people consider them to be stabilizers

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

#433

Post by vel0city » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:07 PM UTC

cynicalpeace wrote: post #430

vel0city wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bac…

My guidance was: "If it couldn't be made outside a factory, it's ultra processed." An apple can be made outside a factory. A steak can be made outside a factory. That doesn't mean there aren't factory farms. Sugar cannot be made outside a factory. If you press and boil your own sugar cane, you won't get refined white sugar. The candied bacon you buy at the store could not be made at home. The sulfates and industrial…

> Sugar cannot be made outside a factory

We've been making refined sugar as an ingredient in foods for over a thousand years. Hard to say it can't be made outside of a factory when they were making it in 350 AD. Even the white refined variety, it's just been clarified and filtered. Anything they're doing in the factory to clarify it can be done in a kitchen. Which then continues to make me question at what point is a kitchen a factory? You've still never actually answered that question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar

> industrial products

Can you actually define this term? Is dihydrogen monoxide an industrial product? Sodium bicarbonate? Sodium chloride? Trimethylxanthine?

And finally, candied bacon is really not an ultra-processed food? I truly don't understand what the definition of "ultra-processed" is if something which is cured in various salts, fried, and glazed with a refined sugar is considered a healthy, non-ultra-processed food. So long as I use the right sources of nitrates and refine the sugar myself. As long as it's not in a building technically considered a factory by cynicalpeace, its A-OK!

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

#434

Post by cynicalpeace » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:17 AM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #433

cynicalpeace wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guidance was: "If it couldn't be made outside a factory, it's ultra processed." An apple can be made outside a factory. A steak can be made outside a factory. That doesn't mean there aren't factory farms. Sugar cannot be made outside a factory. If you press and boil your own sugar cane, you won't get refined white sugar. The candied bacon you buy at the store could not be made at home. The sulfates and industrial…

> Sugar cannot be made outside a factory We've been making refined sugar as an ingredient in foods for over a thousand years. Hard to say it can't be made outside of a factory when they were making it in 350 AD. Even the white refined variety, it's just been clarified and filtered. Anything they're doing in the factory to clarify it can be done in a kitchen. Which then continues to make me question at what point is a…

"Which then continues to make me question at what point is a kitchen a factory? You've still never actually answered that question."

This is like asking when some grains of sand become a heap of sand. There's not some number of grains when it becomes a heap, but heaps of sand obviously do exist and 2 grains of sand is not a heap of sand.

Arguing about definitions is always boring.

If your food is getting produced at a Costco type bakery, yeah that's worse than abuela grinding the corn herself. You get enough abuelas together and it starts to look like the bakery from Costco.

Less "hands" in your food is directionally better.

Also, I know very well how sugar is made. My wife is Colombian and grew up on a sugar cane farm. They have a panela cabin which is industrial under some definition of the word. Eating panela is way worse than just chewing the stalk, or adding some cane juice to a dish at home. The labor to create panela in any useable quantity requires large and/or expensive tools. Even more so for white sugar. Even more so for Coca-Cola.

> And finally, candied bacon is really not an ultra-processed food? I truly don't understand what the definition of "ultra-processed" is if something which is cured in various salts, fried, and glazed with a refined sugar is considered a healthy, non-ultra-processed food. So long as I use the right sources of nitrates and refine the sugar myself. As long as it's not in a building technically considered a factory by cynicalpeace, its A-OK!

This is just ad-hominem and doesn't take anything I said at face value. Disingenuous and against HN guidelines. I didn't say candied bacon isn't ultra-processed. I said if you actually made it from scratch on your own, it'd be better than store bought.

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

#435

Post by thrawa1235432 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 11:08 PM UTC

XajniN wrote: post #422

thrawa1235432 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RDA and nutrient recommendations are the bare minimum so you do not die. Vast literature is ad populum fallacy. Also consider that genetic background matters in nutritional matters and well... The populations under study have changed, and that's assuming you have a fairly similar background to a population and not very mixed. And we are not even getting into how these things go down in practice, with heavy indust…

They are not, they are recommended averages. RDA for vitamin C is 60mg, but you can survive without getting sick on 5-15.

Potato potato. Familiarize yourself with their history and then your opinion might differ

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

#436

Post by pas » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 12:39 AM UTC

BizarroLand wrote: post #286

luckycharms810 wrote: post #255

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…

Weight loss/gain is specifically tied to calories consumed vs calories burned, yes. But that is not the purpose of the study. 2 groups of people, 2 diets, and the 1 group given an unlimited amount of relatively healthier food, chose to eat less of it and lost weight. The other ate more junk food and gained weight. That implies that there are non-conscious factors at play and that diets may be more naturally successfu…

"processed foods" are just tastier is also consistent with the data, no?

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

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Post by cush » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 2:17 AM UTC

BizarroLand wrote: post #429

cush wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s both. I do recognize, and agree with most of what you’re saying. The junk food industrial complex is real. But people have autonomy and if you took their burgers away tomorrow they’d riot. > It's not an eating disorder to eat junk food in America. It absolutely is a disorder to eat to the level you described in your previous comment. Just because millions of people take part in it, and it’s socially acceptable d…

So you're saying ordering any food from a fast food restaurant is an eating disorder? The average combo meal clocks in at nearly a thousand calories at a minimum at essentially every fast food restaurant in America even if you just drink water with it. I get where you're coming from, but it is entirely too easy to not see the bigger picture and to blame the victims of the system. The system is fucked, it is fucked on…

> So you're saying ordering any food from a fast food restaurant is an eating disorder?

No. I explicitly said “ It absolutely is a disorder to eat to the level you described in your previous comment.” Because you previously said,

> … Triple burger, large fries, large drink. People are doing this once a day every day of the week. Then they go home and order more high calorie food with high calorie drinks and constant snacking.

What you described here is textbook disordered eating.

> Blaming overweight Americans for their overweightness just lets you personally feel better about yourself while doing nothing to actually identify or solve the problem

> most people are too stupid too ignorant or at least two uninformed to know about it and even more so do anything about it.

And I’m victim blaming?

It’s hilarious and ironic that you both decided to place these two sentences next to one another, and also felt the confidence to attack my character for using the term eating disorder. Take a look in the mirror.