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Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

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Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#81

Post by stephen_g »

airstrike wrote: post #3

> “We’ve had that issue in the past, as with low-fat recommendations” that later turned out to be counterproductive, says Duane Mellor, a dietitian at Aston University in England. “We’ve messed up too many times. We need to make smarter changes more carefully.” Now that's some terrible logic coupled with a ridiculously handwavy statement. What was the issue with low-fat recommendation? Why was it counter productive?…

‘Low-fat’ is pretty bad, not just because it turns out excess sugar is far worse (and ‘low-fat’ marketed foods often increased sugar to make them taste better), but also because there are fats that are fine (like monounsaturated fats), and ones we should probably be having more of (like omega 3). There can be inherently bad things about eating less of that, even if lowering saturated fat intake is a good thing… So I would say ‘low-fat’ as a principle was definitely bad and counter-productive advice.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#82

Post by hilux »

the_gastropod wrote: post #73
hilux wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vegan-funded research (that gets published) always finds that a "plant-based diet" is healthier. Check out the Stanford twin study. Check out the rebuttals. Nina Teicholz is a good place to start for that. (Obviously you don't have to take my word for it, or hers, but if you're motivated, you can watch the entire process - the vegans, the headline, the data, the rebuttal.)

So the source you're using to rebut a Stanford nutrition study is someone whose most relevant education is a Masters degree in Latin American studies? And the people suggesting eating more foods you can literally grow yourself in your backyard are corrupted business scientists? Make it make sense.

I think it's telling that rather than address any of Nina's very detailed analysis, you launch an ad hominem attack.

Also, by your logic, almost all journalists (except those who happen to have a PhD in the relevant science) should be ignored. Is that what you believe?

I don't know anyone with a backyard capable of feeding their entire family. Do you?

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#83

Post by Kirby64 »

code_biologist wrote: post #65
p1necone wrote: post #57

The term "Ultra Processed Food" is basically undefinable in any sort of sensible way, and because of that appears to just be used by the layman synonymously with "unhealthy food". Trying to find out whether "Ultra Processed Food" is "unhealthy" then just becomes an excercise in unwrapping a tautology.

The term comes from the Nova food classification system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification Do you think the groupings are not sensible?

You can drive a truck through the Nova food classifications. Every single thing on that list is couched with “typically” or “primarily” or “mostly”. Reading it really reeks of “you know an ultra processed food when you see it” which is unhelpful. The alternative viewing of the nova classifications is that almost everything is an ultra processed food because it has some small ingredient or technique that lumps it into the class 4, which is equally unhelpful.

The problem either needs to be identified to specific ingredients, or just broadly to the group due to human tendencies (hyper palatable foods) that lead to the poor health outcomes so we can actually take action here. As it stands today, the nova classifications basically mean you’re just screwed if you want to truly avoid “ultra processed foods” today.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#85

Post by code_biologist »

taeric wrote: post #79
code_biologist wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect gp is talking about industrial seed oils like corn, soybean, canola, though the nomenclature of "fake" is unhelpful. This paper [1] claims 8-10% of our energy intake is from these. 10% of our calories seems like it could be a big factor. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/

I haven't gone down seed oil rabbit hole. I confess that sounds too conspiracy to me. My accusations were mainly on trans fats. And I ack that we've largely moved away from them. My suspicion is it will take time for that choice to fully take.

I appreciate the clarification and apologies for the misread of your meaning.

WRT seed oils, here's an article from a Cleveland Clinic dietician acknowledging the issues. Doesn't get more mainstream than that: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/seed-oils-are-they-actual...

If you ever dive down the rabbit hole of seed oil health, the place to start is the distorted omega-3 vs omega-6 fatty acid ratio ("The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio should be ideally 2:1 or 1:1, but for most Americans, the ratio is actually a whopping 10:1 or even 20:1." from that article) and the downstream pro-inflammatory signaling resulting from omega-6 metabolites. Paleo and other alt health people say this causes low grade chronic inflammation, with inflammation mediated disease like arthritis, atherosclerosis, and depression as a further consequence.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#86

Post by Kirby64 »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #69
api wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity has definitely increased and I’ve seen many hypotheses floated. The most convincing one to me so far has been simple sugar and the fact that sugar is now added to practically everything. Other hypotheses I’ve seen include more sedentary jobs, endocrine disruptors, and cigarette smoking going away. Nicotine is a stimulant and an appetite suppressant. I guess a combination of less nicotine and more sugar isn’t…

It's not sugar perse. It's the fact that you have companies cooking for you vs your grandma. Yes, your grandma's cookies had sugar, but it didn't have the other 10 ingredients that are basically pre-digested, making that cookie from the store to be EXTREMELY palatable.

There’s nothing different in terms of store bought “homemade style” cookies and a homemade cookie in terms of badness for you, unless perhaps your grandma didn’t make very good cookies.

I can easily make cookies at home that are more palatable/cravable than anything I can buy at a store. And they don’t have any of those “other” ingredients. And let me tell you, 3 of those homemade cookies could easily be 1000 calories.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#87

Post by taeric »

code_biologist wrote: post #85
taeric wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't gone down seed oil rabbit hole. I confess that sounds too conspiracy to me. My accusations were mainly on trans fats. And I ack that we've largely moved away from them. My suspicion is it will take time for that choice to fully take.

I appreciate the clarification and apologies for the misread of your meaning. WRT seed oils, here's an article from a Cleveland Clinic dietician acknowledging the issues. Doesn't get more mainstream than that: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/seed-oils-are-they-actual... If you ever dive down the rabbit hole of seed oil health, the place to start is the distorted omega-3 vs omega-6 fatty acid ratio ("The omega-6 to…

Thanks for a link, I'll take a look later. I meant my admission to be that I am mainly arguing last decade's mistakes. Such that I know I'm behind. But trans fats were hella bad. And my understanding was they were widely used in 70s and 80s.

I don't necessarily believe they are the only bad thing we used for a while. They were strikingly bad, though. Such that I do think it is likely a lot of other things were vilified with it.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#88

Post by Kirby64 »

hilux wrote: post #46
airstrike wrote: post #3

> “We’ve had that issue in the past, as with low-fat recommendations” that later turned out to be counterproductive, says Duane Mellor, a dietitian at Aston University in England. “We’ve messed up too many times. We need to make smarter changes more carefully.” Now that's some terrible logic coupled with a ridiculously handwavy statement. What was the issue with low-fat recommendation? Why was it counter productive?…

> AFAIK (not a dietitian), there's nothing inherently bad about lowering fat intake. Two things: - Why remove naturally occurring fat from a food? If to lower calories, why not remove total quantity of food, and fat in its natural proportion? Here's a fact: humans NEED dietary fat to survive. We don't need dietary carbs. - When we remove fat, what is replacing it?

The amount of dietary fat needed for humans to survive is very small. Most studies I’ve seen suggest the amount is close to 30-50g/day (depending on your weight) before there’s any meaningful long term health problems.

Dietary carbs are extremely valuable for energy purposes. Sure, you can be a keto nut and go completely no carbs, but extra carbs is valuable for energy reasons.

That said, ideally you should be replacing fat with more protein. Most folks get far far too little protein in their diet, and protein is necessary for maintaining and gaining muscle mass, which has a huge impact on obesity and body form. If you don’t have enough protein to maintain muscle mass but have excess calories then literally the only place for it to go is into fat stores…

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#89

Post by Kirby64 »

pixl97 wrote: post #32
tssge wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What was the issue with low-fat recommendation? AFAIK the issue wasn't with low-fat itself per se, but rather that fat was replaced with sugars for things to be palatable. This ended up being much more harmful than having fats, as sugar takes a toll on blood sugar levels and has high energy content itself. As things got labeled low-fat, people thought this meant a healthier alternative, when in fact it was worse or…

Yea, it's like the entire industry forgot the premise of CI-CO. And when you get down to it, the palatable portion of the issue becomes the biggest problem. We suck all the fiber out of foods and feed it back to animals, and then leave the super high calorie portions to eat making it hyper easy to consume 10k kcals a day.

I’m sure you’re being hyperbolic, but consuming 10k calories per day shouldn’t be easy for anyone. No matter how hyper palatable your food is, 10k calories is an absolutely absurd amount of calories and would make most people feel sick. That said, it only takes a few extra hundred calories per day to make you gain 10s of pounds per year.

Re: Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?

#90

Post by from-nibly »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #69
api wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity has definitely increased and I’ve seen many hypotheses floated. The most convincing one to me so far has been simple sugar and the fact that sugar is now added to practically everything. Other hypotheses I’ve seen include more sedentary jobs, endocrine disruptors, and cigarette smoking going away. Nicotine is a stimulant and an appetite suppressant. I guess a combination of less nicotine and more sugar isn’t…

It's not sugar perse. It's the fact that you have companies cooking for you vs your grandma. Yes, your grandma's cookies had sugar, but it didn't have the other 10 ingredients that are basically pre-digested, making that cookie from the store to be EXTREMELY palatable.

I think it has more to do with the fact that everything has sugar in it now. French fries, bread, processed meat in some cases. Im not usually in favor of making laws to solve problems. But for sake of argument if you had to call anything that had sugar added to it a "desert" i think we'd all find out that, all we eat is desert.
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