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> Unfortunately, there's no clear definition of ultraprocessed. Like is factory-made whole wheat break ultraprocessed? Canned pinto beans? Artisan cheese? Facto

> Unfortunately, there's no clear definition of ultraprocessed. Like is factory-made whole wheat break ultraprocessed? Canned pinto beans? Artisan cheese? Factory cheese? The article defines "processed" and "unprocessed": Processed foods add a few substances such as sugar, fat, and salt to natural food products, with the goal of improving preservation or sharpening taste. The category includes canned vegetables and fish, cured and salted meats, cheeses, and fermented drinks such as wine and beer. Unprocessed foods are the edible parts of plants (such as seeds or roots or leaves) and animals (such as meat and eggs). The main processing of this food type is freezing, drying or pasteurizing to extend storage life. Salts, sugars, oils and fats are not added. And the nature of ultraprocessed food: Ultraprocessed foods often contain a combination of nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners that, Small says, produces surprising metabolic effects that result in a particularly potent reinforcement effect. That is, eating them causes us to want more of these foods.

mrob 7y ago
>Unprocessed foods are the edible parts of plants (such as seeds or roots or leaves) and animals (such as meat and eggs). The main processing of this food type is freezing, drying or pasteurizing to extend storage life. But the example picture includes white flour, which is wheat processed to make it more palatable. The removal of the wheatgerm does increase shelf-life, but this is only a side effect. If the processing was really intended to maximize shelf-life then it would be processed into polished grains like rice or barley is, not into flour.
Bartweiss 7y ago
This... doesn't really define ultraprocessed. The article tries several times, but the definitions conflict with each other and with the examples given. The first definition of ultraprocessed is "industrial food formulations made up mostly or entirely of ingredients... that are not found in a similar form and combination in nature". That includes a lot of merely 'processed' foods. A highly aged cheese will have basically no naturally-occurring ingredients left, and any bread with leavening and refined flour fails "form and combination found in nature". Similarly, the fat and salt flavors of strong cheese, or the sweetened flavors of a pastry with sugar, go beyond "sharpening taste" to creating entirely new nonnatural flavors. We can all apply the Potter Stewart test to say that Twinkies are ultraprocessed and sharp cheddar isn't, so I don't meant to be pedantic here. But I think this loose definition points to genuinely important unresolved questions. Where on the scale from sausage to Twinkie does the problem start? Is it really true that an Entenmann's coffee cake causes vastly different eating habits than equal access to a home-made version? Can we isolate the difference? Above all, which differences actually drive this? 'Ultraprocessed' is not a food additive but a loose class of recipes, and it'd be nice to reduce that to a distinction we could put on a label. The problem probably doesn't isolate to any one additive or alteration, but we should be able to find something more concrete than a vague naturalistic appeal. The study in question has some promising work in that direction, like controlling for energy density. Outright added calories are a long-standing suspect (since we're likely to use the same amount of e.g. spaghetti sauce despite store-bought versions having far more sugar), but Hall's work suggests that the problem persists even without that. I'd very much like to see more of these studies to replicate the effect and extract a more substantive definition of 'ultraprocessed'.
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  It's a lot easier to define unprocessed than processed. Unprocessed is just how it is from plants or animals with little or no alteration. Processed is altered, like through mechanical action or chemical alteration, and also different things mixed together that are not in nature. The problem here is there are so many directions to go doing that, and so many degrees. But in the end it doesn't matter, since it is becoming so overwhelmingly clear that it is best to stick with unprocessed.
  - Lazare 7y ago
    > Unprocessed is just how it is from plants or animals with little or no alteration. Processed is altered, like through mechanical action or chemical alteration, and also different things mixed together that are not in nature. That's a clear definition, but it's extremely sweeping! It's also very clearly not the definition being used by this study, which had an "unprocessed" menu that including wheat flour pasta, cooked food, frozen food, food with herbs and spices from all over the world, food that had undergone chemical changes, etc. > But in the end it doesn't matter, since it is becoming so overwhelmingly clear that it is best to stick with unprocessed. By your definition, this study does not support that conclusion.
    - woodandsteel 7y ago
      >By your definition, this study does not support that conclusion Not this study alone, but a great many studies to which this study adds one more bit of evidence. Which is how it generally goes in research. When I said "in the end it doesn't matter" I meant having a precise definition of processed didn't matter for the question what our diet should be. I should have made that clearer.
      - Lazare 7y ago
        > to which this study adds one more bit of evidence. This study does not support your conclusion, and so adds no evidence to support that conclusion. It's not even studying the sort of diet you're talking about! > I meant having a precise definition of processed didn't matter for the question what our diet should be No, it really does matter. If you're trying to argue that some specific food or processing technique is bad, then a study that had all participants consume it can't be used to show that it's actually harmful. And by your definition, that's what this study did - it had everyone consume highly processed foods, and some of them had good outcomes. That undermines your conclusion; it does not support it.

mrob 7y ago

>Unprocessed foods are the edible parts of plants (such as seeds or roots or leaves) and animals (such as meat and eggs). The main processing of this food type is freezing, drying or pasteurizing to extend storage life. But the example picture includes white flour, which is wheat processed to make it more palatable. The removal of the wheatgerm does increase shelf-life, but this is only a side effect. If the processing was really intended to maximize shelf-life then it would be processed into polished grains like rice or barley is, not into flour.

Bartweiss 7y ago

This... doesn't really define ultraprocessed. The article tries several times, but the definitions conflict with each other and with the examples given. The first definition of ultraprocessed is "industrial food formulations made up mostly or entirely of ingredients... that are not found in a similar form and combination in nature". That includes a lot of merely 'processed' foods. A highly aged cheese will have basically no naturally-occurring ingredients left, and any bread with leavening and refined flour fails "form and combination found in nature". Similarly, the fat and salt flavors of strong cheese, or the sweetened flavors of a pastry with sugar, go beyond "sharpening taste" to creating entirely new nonnatural flavors. We can all apply the Potter Stewart test to say that Twinkies are ultraprocessed and sharp cheddar isn't, so I don't meant to be pedantic here. But I think this loose definition points to genuinely important unresolved questions. Where on the scale from sausage to Twinkie does the problem start? Is it really true that an Entenmann's coffee cake causes vastly different eating habits than equal access to a home-made version? Can we isolate the difference? Above all, which differences actually drive this? 'Ultraprocessed' is not a food additive but a loose class of recipes, and it'd be nice to reduce that to a distinction we could put on a label. The problem probably doesn't isolate to any one additive or alteration, but we should be able to find something more concrete than a vague naturalistic appeal. The study in question has some promising work in that direction, like controlling for energy density. Outright added calories are a long-standing suspect (since we're likely to use the same amount of e.g. spaghetti sauce despite store-bought versions having far more sugar), but Hall's work suggests that the problem persists even without that. I'd very much like to see more of these studies to replicate the effect and extract a more substantive definition of 'ultraprocessed'.

woodandsteel 7y ago
It's a lot easier to define unprocessed than processed. Unprocessed is just how it is from plants or animals with little or no alteration. Processed is altered, like through mechanical action or chemical alteration, and also different things mixed together that are not in nature. The problem here is there are so many directions to go doing that, and so many degrees. But in the end it doesn't matter, since it is becoming so overwhelmingly clear that it is best to stick with unprocessed.
- Lazare 7y ago
  > Unprocessed is just how it is from plants or animals with little or no alteration. Processed is altered, like through mechanical action or chemical alteration, and also different things mixed together that are not in nature. That's a clear definition, but it's extremely sweeping! It's also very clearly not the definition being used by this study, which had an "unprocessed" menu that including wheat flour pasta, cooked food, frozen food, food with herbs and spices from all over the world, food that had undergone chemical changes, etc. > But in the end it doesn't matter, since it is becoming so overwhelmingly clear that it is best to stick with unprocessed. By your definition, this study does not support that conclusion.
  - woodandsteel 7y ago
    >By your definition, this study does not support that conclusion Not this study alone, but a great many studies to which this study adds one more bit of evidence. Which is how it generally goes in research. When I said "in the end it doesn't matter" I meant having a precise definition of processed didn't matter for the question what our diet should be. I should have made that clearer.
    - Lazare 7y ago
      > to which this study adds one more bit of evidence. This study does not support your conclusion, and so adds no evidence to support that conclusion. It's not even studying the sort of diet you're talking about! > I meant having a precise definition of processed didn't matter for the question what our diet should be No, it really does matter. If you're trying to argue that some specific food or processing technique is bad, then a study that had all participants consume it can't be used to show that it's actually harmful. And by your definition, that's what this study did - it had everyone consume highly processed foods, and some of them had good outcomes. That undermines your conclusion; it does not support it.