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I did wonder that same thing, this breaks it down nicely: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed-foods-and-are-they-bad-for-our-health-20

I did wonder that same thing, this breaks it down nicely: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed-foods-and-are-they-bad-for-our-health-2020010918605 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed... One example: Corn vs Canned corn vs Corn chips Where corn is not, canned is processed, and chips are Ultra. My favorite example is Doritos. "Favorite" because they're soooo damn good, but sooo damn bad for me. Ultra Processed for sure.

dragontamer 6y ago
> Where corn is not, canned is processed And that's where this distinction immediately becomes ridiculous. Fresh corn vs canned corn is well studied: the nutrition in canned corn can be higher due to preserving the food at peak-ripeness. Fresh corn loses nutrition the longer it sits around. If you're able to grab corn from a farmer's market, its really good and nutritious. But if that corn was shipped for miles, sat at the back of a warehouse for a week, then got to the grocery store, and then sat at your house for a few days before eating... well... a lot of that nutrition evaporated away --------- Canned corn loses some nutrition into the water as its canned. But you can preserve that nutrition by integrating that water into your meals. Ex: canned corn in chili, just pour the corn AND the water into your meal, and you keep all the vitamins. In either case, the dietary fiber of the vegetable remains in tact even though the canning process. And that's the stuff that a lot of people are missing in their diets.
- dolni 6y ago
  Which is part of why, in a below, I mentioned how egregious it was to oversimplify foods to "processed" or not. There needs to be more information disseminated about what kind of convenient foods people _can_ choose and what the impacts are to your health are. Most people would consider frozen or canned fruits and vegetables as more processed, and therefore less good, than fresh fruit or vegetables. Although I do have a bone to pick with your assessment of why "fresh" produce tends to be less nutritious. While you correctly note that frozen or canned items are picked at peak ripeness, the fresh items don't have less nutrition simply because the nutrients "evaporated away". Instead, they have to be picked _far before_ peak ripeness in order to avoid spoilage. That means the plants just take in fewer nutrients.

dragontamer 6y ago

> Where corn is not, canned is processed And that's where this distinction immediately becomes ridiculous. Fresh corn vs canned corn is well studied: the nutrition in canned corn can be higher due to preserving the food at peak-ripeness. Fresh corn loses nutrition the longer it sits around. If you're able to grab corn from a farmer's market, its really good and nutritious. But if that corn was shipped for miles, sat at the back of a warehouse for a week, then got to the grocery store, and then sat at your house for a few days before eating... well... a lot of that nutrition evaporated away --------- Canned corn loses some nutrition into the water as its canned. But you can preserve that nutrition by integrating that water into your meals. Ex: canned corn in chili, just pour the corn AND the water into your meal, and you keep all the vitamins. In either case, the dietary fiber of the vegetable remains in tact even though the canning process. And that's the stuff that a lot of people are missing in their diets.

dolni 6y ago
Which is part of why, in a below, I mentioned how egregious it was to oversimplify foods to "processed" or not. There needs to be more information disseminated about what kind of convenient foods people _can_ choose and what the impacts are to your health are. Most people would consider frozen or canned fruits and vegetables as more processed, and therefore less good, than fresh fruit or vegetables. Although I do have a bone to pick with your assessment of why "fresh" produce tends to be less nutritious. While you correctly note that frozen or canned items are picked at peak ripeness, the fresh items don't have less nutrition simply because the nutrients "evaporated away". Instead, they have to be picked _far before_ peak ripeness in order to avoid spoilage. That means the plants just take in fewer nutrients.