4 ms·

Yeah, I feel there is no way we can have a clear definition on it. Even these citations (thank you for extracting them by the way) require more definitions. Wha

Yeah, I feel there is no way we can have a clear definition on it. Even these citations (thank you for extracting them by the way) require more definitions. What exactly is a "intact food"? Does that mean a plant or animal that could exist in nature? Cause thats approximately zero percent of what I buy or eat. It's all subjective, feels very much like a "you know it if you see it" kind of thing.

macNchz 5y ago
It's definitely not always obvious but I think the categories of "minimally processed" / "processed" / "ultra processed" make some intuitive sense: Raw fish filet / Canned Fish / Frozen Fish Fingers Corn on the cob / Frozen Corn / Corn Chips Raw chicken breast / Rotisserie Chicken / Chicken patty Peanuts / Peanut Butter / Peanut M&Ms Milk / Cheese / Powdered cheese sauce mix Brown rice / White rice / Rice Krispies Wheat / Simple bread / Chocolate chip cookies
- ianai 5y ago
  I think ultra processed includes things like high fructose corn syrup-which basically has nothing else from corn within it. It’s pretty much a naked solution at that point. This is tough. Maybe a good definition could involve how the food hits your blood sugar levels compared to its completely whole equivalent.
- asiachick 5y ago
  Most of those make no sense to me. Why does chopping up a chicken (a chicken patty) make any difference? Same with fish. If I chop it and roll it in bread crumbs and freeze it it's suddenly "ultra processed"? So if I freeze raw fish is that "ultra processed". If I grind the raw fish with my teeth before swallowing has it suddenly become "ultra processed"? Even corn chips, they're just corn meal, oil, and salt. Unless you mean something like favored Doritos, normal corn chips are aren't remotely "ultra processed". If I was to go by gut feelings on unprocessed to processed on your list, assuming I was making each of them myself, on a scale of 1 to 10 1 Raw fish filet 1 Canned Fish 2 Frozen Fish Fingers 1 Corn on the cob 1 Frozen Corn 2 Corn Chips 1 Raw chicken breast 2 Rotisserie Chicken 1 Chicken patty (it's chopped chicken) 1 Peanuts 2 Peanut Butter 3 Peanut M&Ms 1 Milk 2 Cheese 10 Powdered cheese sauce mix (unless this is easier to make than I understand) 1 Brown rice 2 White rice 3 Rice Krispies 1 Wheat 2 Simple bread 3 Chocolate chip cookies Basically only 1 item on your list would even fit "processed" for me. I think many of those numbers are also misleading. I wouldn't put white rice as 2x processed over brown rice. More like 1.25. Same with cheese, rotisserie chicken
  - macNchz 5y ago
    I think the main thing is that as you go up in the amount of processing, nutrients/fiber are removed (even just by canning) and other things are added (salt, sugar, oil etc), which has an impact if most of what you eat comes from the more processed categories. In the fish fingers and chicken patty examples, they may by definition just be ground up meat with breadcrumbs on it, but the actual store bought versions are often full of other stuff: High Liner Fisher Boy Fish Sticks >MINCED FISH BLEND (COD, POLLOCK, HADDOCK, SOLE, WHITING), WATER, WHEAT FLOUR, VEGETABLE OIL (CANOLA OIL, COTTONSEED OIL, AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL), SOY FLOUR, ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SUGAR, NATURAL FLAVORS, SALT, SPICES, DEXTROSE, ONION POWDER, LEAVENING (SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE), TITANIUM DIOXIDE, HYDROLYZED CORN PROTEIN, BUTTER FLAVOR (MALTODEXTRIN, ENZYME MODIFIED BUTTER, FLAVOR), YEAST, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE (TO RETAIN MOISTURE). CONTAINS: FISH (COD, POLLOCK, HADDOCK, SOLE, WHITING), WHEAT, SOY, MILK Walmart brand Chicken Patties >BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREAST WITH RIB MEAT, WATER SALT, TURBINADO SUGAR, DRIED GARLIC, ONION POWDER, SEA SALT, NATURAL FLAVORING. BREADED WITH: WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN STARCH, EXTRACTIVES OF PAPRIKA, LEAVENING (CREAM OF TARTAR, SODIUM BICARBONATE), NATURAL FLAVORING, SALT, SOYBEAN OIL, SPICE, SUGAR, YEAST, YEAST EXTRACT, YELLOW CORN FLOUR. BREADING SET IN VEGETABLE OIL. I'm not necessarily making specific judgements about any individual ingredients here, but I think that this is what these studies are getting at. Perhaps corn chips were not the best example, but a tour through the chips aisle at the supermarket will offer a grand selection of extremely salty, oily stuff that's, I think, fairly clearly very far from its original raw ingredients of corn or potatoes in terms of nutrition.
akiselev 5y ago
How "intact" a food is basically how much of the original nutrition remains after processing. Hand milling whole grain into flour is a form of processing, for example, that leaves the food almost completely intact because it gets rid of the inedible chaff without destroying much of the bran, germ, and endosperm. Industrially processed all purpose flour, on the other hand, goes through a more destructive process that destroys more of those layers and more of the nutritional value (due to chemicals used, more heat and force generated from machinery, etc). Processing flour into bread, leaves even less of it intact because the yeast and heat irreversibly change the chemistry of the bread, but if the flour is made from intact grains it will be significantly more nutritious, despite roughly the same amount of processing. "intact" food is important because of bioavailability of nutrients as well as metabolic responses like insulin. You can't add fiber or vitamins back into fruit juice with the same effect as eating whole fruit, for example. Edit: Even fully synthesized food that counts as "super duper ultra processed" can be more nutritious than unprocessed food, but as a general rule outside of medicine it isn't.
xeromal 5y ago
Yeah, my first thought was ground beef which to me still feels like minimally processed. Sure, it's high in fat but eaten correctly is a solid food choice in many dishes.

macNchz 5y ago

It's definitely not always obvious but I think the categories of "minimally processed" / "processed" / "ultra processed" make some intuitive sense: Raw fish filet / Canned Fish / Frozen Fish Fingers Corn on the cob / Frozen Corn / Corn Chips Raw chicken breast / Rotisserie Chicken / Chicken patty Peanuts / Peanut Butter / Peanut M&Ms Milk / Cheese / Powdered cheese sauce mix Brown rice / White rice / Rice Krispies Wheat / Simple bread / Chocolate chip cookies

ianai 5y ago
I think ultra processed includes things like high fructose corn syrup-which basically has nothing else from corn within it. It’s pretty much a naked solution at that point. This is tough. Maybe a good definition could involve how the food hits your blood sugar levels compared to its completely whole equivalent.
asiachick 5y ago
Most of those make no sense to me. Why does chopping up a chicken (a chicken patty) make any difference? Same with fish. If I chop it and roll it in bread crumbs and freeze it it's suddenly "ultra processed"? So if I freeze raw fish is that "ultra processed". If I grind the raw fish with my teeth before swallowing has it suddenly become "ultra processed"? Even corn chips, they're just corn meal, oil, and salt. Unless you mean something like favored Doritos, normal corn chips are aren't remotely "ultra processed". If I was to go by gut feelings on unprocessed to processed on your list, assuming I was making each of them myself, on a scale of 1 to 10 1 Raw fish filet 1 Canned Fish 2 Frozen Fish Fingers 1 Corn on the cob 1 Frozen Corn 2 Corn Chips 1 Raw chicken breast 2 Rotisserie Chicken 1 Chicken patty (it's chopped chicken) 1 Peanuts 2 Peanut Butter 3 Peanut M&Ms 1 Milk 2 Cheese 10 Powdered cheese sauce mix (unless this is easier to make than I understand) 1 Brown rice 2 White rice 3 Rice Krispies 1 Wheat 2 Simple bread 3 Chocolate chip cookies Basically only 1 item on your list would even fit "processed" for me. I think many of those numbers are also misleading. I wouldn't put white rice as 2x processed over brown rice. More like 1.25. Same with cheese, rotisserie chicken
- macNchz 5y ago
  I think the main thing is that as you go up in the amount of processing, nutrients/fiber are removed (even just by canning) and other things are added (salt, sugar, oil etc), which has an impact if most of what you eat comes from the more processed categories. In the fish fingers and chicken patty examples, they may by definition just be ground up meat with breadcrumbs on it, but the actual store bought versions are often full of other stuff: High Liner Fisher Boy Fish Sticks >MINCED FISH BLEND (COD, POLLOCK, HADDOCK, SOLE, WHITING), WATER, WHEAT FLOUR, VEGETABLE OIL (CANOLA OIL, COTTONSEED OIL, AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL), SOY FLOUR, ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SUGAR, NATURAL FLAVORS, SALT, SPICES, DEXTROSE, ONION POWDER, LEAVENING (SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE), TITANIUM DIOXIDE, HYDROLYZED CORN PROTEIN, BUTTER FLAVOR (MALTODEXTRIN, ENZYME MODIFIED BUTTER, FLAVOR), YEAST, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE (TO RETAIN MOISTURE). CONTAINS: FISH (COD, POLLOCK, HADDOCK, SOLE, WHITING), WHEAT, SOY, MILK Walmart brand Chicken Patties >BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREAST WITH RIB MEAT, WATER SALT, TURBINADO SUGAR, DRIED GARLIC, ONION POWDER, SEA SALT, NATURAL FLAVORING. BREADED WITH: WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN STARCH, EXTRACTIVES OF PAPRIKA, LEAVENING (CREAM OF TARTAR, SODIUM BICARBONATE), NATURAL FLAVORING, SALT, SOYBEAN OIL, SPICE, SUGAR, YEAST, YEAST EXTRACT, YELLOW CORN FLOUR. BREADING SET IN VEGETABLE OIL. I'm not necessarily making specific judgements about any individual ingredients here, but I think that this is what these studies are getting at. Perhaps corn chips were not the best example, but a tour through the chips aisle at the supermarket will offer a grand selection of extremely salty, oily stuff that's, I think, fairly clearly very far from its original raw ingredients of corn or potatoes in terms of nutrition.

akiselev 5y ago

How "intact" a food is basically how much of the original nutrition remains after processing. Hand milling whole grain into flour is a form of processing, for example, that leaves the food almost completely intact because it gets rid of the inedible chaff without destroying much of the bran, germ, and endosperm. Industrially processed all purpose flour, on the other hand, goes through a more destructive process that destroys more of those layers and more of the nutritional value (due to chemicals used, more heat and force generated from machinery, etc). Processing flour into bread, leaves even less of it intact because the yeast and heat irreversibly change the chemistry of the bread, but if the flour is made from intact grains it will be significantly more nutritious, despite roughly the same amount of processing. "intact" food is important because of bioavailability of nutrients as well as metabolic responses like insulin. You can't add fiber or vitamins back into fruit juice with the same effect as eating whole fruit, for example. Edit: Even fully synthesized food that counts as "super duper ultra processed" can be more nutritious than unprocessed food, but as a general rule outside of medicine it isn't.

xeromal 5y ago

Yeah, my first thought was ground beef which to me still feels like minimally processed. Sure, it's high in fat but eaten correctly is a solid food choice in many dishes.