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> Pharmaceuticals are ultra-processed and completely unnatural, yet many of them are life-saving. Clearly then, mere act of processing something doesn't make th
by dataflow 5y ago
> Pharmaceuticals are ultra-processed and completely unnatural, yet many of them are life-saving. Clearly then, mere act of processing something doesn't make the thing bad for you.
I have to admit though, I'm not aware of any food that would be considered "ultra-processed" yet known to be good for people.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> I'm not aware of any food that would be considered "ultra-processed" yet known to be good for people What does "ultra processed" mean? Cheese, bread, olive oil and most vegetables require processing to be made or nutritionally useful. Freeze-dried vegetables are quite processed and quite good for you.
- dataflow 5y ago> What does "ultra processed" mean? Cheese, bread, olive oil and most vegetables require processing to be made or nutritionally useful. I don't have a scientific definition for you. Just use your common sense to figure out what average people would intuitively call ultra-processed, whatever it means to them. I'm pretty darn sure you would not arrive at the conclusion that ordinary people consider bread and most vegetables "ultra-processed foods".
- itake 5y agoWhy is bread not considered ultra-processed? I am trying to use my common sense here. To create it, you must apply mechanical processing to grind wheat. Chemical processing for the yeast to reacting to the sugars. thermal processing to cook the bread. There is evaporation of the liquid in the bread. This seems like a lot of processes required to create this.
- artimaeis 5y agoBread could be classified as either processed or ultra-processed depending on ingredients and manufacturing techniques. Ultra-processed bread would probably be made to have a longer shelf life and likely have more additives and preservatives.
- fancifalmanima 5y agoif you buy (from a bakery, probably not from the grocery store) or make bread made from minimally processed to processed flour, water, salt and yeast it would probably be considered minimally processed or processed. When I make homemade bread, those are literally all the ingredients. It has a very different texture, chewiness, and taste from something storebought. They're basically different things. And it doesn't last more than a day or two after cutting it open. If you buy bread made from bleached white flour, sugar (in pretty much any white bread you buy from the supermarket), bread conditioners, preservatives, etc, it's probably considered ultraprocessed. It can also sit in your pantry for weeks.
- slothtrop 5y agoBread can be ultra-processed. It can also be made with ground wheat grains that don't remove the germ or get bleached.
- chithanh 5y ago> Why is bread not considered ulta-processed? Even traditional bread is certainly highly processed, undergoing mechanical (milling), biochemical (fermentation), and thermal (baking) processing. It doesn't quite meet the definition of ultra-processed though as all these technologies are readily available to unsophisticated producers. I think ultra-processed is some sort of proxy for hyperpalatable here.
- judge2020 5y agoIndeed, there's a definition but this just adds the the starting comment's point that "ultra-processed" barely means anything in relation to how healthy something is to eat (and at what quantities).
- legerdemain 5y agoWouldn't most supermarket bread flour by itself meet the definition of ultra-processed, because it is bleached and enriched with micronutrients in a way that almost no consumer can do in the kitchen?
- CarelessExpert 5y ago> because it is bleached and enriched with micronutrients in a way that almost no consumer can do in the kitchen? What gave you that idea? Bleached flour and various additives (such as ascorbic acid) are routinely used in home kitchens: https://thebreadguide.com/using-ascorbic-acid-when-baking/ https://thebreadguide.com/using-ascorbic-acid-when-baking/ What, exactly, do you think goes into making a loaf of mass-produced bread?
- legerdemain 5y agoThe bleaching is what makes the flour, and by extension the bread made from it, ultra-processed, even if the bread is baked in a home setting. You misread.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
- synquid 5y agoThey're processed foods, but not ultra-processed. Generally that means advanced factory processes and chemicals that are only used in industrial settings. Factory made bread is likely to be ultra-processed, however.
- itake 5y agoCan you provide an example of a factory process that is only performed in a factory (and not in the kitchen + grocery store, e.g. flour is preprocessed wheat)? bonus points if this process applies to bread making.
- fanf2 5y agoCompare the Chorleywood process to the way you would make bread at home https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process
- CarelessExpert 5y agoIf I'm reading this right, literally the only difference between this process and the one used in a home kitchen is "intense mechanical working by high-speed mixers, not feasible in a small-scale kitchen". Otherwise the raw materials are the same: > Flour, water, yeast, salt, fat, and, where used, minor ingredients common to many bread-making techniques such as Vitamin C, emulsifiers and enzymes are mechanically mixed for about three minutes. In what way does this represent "processed" food in any material sense? If anything, this sounds like a perfect example of the kind of fear mongering associated with the "processed food" label...
- vb6sp6 5y ago> Otherwise the raw materials are the same Edit: I misread, sorry
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
- the__alchemist 5y ago> Just use your common sense to figure out what average people would intuitively call ultra-processed How do I do that? Are we averaging the opinions of other people, or taking the opinion of the average person? By what metric?
- willismichael 5y ago> I'm pretty darn sure you would not arrive at the conclusion that ordinary people consider bread and most vegetables "ultra-processed foods". That depends on what you mean by bread. The sourdough loaf that I make out of flour straight from the grinder is a far cry from cheap white bread.
- elil17 5y agoWell according to the UN document linked in the article a loaf of bread is ultra-processed
- dataflow 5y ago"Another example of how broadening the initial definition of a highly or ultra-processed food may create confusion is the use of terms that, in themselves, are not precisely defined. For bread, initially defined as such in the NOVA food classification, examples might be the use of terms such as sliced, mass-produced, or sweetened. Their exact interpretation is not self-evident. [...]" [1] Again, there's no unambiguous definition here. The UN has drawn one line out of many potentially valid ones. My point here isn't to argue word semantics. I'm just saying look at what the average person would consider "ultra-processed", whatever their definition (or lack thereof) might be. P.S. I'm not even sure what you consider "ultra-processed bread" is good for people in any case. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389637/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389637/
- elil17 5y agoI mean the whole wheat bread I eat everyday is sliced, mass produced, and sweetened a little bit (as are almost all whole wheat breads, regardless of whether they’re mass produced) - I’m pretty sure it’s as good for me as any other whole grain.
- pixl97 5y agoFor me it is the grinding and removal of fiber. This is a very important distinction as it changes the glycemic index and will cause blood sugars to rise much faster on consumption than an unground food with its entire fiber content. The fiber commonly becomes animal feed.
- Symbiote 5y agoIn my opinion, ultra-processing requiring equipment, procedures or chemicals found only in a laboratory or factory, not a typical home kitchen from the past century or so. That's overly simple though, the definition is here: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova (this seems to be a summary of the definition in FAO document linked above).
- panzagl 5y agoThe guy who invented Fritos made them at home- does that mean they're not ultra-processed?
- dehrmann 5y agoPotato chips are another example. They can be made at home from ingredients that could otherwise be considered healthy. It's just that when you combine them in the right proportions, it can be hard to control how much you eat. The other misnomer is labeling chips as "not nutritious." They're loaded in macronutrients. They often don't have many micro nutrients, but most people aren't actually short on those. The main problem with some of these foods is they're calorically dense, but not filling.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoAnd Kellogs now owns Pringles.
- endisneigh 5y agoOne definition of processed would be the amount of "steps" required to take from the base ingredient. So if you make falafel for example, it's only two steps removed from chickpeas, as it's just mildly grinded and fried. That being said it's an exercise to the reader in determining if each "step" is equally bad. In general steps involving the destruction or heating of the food are worse than the "separation" (e.g. peeling or cutting vs frying or blending).
- artimaeis 5y agoUltra processed is defined by the FAO (The UN Food and Agriculture Organization) thusly: > Formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, made by a series of industrial processes, many requiring sophisticated equipment and technology (hence ‘ultra-processed’). Processes used to make ultra-processed foods include the fractioning of whole foods into substances, chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of unmodified and modified food substances using industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; use of additives at various stages of manufacture whose functions include making the final product palatable or hyper-palatable; and sophisticated packaging, usually with plastic and other synthetic materials. Source: http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf I believe this is the widest standard used to define "ultra-processed", though there are more sentences and paragraphs in that doc explaining the definition more thoroughly.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoThanks! It seems like a two- or three-prong test: (1) cannot be made at home using commonly-available tools and ingredients, (2) uses "industrial techniques" and "additives" and (3) is packaged. The second prong seems ambiguous to the point of uselessness. "Industrial techniques" are covered by (1); "additives" seemingly impossible to define within this context.
- jfengel 5y agoThey also have a definition of "additive" (a) food additive means any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself and not normally used as a typical ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results, or may be reasonably expected to result, (directly or indirectly) in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such foods. The term does not include contaminants, or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities, or sodium chloride; http://www.fao.org/3/Y2770E/y2770e03.htm http://www.fao.org/3/Y2770E/y2770e03.htm The FAO has a standards body that will give you tons of detail to back up their papers. http://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/en/ http://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/en/
- slumdev 5y agoAnd yet: - Cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil is considered to be the healthiest due to its fat and polyphenol content. - Traditional cheeses are more nutritious than Kraft singles. - Whole grain is more nutritious than Wonderbread. - Freezing, cooking, and the passage of time all destroy vitamins and other micronutrients.
- mywittyname 5y agoProtein powder? Ensure / Boost? (important for people who can't chew food) Canned or similarly preserved foods? (important for people without access to reliable refrigeration) Even staple grains (wheat, rice, corn) are pretty highly processed. One can't exactly eat these raw, they need some machinery and sometimes chemistry to really get at the nutrients. I guess this all depends on your definition of "ultra-processed" and "good for people." But the processing of food is a discovery that allowed for the civilizations to appear. Feeding people on fresh meat and veg doesn't scale.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago> I'm not aware of any food that would be considered "ultra-processed" yet known to be good for people. So, no meat substitutes for you, then? Because if Beyond Meat burgers aren't "ultra-processed", I don't know what is.
- dataflow 5y ago> So, no meat substitutes for you, then? Is there something on my profile that indicates I only eat things that are good for me?
- CarelessExpert 5y agoYup, that was poorly phrased. My bad. Let me try that again: I'd say a lot of people view meat substitutes as a healthier choice. But the Beyond Meat burger is, to me, the very definition of an "ultra-processed" food.
- dataflow 5y ago"Ultra-processed => not good" does not imply "not ultra-processed => good". And I'm pretty sure people who believe Beyond is healthier are wrong regardless of how we classify Beyond Meat. (Though I'm not even sure the majority of Beyond Meat eaters believe it's healthier in the first place.)
- CarelessExpert 5y ago> Though I'm not even sure the majority of Beyond Meat eaters believe it's healthier in the first place. I disagree. I suspect a lot of people believe Beyond's products are healthier simply by virtue of not being meat. Heck, they might be right, though I tend to agree with you and suspect it's at best a wash. Also, thanks for the refresher on modus ponens and the fallacy of the inverse. ;) It's been a long time since formal logic... not that I miss it...
- dolni 5y agoMilk is ultra-processed. Lots of folks consider milk to be a healthy beverage option (in moderation, like everything else). Vinegar is ultra-processed and is believed to have some health benefits. [1] Coffee, same deal. Ultra-processed, believed to have health benefits. [2] [1]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/vinegar-good-for-you#1 https://www.webmd.com/diet/vinegar-good-for-you#1 [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/well/eat/coffee-health-benefits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/well/eat/coffee-health-be...