6 ms·

Ultraprocessed Foods Now Comprise 2/3 of Calories in Children and Teen Diets

71 points by prostoalex 5y ago

qnsi 5y ago
This is a very bad news. According to one obesity expert I follow, the best variable that explains growth in obesity epidemic is processed food consumption. Everyone that struggles with weight can tell you, this foods are just to addictive. For a good overview of how food industry makes it more addictive read a book Hooked by Michael Moss
- wonnage 5y ago
  Also a person's relationship to food gets set in childhood, it's hard to grow up on processed food and change in adulthood.
  - balfirevic 5y ago
    > Also a person's relationship to food gets set in childhood How do you know?
  - meiraleal 5y ago
    It does get set just because of the linearity of time, there is nothing preventing it to change in adulthood as you learn and proper understand about your body and nutrition.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Not only is it addictive with the added sugars, it's hard to find food that doesn't have some form of sugar in it outside the fresh fruit/vegetable/meat section.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  If you start paying attention to frozen foods, the salt content is absurd. I grew up on the stuff and had no idea. Even our processed foods are different than the alternatives manufactured by the same company in a different country. I've discovered that even some canned foods have significantly more sugar by volume than the identical item in a European market.
criticaltinker 5y ago
Previous discussion from 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28132873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28132873
elil17 5y ago
As discussed previously, this research defines ultra processed foods in a way that doesn’t necessarily make sense, at least to a layman. For instance, sliced bread, including whole wheat bread, would count as ultra processed due to the slicing and bagging process.
- 09bjb 5y ago
  Not because of the highly processed and refined wheat (and sometimes sugar) that usually constitute its main ingredients?
  - routerl 5y ago
    Most people forget that nearly all flour is bleached. This process is highly industrial, using benzoyl peroxide to change the flour from its naturally yellowish color to the white we all associate with "clean" flour. The industrial processes that make grocery store flour are not just the same old milling and sifting we've been doing for centuries, but a qualitatively different way to treat food. Further, in the USA, several states still allow the use of bromate to speed up the flour aging process. Any industrial bread in those states will have this rather unhealthy chemical in it. I'm not remotely surprised to see sliced bread count as "ultra processed".
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Not all sliced bread is "ultra-processed" in this paper. They say "Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultraprocessed."
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        ...but colors seem like some of the ingredients least likely to turn a product unhealthy. With emulsifiers probably not far behind.
        5y ago
umvi 5y ago
Well what do you expect when the closest grocery store is a 10 minute drive to Safeway/Kroger/Walmart? People don't want to be driving to Safeway every single day for fresh bread and produce. They want to buy a weeks' worth of groceries at a time to save the hassle which means buying processed stuff that'll last a whole week instead of unprocessed stuff like fresh produce that only lasts a few days. Compare to i.e. Europe where it is more common to have bakeries and such on nearly every neighborhood corner so you can walk over to buy fresh food every morning.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Interesting that the trends are pretty much the same at poverty level and 3x poverty level income groups. If it were only a matter of having a decent built environment where you walk past a green grocer on your way home, I'd think there would be a difference between rich and poor.
- tyleo 5y ago
  I shop once a week and eat extremely healthy. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember even while at college. I don’t think it requires shops on every corner. To be fair, some produce like bananas and cucumbers can go bad in less than a week. But it’s easy to avoid and if you want them fresh, picking up a handful of items mid week isn’t too much of a chore.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    I shop once a week too, but most of what I get would count as ultra-processed here. + Dave's killer wholegrain english muffins + Bacon + Icelandic yogurt And several other items count as processed: + Pickles + Lunch meat + Deli cheese There are also things which sit in a weird spot that isn't clear to me, eg frozen hash browns. This is literally just potatoes and salt but has had mechanical processes and extrusion. Unless you are eating a raw diet, a lot of your items count as ultra processed under these guidelines.
- 5y ago
yupper32 5y ago
The title is a bit misleading. > The calories that children and adolescents consumed from ultraprocessed foods jumped from 61% to 67% of total caloric intake from 1999 to 2018 So about a 10% increase in 20 years. Still troubling, of course, but the title is useless without context.
sonicggg 5y ago
Quite impressive that our diet and lifestyle habits seemingly get worse, and yet our lifespan keeps on climbing, when compared to previous generations. One could say "Oh, they did not have modern medicine, and blah blah blah". The way I see, ultraporcessed food, medicines, industrialised goods are all part of the same package. And yet we always see the cup half empty.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  In the US our lifespan isn't climbing anymore, in fact it dropped: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf (Note it doesn't really take into account covid at all, since it covers up to June 2020). In fact, it hasn't really increased since 2012ish.
- OpieCunningham 5y ago
  Life span is increasing very marginally. You are probably referring to life expectancy, which has been increasing. Life span is how old a human is capable of living. This number has not changed much in hundreds or thousands of years. Life expectancy is how many humans reach any specific age. Life expectancy increases are primarily driven by decreases in infant deaths (which bring down the averages), and secondarily by better diagnosis and treatments of disease in older humans. In any case, the existence of better medicine is not predicated on the development or consumption of ultra processed foods. There is no “same package”.
sosuke 5y ago
I put this in the last article. This defines the meaning of Ultra-processed http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultra-processed. Plain steel-cut oats, plain corn flakes and shredded wheat are minimally processed foods, while the same foods are processed when they also contain sugar, and ultra-processed if they also contain flavours or colours.
- MikusR 5y ago
  So if i add an egg (yolk is an emulsifier) when making bread it becomes ultra-processed?
  - maxk42 5y ago
    No, but if you add whey protein isolate it becomes ultra-processed. Unprocessed foods are the ones occurring in nature. In this case: Wheat, egg, salt, yeast. Once you grind the yeast, blend the ingredients together and bake it, it becomes processed. Bread is always processed. Grains by themselves - wheat, quinoa, rye, etc. are not. Similarly eggs are unprocessed. Extracting and filtering the protein so that it exists as an isolate (a form far from its naturally-occurring state) is processed.
mongol 5y ago
I did not know what distinguished ultraprocessed foods from processed foods. This link was helpful https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova
uses 5y ago
The processing doesn't really bother me much, because AFAIK, processing itself has no relevance to health. The problems with modern postindustrial diets are that calories are too cheap, available, and delicious. I think the best long term solution to this will be some kind of food science that adds "filler" to delicious foods that simply passes through the system and adds bulk without decreasing deliciousness or adding excessive calories. All the attention to healthy lifestyles is great but it will continue to only be practiced by the minority of people with the resources (mental, cultural, monetary, etc) to spend on those considerations. Meanwhile obesity, heart disease, etc is a major drag on our collective health and QOL.
- meiraleal 5y ago
  the "fillings" and empty calories are what we call "salad". And the excess of processing by the digestive system also comes with a cost.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  > processing itself has no relevance to health My understanding is at odds with yours. Problems extend well beyond calorie density. "Processing" covers a lot of things but is often performed for shelf-life reasons. Preservatives are introduced. Ingredients are cooked at very high temperatures to eliminate ambient storage issues. Processing also allows recipes to be precisely tweaked by committee, adding salt, artificial flavourings, and [often controversial] sweeteners. Colourants are dictated by marketing too. Aside from probable direct chemical issues, these flavour- and sodium- hyperdense foods screw with our expectations from food. They're also digested too fast, exacerbating glycaemic swings, even illiciting a Pavlovian response. Your "filler" ignores the cause of today's problems. The problems above are caused by a 70 year postwar food race. Capitalism. The way out isn't more of that, we need to recalibrate. Everyday food _should_ be boring, so that treats remain special. Reclaim a taste for the boiled veg our great grandparents had. Get away from this boomer-fuelled sugar fetish.
RappingBoomer 5y ago
i wonder whether third worlders ever read these threads and get nervous about westerners discussing the "evils" of ultraprocessed food...after all, most of the people in india and africa would die of starvation if the westerners ever do decide to outlaw ultraprocessed food...because most of those third worlders depend on cheap rice, corn meal and wheat flour to live...take away these ultraprocessed foods and...they starve...
- nphard85 5y ago
  You are joking right?
unixhero 5y ago
The American dream

71 points by prostoalex 5y ago

qnsi 5y ago

This is a very bad news. According to one obesity expert I follow, the best variable that explains growth in obesity epidemic is processed food consumption. Everyone that struggles with weight can tell you, this foods are just to addictive. For a good overview of how food industry makes it more addictive read a book Hooked by Michael Moss

wonnage 5y ago
Also a person's relationship to food gets set in childhood, it's hard to grow up on processed food and change in adulthood.
- balfirevic 5y ago
  > Also a person's relationship to food gets set in childhood How do you know?
- meiraleal 5y ago
  It does get set just because of the linearity of time, there is nothing preventing it to change in adulthood as you learn and proper understand about your body and nutrition.
Clubber 5y ago
Not only is it addictive with the added sugars, it's hard to find food that doesn't have some form of sugar in it outside the fresh fruit/vegetable/meat section.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
If you start paying attention to frozen foods, the salt content is absurd. I grew up on the stuff and had no idea. Even our processed foods are different than the alternatives manufactured by the same company in a different country. I've discovered that even some canned foods have significantly more sugar by volume than the identical item in a European market.

criticaltinker 5y ago

Previous discussion from 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28132873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28132873

elil17 5y ago

As discussed previously, this research defines ultra processed foods in a way that doesn’t necessarily make sense, at least to a layman. For instance, sliced bread, including whole wheat bread, would count as ultra processed due to the slicing and bagging process.

09bjb 5y ago
Not because of the highly processed and refined wheat (and sometimes sugar) that usually constitute its main ingredients?
- routerl 5y ago
  Most people forget that nearly all flour is bleached. This process is highly industrial, using benzoyl peroxide to change the flour from its naturally yellowish color to the white we all associate with "clean" flour. The industrial processes that make grocery store flour are not just the same old milling and sifting we've been doing for centuries, but a qualitatively different way to treat food. Further, in the USA, several states still allow the use of bromate to speed up the flour aging process. Any industrial bread in those states will have this rather unhealthy chemical in it. I'm not remotely surprised to see sliced bread count as "ultra processed".
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Not all sliced bread is "ultra-processed" in this paper. They say "Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultraprocessed."
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      ...but colors seem like some of the ingredients least likely to turn a product unhealthy. With emulsifiers probably not far behind.
      - 5y ago

umvi 5y ago

Well what do you expect when the closest grocery store is a 10 minute drive to Safeway/Kroger/Walmart? People don't want to be driving to Safeway every single day for fresh bread and produce. They want to buy a weeks' worth of groceries at a time to save the hassle which means buying processed stuff that'll last a whole week instead of unprocessed stuff like fresh produce that only lasts a few days. Compare to i.e. Europe where it is more common to have bakeries and such on nearly every neighborhood corner so you can walk over to buy fresh food every morning.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 5y ago
Interesting that the trends are pretty much the same at poverty level and 3x poverty level income groups. If it were only a matter of having a decent built environment where you walk past a green grocer on your way home, I'd think there would be a difference between rich and poor.
tyleo 5y ago
I shop once a week and eat extremely healthy. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember even while at college. I don’t think it requires shops on every corner. To be fair, some produce like bananas and cucumbers can go bad in less than a week. But it’s easy to avoid and if you want them fresh, picking up a handful of items mid week isn’t too much of a chore.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  I shop once a week too, but most of what I get would count as ultra-processed here. + Dave's killer wholegrain english muffins + Bacon + Icelandic yogurt And several other items count as processed: + Pickles + Lunch meat + Deli cheese There are also things which sit in a weird spot that isn't clear to me, eg frozen hash browns. This is literally just potatoes and salt but has had mechanical processes and extrusion. Unless you are eating a raw diet, a lot of your items count as ultra processed under these guidelines.
5y ago

yupper32 5y ago

The title is a bit misleading. > The calories that children and adolescents consumed from ultraprocessed foods jumped from 61% to 67% of total caloric intake from 1999 to 2018 So about a 10% increase in 20 years. Still troubling, of course, but the title is useless without context.

sonicggg 5y ago

Quite impressive that our diet and lifestyle habits seemingly get worse, and yet our lifespan keeps on climbing, when compared to previous generations. One could say "Oh, they did not have modern medicine, and blah blah blah". The way I see, ultraporcessed food, medicines, industrialised goods are all part of the same package. And yet we always see the cup half empty.

gilbetron 5y ago
In the US our lifespan isn't climbing anymore, in fact it dropped: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf (Note it doesn't really take into account covid at all, since it covers up to June 2020). In fact, it hasn't really increased since 2012ish.
OpieCunningham 5y ago
Life span is increasing very marginally. You are probably referring to life expectancy, which has been increasing. Life span is how old a human is capable of living. This number has not changed much in hundreds or thousands of years. Life expectancy is how many humans reach any specific age. Life expectancy increases are primarily driven by decreases in infant deaths (which bring down the averages), and secondarily by better diagnosis and treatments of disease in older humans. In any case, the existence of better medicine is not predicated on the development or consumption of ultra processed foods. There is no “same package”.

sosuke 5y ago

I put this in the last article. This defines the meaning of Ultra-processed http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultra-processed. Plain steel-cut oats, plain corn flakes and shredded wheat are minimally processed foods, while the same foods are processed when they also contain sugar, and ultra-processed if they also contain flavours or colours.

MikusR 5y ago
So if i add an egg (yolk is an emulsifier) when making bread it becomes ultra-processed?
- maxk42 5y ago
  No, but if you add whey protein isolate it becomes ultra-processed. Unprocessed foods are the ones occurring in nature. In this case: Wheat, egg, salt, yeast. Once you grind the yeast, blend the ingredients together and bake it, it becomes processed. Bread is always processed. Grains by themselves - wheat, quinoa, rye, etc. are not. Similarly eggs are unprocessed. Extracting and filtering the protein so that it exists as an isolate (a form far from its naturally-occurring state) is processed.

mongol 5y ago

I did not know what distinguished ultraprocessed foods from processed foods. This link was helpful https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova

uses 5y ago

The processing doesn't really bother me much, because AFAIK, processing itself has no relevance to health. The problems with modern postindustrial diets are that calories are too cheap, available, and delicious. I think the best long term solution to this will be some kind of food science that adds "filler" to delicious foods that simply passes through the system and adds bulk without decreasing deliciousness or adding excessive calories. All the attention to healthy lifestyles is great but it will continue to only be practiced by the minority of people with the resources (mental, cultural, monetary, etc) to spend on those considerations. Meanwhile obesity, heart disease, etc is a major drag on our collective health and QOL.

meiraleal 5y ago
the "fillings" and empty calories are what we call "salad". And the excess of processing by the digestive system also comes with a cost.
oliwarner 5y ago
> processing itself has no relevance to health My understanding is at odds with yours. Problems extend well beyond calorie density. "Processing" covers a lot of things but is often performed for shelf-life reasons. Preservatives are introduced. Ingredients are cooked at very high temperatures to eliminate ambient storage issues. Processing also allows recipes to be precisely tweaked by committee, adding salt, artificial flavourings, and [often controversial] sweeteners. Colourants are dictated by marketing too. Aside from probable direct chemical issues, these flavour- and sodium- hyperdense foods screw with our expectations from food. They're also digested too fast, exacerbating glycaemic swings, even illiciting a Pavlovian response. Your "filler" ignores the cause of today's problems. The problems above are caused by a 70 year postwar food race. Capitalism. The way out isn't more of that, we need to recalibrate. Everyday food _should_ be boring, so that treats remain special. Reclaim a taste for the boiled veg our great grandparents had. Get away from this boomer-fuelled sugar fetish.

RappingBoomer 5y ago

i wonder whether third worlders ever read these threads and get nervous about westerners discussing the "evils" of ultraprocessed food...after all, most of the people in india and africa would die of starvation if the westerners ever do decide to outlaw ultraprocessed food...because most of those third worlders depend on cheap rice, corn meal and wheat flour to live...take away these ultraprocessed foods and...they starve...

nphard85 5y ago
You are joking right?

unixhero 5y ago

The American dream