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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 br

• 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.
        • maxk42 5y ago
          Pure speculation here, but we may be overlooking some mechanical mechanism in the obesity epidemic: Could it be that simply consuming a larger percentage of foods containing ingredients made of powders and pastes which are easy to mass-produce is robbing our digestion process of some fundamental function that results in over-eating? Perhaps the human stomach needs to take its time digesting whole foods and fibers in their natural form to produce feelings of satiety for longer periods of time?
• AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  It is frustrating that they seem weary of clarifying what's "processed" versus "ultra-processed". Some level of processing is unavoidable if your dinner is anything other than a foraged or garden salad. Many of our "processing" methods were once rudimentary preservation methods: pickling, curing, fermenting, etc. The image of the greasy Costco-style pizza slice is usually held up as the poster-child for "ultra-processed" food, but they never go into great detail about which elements are particularly harmful. What if I make my pizza from scratch? Is natural-casing pepperoni still an "ultra-processed" ingredient simply by being cured? Or only if it's cured by nitrites and pumped full of preservatives? Is there any cheese that qualifies as minimally-processed versus ultra-processed? The message gets muddled by being vague, because it always seems to come across as just "Eat healthier!", which is not terribly helpful.
  • jeffbee 5y ago
    The only thing that's not clear is whether you've read these articles or not. It's quite explicit in their method that pizza made from scratch is not "ultra-processed" because by their definitions, ultra-processed foods are made in industrial processes at industrial scale, from fractionated ingredients of "no or rare culinary use". """Food substances not used in kitchens appear in the beginning or in the middle of the lists of ingredients of ultra-processed foods. These include hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein, ‘mechanically separated meat’, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, ‘fruit juice concentrate’, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose, lactose, soluble or insoluble fibre, hydrogenated or interesterified oil; and also other sources of protein, carbohydrate or fat which are neither foods from NOVA group 1 or group 3, nor culinary ingredients from NOVA group 2. The presence in the list of ingredients of one or more of these food substances identifies a product as ultra-processed."""
    • dolni 5y ago
      Why should I believe that "mechanically separated meat" is any worse for me than any other meat? Clearly the act of separating parts of an animal is not adding unhealthy compounds to your food. Which then makes me think: if they are willing to include that, how low is the bar for considering something "ultra processed"?
• smnrchrds 5y ago
  Also, isn't processed food higher in calories? 2/3 of calories does not mean 2/3 of food quantity.
  • vimota 5y ago
    That's part of the point though.
• inpdx 5y ago
  I had sliced ezekiel bread today. It's rather absurd to lump that in the same category as junk food.
  • micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Sure, but that's more of the exception than the norm... you could probably work out a healthy diet of ultraprocessed foods... but that's outside the norm. Most people don't even know what ezekiel bread is.
• javagram 5y ago
  Sliced bread you buy in the store seems different from the bread you make at home, even whole wheat bread, based on the ingredient list. Not sure “slicing and bagging” is actually what would qualify it as ultraprocessed, but also not sure if those additional ingredients added actually are unhealthy.
  • lumost 5y ago
    Probably not unhealthy but also not great compared to the alternative. In practice I find that white bread seems to lack whatever it is that makes me feel full. I can easily eat 2-4x the calories in white bread than I could eat from standard whole wheat baked bread.
    • javagram 5y ago
      I can eat a massive number of calories of basic homemade white bread, it’s delicious but not ultraprocessed. I guess white bread, white rice etc are all fairly modern too.
    • verall 5y ago
      > whatever it is It's fiber
      • notshift 5y ago
        Carbs themselves make most people hungrier, because humans evolved an instinct to load up on fruit calories during the limited window that fruit was in season, so that they could make it through the subsequent winter when food was more scarce. Probably also has to do with the fact that bread has so little actual nutrition. The body isn't getting what it needs, so it prompts you to eat more.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Is it really a stretch to consider sliced and bagged bread from the grocery store shelves to be ultra-processed? It definitely doesn't resemble any unprocessed food. The sliced and bagged bread on the shelves is also more processed than the bread you might make at home or even buy from the bakery section of the grocery store. There's a reason it maintains perceived freshness much longer than bread you might make yourself. I don't think their definition is a reason to discard the study. Drop the word "ultra" and it's still true that more than 2/3 of calories being consumed are from processed foods. EDIT: The term "ultra-processed" isn't meant to be a perfect ordering of all foods' nutritional properties. That said, they didn't come up with arbitrary designations. They confirmed that the nutritional value of the foods deemed "ultra-processed" by their methodology was, on average, lower: > “In additional analyses, we compared the composition of ultraprocessed foods to non-ultra processed foods using data from the 2017-2018 period. We found that ultraprocessed foods contain a substantially higher percent of calories from carbohydrates and added sugars, and higher levels of sodium, but also had less fiber and a lower percentage of calories from protein,” said the study’s first author, Lu Wang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School. Trying to identify edge cases where their designation might fail doesn't invalidate the study. The foods in their ultra-processed category were confirmed to be, on average, nutritionally worse.
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  • Dylan16807 5y ago
    > The sliced and bagged bread on the shelves is also more processed than the bread you might make at home or even buy from the bakery section of the grocery store. There's a reason it maintains perceived freshness much longer than bread you might make yourself. The bakery section bread is sometimes sliced too. Using slicing and bagging to distinguish ultra-processing is not a good idea, even if it sometimes correlates. > I don't think their definition is a reason to discard the study. Drop the word "ultra" and it's still true that more than 2/3 of calories being consumed are from processed foods. Processing can also mean so many different things. Sliced up raw ingredients to make a salad? Now it's processed.
• ayngg 5y ago
  Not all bread is made equal though, I would suspect that something like Wonderbread that is shipped in from some factory would be closer to ultra processed than bread baked in house at the supermarket for example.
• ChuckMcM 5y ago
  Exactly this. Manufactured outrage is rather annoying. By their standard home churned butter would be 'ultra processed' if you used a machine to churn the milk. I'm still looking for a good non-meta study on "processed" meats to see if anyone can identify a theory on the interaction between gut biomes and various food preparations. That could be some useful science for me. [*] https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_...
  • jeffbee 5y ago
    > By their standard home churned butter would be 'ultra processed' if you used a machine to churn the milk. No. Stop making up lies about how ultra-processed has been defined.
• notshift 5y ago
  From the reading I've done, whole wheat bread isn't much healthier than regular white bread. Humans are supposed to be eating nutrient dense foods - bread has hardly any, and carbs break down into sugar. Classifying both as processed and thus unhealthy makes sense to me. For longevity, the best you can do is the right vegetables with meats and fruits in moderation.
  • solumos 5y ago
    Totally agree. I've had a lot of GI issues, but eating more greens/veggies and less bready/sugary stuff has helped me more than anything else.