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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

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.

deleted 5y ago
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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.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  Tthis is a good point. A bag salad is bad for many reasons, but (aside from too much dressing, which you can always do) not nutrionally.
- MichaelGroves 5y ago
  > Would you consider the sliced and bagged bread to be ultra-processed, but not a whole loaf of basically the same thing? "Ultra" seems subjective, but sliced bread is objectively more processed. The mistake is assuming that "processed" is necessary a good measure of nutritional merit. A freeze dried turnip is more processed than a piece of raw honeycomb, but I'm pretty sure you'd give yourself diabetes eating honeycomb all day long while binging on turnips should be fine.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > The mistake is assuming that "processed" is necessary a good measure of nutritional merit. That's what the headline is implying. But it's also that "ultra" sounds like it means a lot more than "also sliced it." Either way, if we would all agree that it has nothing to do with nutritional merit, then go ahead and call the sliced bread whatever you want. But I don't think that was the intent of the study!
- jeffbee 5y ago
  You're all arguing about elil7's comment, which is false and wrong and not related to this article. There is literally nothing about slicing or bagging in the NOVA classification system. Ingredients are the only discriminating factor. The definition of "ultra-processed" is in https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E6D744D714B1FF09D5BCA3E74D53A185/S1368980018003762a.pdf/ultra-processed-foods-what-they-are-and-how-to-identify-them.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
skeeter2020 5y ago
Where the processing takes place is really important though, and can completely change the context: sliced & bagged whole-wheat bread made in a factory is not the same thing as a twinkie, but both would be classified as ultra-processed. What about a white baguette from my local bakery that's no more nutrious than a donut? What about a bag of fresh brocolli that's been washed and trimmed? The problem is "ultra-processed" !== bad for you.
- EGreg 5y ago
  What definition would be more useful and strongly correlated with good or bad fx ?
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > The problem is "ultra-processed" !== bad for you. They covered that. It's in the linked article: > “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. I think too many people are getting hung up on the technicalities of processed versus ultra-processed. The distinction isn't meant to be a perfect ordering of all foods on a scale of unprocessed to ultra-processed. It's a rough spectrum with helpful, though not necessarily 100% perfect, classification guidelines. Regardless of what you think about their classification techniques, they also showed that the nutritional composition varied significantly with the ultra-processed foods in ways that are known to be unhealthy, so it's not completely useless.
LamaOfRuin 5y ago
I buy sliced and bagged bread at the grocery store that has exactly the same ingredients as I use to bake bread. I'll admit it actually surprised me that this was possible.
- switch007 5y ago
  Just checking: you don’t add iron, molasses, inverted syrup, E214, E401, E505 etc when baking at home right? ;-)
fjgcugdfgff 5y ago
> 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 Considering the vast majority of Americans get enough protein, I'm not sure why this specific observation is considered bad. Calories from carbohydrates (including sugar) aren't intrinsically worse than calories from protein. That's not to say most ultraprocessed foods are healthy, just that the observation doesn't imply they aren't. For comparison, here's what the CDC has to say about added sugar[1]: > Added sugars contribute calories to your diet, but no essential nutrients. Eating and drinking too many added sugars makes it difficult to achieve a healthy eating pattern without taking in too many calories. The important thing is that ultraprocessed foods tend to have less micronutrients and encourage eating too many calories. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/sugar.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/sugar.html

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

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.

skeeter2020 5y ago
Tthis is a good point. A bag salad is bad for many reasons, but (aside from too much dressing, which you can always do) not nutrionally.
MichaelGroves 5y ago
> Would you consider the sliced and bagged bread to be ultra-processed, but not a whole loaf of basically the same thing? "Ultra" seems subjective, but sliced bread is objectively more processed. The mistake is assuming that "processed" is necessary a good measure of nutritional merit. A freeze dried turnip is more processed than a piece of raw honeycomb, but I'm pretty sure you'd give yourself diabetes eating honeycomb all day long while binging on turnips should be fine.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > The mistake is assuming that "processed" is necessary a good measure of nutritional merit. That's what the headline is implying. But it's also that "ultra" sounds like it means a lot more than "also sliced it." Either way, if we would all agree that it has nothing to do with nutritional merit, then go ahead and call the sliced bread whatever you want. But I don't think that was the intent of the study!
jeffbee 5y ago
You're all arguing about elil7's comment, which is false and wrong and not related to this article. There is literally nothing about slicing or bagging in the NOVA classification system. Ingredients are the only discriminating factor. The definition of "ultra-processed" is in https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E6D744D714B1FF09D5BCA3E74D53A185/S1368980018003762a.pdf/ultra-processed-foods-what-they-are-and-how-to-identify-them.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

skeeter2020 5y ago

Where the processing takes place is really important though, and can completely change the context: sliced & bagged whole-wheat bread made in a factory is not the same thing as a twinkie, but both would be classified as ultra-processed. What about a white baguette from my local bakery that's no more nutrious than a donut? What about a bag of fresh brocolli that's been washed and trimmed? The problem is "ultra-processed" !== bad for you.

EGreg 5y ago
What definition would be more useful and strongly correlated with good or bad fx ?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The problem is "ultra-processed" !== bad for you. They covered that. It's in the linked article: > “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. I think too many people are getting hung up on the technicalities of processed versus ultra-processed. The distinction isn't meant to be a perfect ordering of all foods on a scale of unprocessed to ultra-processed. It's a rough spectrum with helpful, though not necessarily 100% perfect, classification guidelines. Regardless of what you think about their classification techniques, they also showed that the nutritional composition varied significantly with the ultra-processed foods in ways that are known to be unhealthy, so it's not completely useless.

LamaOfRuin 5y ago

I buy sliced and bagged bread at the grocery store that has exactly the same ingredients as I use to bake bread. I'll admit it actually surprised me that this was possible.

switch007 5y ago
Just checking: you don’t add iron, molasses, inverted syrup, E214, E401, E505 etc when baking at home right? ;-)

fjgcugdfgff 5y ago

> 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 Considering the vast majority of Americans get enough protein, I'm not sure why this specific observation is considered bad. Calories from carbohydrates (including sugar) aren't intrinsically worse than calories from protein. That's not to say most ultraprocessed foods are healthy, just that the observation doesn't imply they aren't. For comparison, here's what the CDC has to say about added sugar[1]: > Added sugars contribute calories to your diet, but no essential nutrients. Eating and drinking too many added sugars makes it difficult to achieve a healthy eating pattern without taking in too many calories. The important thing is that ultraprocessed foods tend to have less micronutrients and encourage eating too many calories. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/sugar.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/sugar.html