3 ms·

This really seems like touchy-feely, granola-mom type thinking, sprayed with a thin veneer of empiricism to sway the skeptics who don't look too closely. Your

This really seems like touchy-feely, granola-mom type thinking, sprayed with a thin veneer of empiricism to sway the skeptics who don't look too closely. Your two sources, as well as the Canadian heart and stroke center (the top google result for ultra processed food), all define ultra processed food differently, which lead to different outcomes to a question as simple as "is ice cream ultra-processed?". (the answers: the Brazilian paper says it depends largely on ingredients and additives, Kevin Hall says milk itself is ultra-processed, the Canadian heart and stroke center classifies milk as a non processed food but almost certainly considers ice cream ultra processed because it defines ultra processed in terms of mechanical processes) With no remotely similar operating definition, and the fact that a hundred other different consumption habits change across populations in the process of industrialization at the same time as some thus undefined sub-element of diet, this seems like a just-so story given legs by the fact that it gives an easy solution to an obvious problem.

chubot 4y ago
Some ice cream is ultra-processed, and some isn't. Just like some corn is grown in a dead soil with nitrogen fertilizer, and some grown in live soil (regenerative, with crop rotation, etc.) I agree it's not easy to tell -- it took quite me a while, and also a lot of "unlearning" See my other replies in sibling comments for more color -- the fundamental issue is that processed food is cheaper, and that the processing / scale / profits itself are what makes it harmful and even addictive (as Hall found, the people who ate processed foods ate faster, and more) ---- Also did you watch the Hall video? Does it really come across as "granola-mom"?
- viridian 4y ago
  Hall isn't who I'm talking about, more the general cultural movement around defining things as, and avoiding, ultra processed foods. It resembles a lot of other niche, contradictory diet movements I've seen, all backed by at least a handful of studies (and almost always with some well spoken PhD at the forefront), whether it's this, ketogenic metabolizing, avoiding poly unsaturated fatty acids, multi day fasts with supplements and salts, intermittent fasting, etc. These generally tend to appeal to, and also cause massive schisms among the aforementioned granola mom types, much like say, how babies and kids sleep should be handled. The reason I don't consider these movements all that valuable or useful is that they all seem to don the cloak of empiricism post hoc, after they have decided what they believe, and when it comes to pushing the idea, any relevant study will do, because the research result is effectively a marketing headline, similar to the original article for this thread. And while Hall may be somewhat convincing, if I lived my life by the advice of every convincing talk I'd ever heard, I'd have to follow a lot of mutually exclusive advice, and with regards to dieting, between Kevin Hall, Ray Peat, and David Sinclair, I'm not sure they'd let me eat enough calorie dense food to survive.

chubot 4y ago

Some ice cream is ultra-processed, and some isn't. Just like some corn is grown in a dead soil with nitrogen fertilizer, and some grown in live soil (regenerative, with crop rotation, etc.) I agree it's not easy to tell -- it took quite me a while, and also a lot of "unlearning" See my other replies in sibling comments for more color -- the fundamental issue is that processed food is cheaper, and that the processing / scale / profits itself are what makes it harmful and even addictive (as Hall found, the people who ate processed foods ate faster, and more) ---- Also did you watch the Hall video? Does it really come across as "granola-mom"?

viridian 4y ago
Hall isn't who I'm talking about, more the general cultural movement around defining things as, and avoiding, ultra processed foods. It resembles a lot of other niche, contradictory diet movements I've seen, all backed by at least a handful of studies (and almost always with some well spoken PhD at the forefront), whether it's this, ketogenic metabolizing, avoiding poly unsaturated fatty acids, multi day fasts with supplements and salts, intermittent fasting, etc. These generally tend to appeal to, and also cause massive schisms among the aforementioned granola mom types, much like say, how babies and kids sleep should be handled. The reason I don't consider these movements all that valuable or useful is that they all seem to don the cloak of empiricism post hoc, after they have decided what they believe, and when it comes to pushing the idea, any relevant study will do, because the research result is effectively a marketing headline, similar to the original article for this thread. And while Hall may be somewhat convincing, if I lived my life by the advice of every convincing talk I'd ever heard, I'd have to follow a lot of mutually exclusive advice, and with regards to dieting, between Kevin Hall, Ray Peat, and David Sinclair, I'm not sure they'd let me eat enough calorie dense food to survive.