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> I looked up "plain hummus" and it has a score of 70? But the ingredient list shows almost zero additives. Almost zero != zero. Your cited hummus with a score

> I looked up "plain hummus" and it has a score of 70? But the ingredient list shows almost zero additives. Almost zero != zero. Your cited hummus with a score of 70 includes the additive "guar gum". Other hummus vendors with a score of 1 do not include that additive, so the simple numerical score succeeds in flagging the product for manual human review. Washington Post (2022) article lists guar gum as an ultra-processed additive, https://archive.is/LG1V1 https://archive.is/LG1V1 Many ultra-processed foods are made in industrial machines that subject grains, corn and other raw ingredients to extremely high pressures and temperatures. This can destroy micronutrients and create new compounds that can be harmful, including carcinogens, said Carlos A. Monteiro, an expert on ultra-processed foods and a professor of nutrition and public health at the School of Public Health at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. “These foods contain many chemical compounds that are not nutrients,” he added. Ultra-processed foods often contain an array of additives whose effects on our health we don’t yet fully understand, said Mozaffarian. “It’s not just the salt and sugar, which are the obvious ones, but the artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, emulsifiers, stabilizers, guar gum and xanthan gum,” he said. “We don’t know that they’re innocuous.”

vel0city 3y ago
So why should I be so concerned about my hummus having a little bit of guar gum in it?
- itishappy 3y ago
  It's an ultra-processed chemical with little to no nutritional value that's not listed as an ingredient in hummus recipes or included in competing products. Maybe it's fine! Your personal level of concern may vary, but if it's anything but zero, then surely it's more worthy of concern than hummus without guar gum.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    Ultra processed chemical. It's a bean that's roasted, crushed, and sieved. Coffee is also an ultra processed chemical under your definition. Once again really showing this idea that "ultra processed" seems to carry no real meaning, as once again pretty much any cooked food can be called "ultra processed". Cooking routinely adds things for no nutritional benefit but because it changes the texture or taste to something better. Adding some cinnamon to oatmeal or a red pepper flakes to a pasta sauce isn't going to change the nutritional benefits by any large margin, but I do it because it helps me enjoy the food more. You don't necessarily add egg to cake mix for the nutritional benefit the egg provides you do it so its springier and has a better texture. One might add a little guar gum to hummus to make it thicker and have a slightly different mouth feel which some might prefer. What exactly about guar gum is bad?
    - itishappy 3y ago
      It's not my definition. I doubt coffee counts though. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/ Also, I never meant to imply there were conclusive negative effects of guar gum. I don't know! I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Glass beads are probably more inert, but I still wouldn't eat them if I had a choice.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        > I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Hummus itself is entirely unnecessary for humans to consume. Why would I even consider eating it? Maybe because it tastes good and has a texture people enjoy? Maybe guar gum improves the texture to the food? I don't know, I'm not really a big fan of hummus, so I can't speak to whether or not guar gum makes it better or worse. But I imagine the people selling it determined people tend to enjoy the hummus with the guar gum more. They didn't just include it in there because they're an evil megacorporation out to control the world by adulterating hummus with guar gum, they put it in there because in the end they thought they'd sell more hummus. If the yardstick of what we should eat is based entirely of if its "necessary", most things people generally consider fine wouldn't make the cut. Once again, its not necessary for me to put cinnamon in my oatmeal, should I stop doing that? Its not necessary for me to put red pepper flakes in my pasta sauce, should I stop doing that? You can make a cake without egg in it, its not "necessary". It won't be the same as a cake with egg in it, but it can still be something sweet, kind of bready, and edible. But I'll continue to put egg in most of my cakes even though its not strictly "necessary" to make something edible. From your article trying to define ultra-processed: > The term “ultra-processed” was coined to refer to industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods or synthesized from other organic sources. They typically contain little or no whole foods, are ready-to-consume or heat up, and are fatty, salty or sugary and depleted in dietary fibre, protein, various micronutrients and other bioactive compounds. Isn't pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee beans made in a factory "industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods"? They're not whole foods anymore, they're ready to consume or heat up, you're brewing it to get the fats out of it, depleted of the original fiber, doesn't have anywhere near the protein content of the original bean, and roasting destroys a lot of the original micronutrients of the original bean. Sure seems to me roasted ground coffee beans meet the definition of ultra-processed laid out by your source.
- dcotter 3y ago
  I can't speak for hummus, but I've noticed ice creams with guar gum, xantham gum, locust bean gum, and so on, have an almost foamy texture that is quite unnatural when compared to ice creams with minimally processed ingredients (i.e. cream, milk, eggs, sugar, etc.). My guess is hummus would suffer similarly, but I'll wait for a connoisseur to confirm.

vel0city 3y ago

So why should I be so concerned about my hummus having a little bit of guar gum in it?

itishappy 3y ago
It's an ultra-processed chemical with little to no nutritional value that's not listed as an ingredient in hummus recipes or included in competing products. Maybe it's fine! Your personal level of concern may vary, but if it's anything but zero, then surely it's more worthy of concern than hummus without guar gum.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Ultra processed chemical. It's a bean that's roasted, crushed, and sieved. Coffee is also an ultra processed chemical under your definition. Once again really showing this idea that "ultra processed" seems to carry no real meaning, as once again pretty much any cooked food can be called "ultra processed". Cooking routinely adds things for no nutritional benefit but because it changes the texture or taste to something better. Adding some cinnamon to oatmeal or a red pepper flakes to a pasta sauce isn't going to change the nutritional benefits by any large margin, but I do it because it helps me enjoy the food more. You don't necessarily add egg to cake mix for the nutritional benefit the egg provides you do it so its springier and has a better texture. One might add a little guar gum to hummus to make it thicker and have a slightly different mouth feel which some might prefer. What exactly about guar gum is bad?
  - itishappy 3y ago
    It's not my definition. I doubt coffee counts though. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/ Also, I never meant to imply there were conclusive negative effects of guar gum. I don't know! I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Glass beads are probably more inert, but I still wouldn't eat them if I had a choice.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      > I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Hummus itself is entirely unnecessary for humans to consume. Why would I even consider eating it? Maybe because it tastes good and has a texture people enjoy? Maybe guar gum improves the texture to the food? I don't know, I'm not really a big fan of hummus, so I can't speak to whether or not guar gum makes it better or worse. But I imagine the people selling it determined people tend to enjoy the hummus with the guar gum more. They didn't just include it in there because they're an evil megacorporation out to control the world by adulterating hummus with guar gum, they put it in there because in the end they thought they'd sell more hummus. If the yardstick of what we should eat is based entirely of if its "necessary", most things people generally consider fine wouldn't make the cut. Once again, its not necessary for me to put cinnamon in my oatmeal, should I stop doing that? Its not necessary for me to put red pepper flakes in my pasta sauce, should I stop doing that? You can make a cake without egg in it, its not "necessary". It won't be the same as a cake with egg in it, but it can still be something sweet, kind of bready, and edible. But I'll continue to put egg in most of my cakes even though its not strictly "necessary" to make something edible. From your article trying to define ultra-processed: > The term “ultra-processed” was coined to refer to industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods or synthesized from other organic sources. They typically contain little or no whole foods, are ready-to-consume or heat up, and are fatty, salty or sugary and depleted in dietary fibre, protein, various micronutrients and other bioactive compounds. Isn't pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee beans made in a factory "industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods"? They're not whole foods anymore, they're ready to consume or heat up, you're brewing it to get the fats out of it, depleted of the original fiber, doesn't have anywhere near the protein content of the original bean, and roasting destroys a lot of the original micronutrients of the original bean. Sure seems to me roasted ground coffee beans meet the definition of ultra-processed laid out by your source.
dcotter 3y ago
I can't speak for hummus, but I've noticed ice creams with guar gum, xantham gum, locust bean gum, and so on, have an almost foamy texture that is quite unnatural when compared to ice creams with minimally processed ingredients (i.e. cream, milk, eggs, sugar, etc.). My guess is hummus would suffer similarly, but I'll wait for a connoisseur to confirm.