4 ms·

I think the intent is relevant as well: Hummus is a dish made from chickpeas, tahini, oil, and garlic. Guar beans aren't a typical ingredient, but they're proc

I think the intent is relevant as well: Hummus is a dish made from chickpeas, tahini, oil, and garlic. Guar beans aren't a typical ingredient, but they're processed into power and added to give the dish some additional characteristic. Coffee is a dish made from coffee. Coffee beans are ground up and processed because they're an essential ingredient. Nobody has a cherished family high-fructose corn syrup cookie recipe, ha! Neither me nor the article are suggesting that all processed foods are inherently bad and should be avoided at all cost. Guar gum is probably safer than coffee. What we are saying is that diets higher in processed foods tend to correlate with worse health, and the WSJ article goes further to suggest causes. Hummus is a terrible example... better might be McDonalds burgers vs those from a farm stand, or lattes vs black coffee. But hummus made from raw ingredients is also probably better for you than one bought from the store filled with preservatives.

vel0city 3y ago
Your list leaves out chili powder from the original intent of hummus. It's something I'm adding from the base ingredient list to give it an additional charistic. If I add chili powder to the top of my hummus, is that not turning it into an ultra processed dish in the same way as guar gum? Isn't chili powder highly processed in the same way guar gum powder is? I'm not arguing guar gum is good in any way. For all I know it is massively worse for me than chili powder. Maybe it causes indigestion or irritates my gut. But why can't we use a label like that instead of just an ultra nebulous term of "ultra processed" where some people get to seemingly arbitrarily define what is and is not highly processed? Where in any of those definitions listed does it suggest any idea of intent for if something is "highly processed"? If intent is what matters, is adding pineapple to pizza, something that should never be done, be considered the thing that makes it highly processed, or should pizza just always be considered highly processed from the start? After all, it's not whole foods, it's being subjected to high temperatures, contains highly processed foods like cheese, etc. Or is cheese somehow not highly processed either?
- walterbell 3y ago
  Hopefully a future LLM can illuminate semantic questions.

vel0city 3y ago

Your list leaves out chili powder from the original intent of hummus. It's something I'm adding from the base ingredient list to give it an additional charistic. If I add chili powder to the top of my hummus, is that not turning it into an ultra processed dish in the same way as guar gum? Isn't chili powder highly processed in the same way guar gum powder is? I'm not arguing guar gum is good in any way. For all I know it is massively worse for me than chili powder. Maybe it causes indigestion or irritates my gut. But why can't we use a label like that instead of just an ultra nebulous term of "ultra processed" where some people get to seemingly arbitrarily define what is and is not highly processed? Where in any of those definitions listed does it suggest any idea of intent for if something is "highly processed"? If intent is what matters, is adding pineapple to pizza, something that should never be done, be considered the thing that makes it highly processed, or should pizza just always be considered highly processed from the start? After all, it's not whole foods, it's being subjected to high temperatures, contains highly processed foods like cheese, etc. Or is cheese somehow not highly processed either?

walterbell 3y ago
Hopefully a future LLM can illuminate semantic questions.