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> ultra-processed foods such as ... yogurts > Frozen and canned vegetables are often classified as ultra-processed I think this goes against the common usage

• koolba 2y ago
  Yes that’s kind of nuts to group those in the “ultra” group. All three of those are some of the healthiest things you can eat. Especially yogurt.
  • throwawaycities 2y ago
    I think yogurt is a great example of the problem. In its more natural form it is healthy, particularly as a probiotic with live cultures and enzymes. But that’s not what the majority of yogurts sold in stores are, they are heated and pasteurized killing live cultures, and then loaded with sugar added. It’s this yogurt product that more closely resembles a desert than a healthy yogurt that is bought/consumed and marketed as a health food. It’s very similar to the majority of breakfast cereals, probably never as healthy as yogurt to begin with, but a bastardization of the “cereal grains” they are named after.
    • dahdum 2y ago
      Aren’t there are a ton of live culture yogurts available in most supermarkets? Noosa, Siggis, Fage, Yoplait, and Chobani for example. They just genrally have too much sugar.
      • throwawaycities 2y ago
        Yes, but even among those there is some deception. Take Yoplait, it is made with pasteurized milk, so it doesn’t have the naturally occurring cultures. Like the added sugar they just add cultures/probiotics in, what’s important in this is that there are 1000s of species of probiotics and “added probiotics” is not the same as naturally occurring probiotics, which are generally limited to just a few species. In other words it’s a marketing stunt to market “probiotics” as if it were natural, but to reuse the word it is a bastardization of naturally occurring cultures.
        • Eisenstein 2y ago
          Where are you getting unpasteurized milk that you could make yogurt with it? I don't know anyone who has eaten yogurt made from raw cow's milk and wouldn't know where to get it.
          • throwup238 2y ago
            In California it's often sold at farmers markets. It's usually a stall or two selling yogurt and raw milk. You can also just ask a dairy directly.
          • throwawaycities 2y ago
            That’s the point, the yogurt purchased in stores is processed to the point it loses the very benefits that make yogurt “healthy.” To answer your specific question, farmers that have dairy cows. It’s not so common these days, but neither is healthy yogurt. Another example of a probiotic food would be kimchi, which in the US most people probably purchase in stores (pasteurized), but in SKorea many make at home so it’s raw with naturally occurring cultures and enzymes.
          • koolba 2y ago
            Yogurt from “raw milk” doesn’t even make any sense. The pasteurization step during yogurt production isn’t to make the milk safe for consumption. It’s to kill the other bacteria so the one that is deliberately introduced can thrive.
            • throwawaycities 2y ago
              Yogurt has been around for thousands of years, pasteurized milk for less than 200. And yes the pasteurization of milk is to make it safe and it’s required by law in the US (if the milk/yogurt crosses state lines, interstate commerce). You are right in that yogurt made with raw milk, the bacteria of the raw milk will typically overtake the bacteria introduced for the fermentation. Now we have come full circle to the point that modern store bought yogurt doesn’t have the same health benefits. This may all sound counterintuitive that milk is pasteurized for health/safety reasons but pasteurized milk/yogurt doesn’t contain the health benefits of raw milk, or yogurt made from raw milk, but it’s rather straight forward: it contains health benefits but simultaneously potential risks.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • karldcampbell 2y ago
    Here's the problem, "yogurt" may be healthy, but many brands are closer to a sugar delivery system than the traditional product.
  • marcus0x62 2y ago
    I’ve posted about this before and gotten downvoted, but, yeah, the Nova definitions are problematic. I think the issue is the data clearly shows something or somethings are causing problems, but nobody really knows what the troublesome ingredients are, or if any individual ingredients are problematic at all: * Is it the emulsifiers? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven * Is it the high calorie density/ease of chewing? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. * Is it <insert pet theory here>? That, too, probably sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. * Is it just the A/B testing? After a few rounds of optimizing for “do people eat more of substance a or substance b”, does it even matter what the ingredients are? Sounds plausible, but hasn’t been proven. Meanwhile, to pick on one single example, you have jams in the Nova database that are “ultra processed” because they contain ”added” pectin. The last time I brought this up, someone responded that they made homemade jam without adding any pectin at all, just by cooking the fruit for longer. So, clearly, Big Jam is making Frankenfood Jam by adding artificial pectin to thicken their product. You’ll never guess how you extract pectin from fruit: apply heat.
• airstrike 2y ago
  The confusion is by design.
• NoPicklez 2y ago
  On the NOVA scale, these wouldn't be considered ultra-processed. Yogurt would be considered minimally processed and canned vegetables would be considered processed but not ultra processed
• VelesDude 2y ago
  In the manufacturing industry we called Frozen and Canned vegetables "Fresher than fresh". Because they are essentially processed within a few hours of the harvest, where are the stuff we usually get at super markets are a few days at the least and up to a few months old at worst. While there is some processing, they typically aren't removing huge amount of material or being ground up into another form.