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The definition of "ultra-processed foods" is governed by NOVA and its results are very suspect. Take a look at this boneless, skinless chicken breast [1]. It's

The definition of "ultra-processed foods" is governed by NOVA and its results are very suspect. Take a look at this boneless, skinless chicken breast [1]. It's considered an Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Food. We know that there's no way chicken breasts just "fall off" chickens like this: animals are killed, skinned, cleaned, butchered, and then packaged to get this product. This firm tofu [2] on the other hand? It's considered an Ultra-Processed Food of course, despite being a staple in East Asian countries that have much lower incidence of obesity than many Western countries. Among many other problems, there's a huge bias in the NOVA system for food that Western diets consider "primitive". While there's no real answer yet, most science is beginning to point to overeating as the real culprit. Processed foods simply make food more delicious, making you eat more of it. Munch on some raw broccoli and well you'll get tired of it real fast. Fry the broccoli up in some olive oil and it'll taste a lot better, so you'll eat a lot more of it. Since WWII we've increased the availability of salts (counting MSG here), fats, sweeteners, and spices. Fast food thrives off very cheap manufactured products designed to make caloric dense foods taste delicious. Compare American portion sizes to portion sizes anywhere else in the world when eating out. They're enormous. While the science isn't definitive, it's beginning to look a lot more like controlling how much you eat is the answer. The problem is in our current world it's trivial to eat delicious food and eat much more than you need to survive. If you cook, the cool thing is you can use the same tricks fast food uses to make healthy food much more delicious. You can incorporate fiber heavy vegetables, season them with some salt and MSG and make them delicious while filling you up. Eat heavy on proteins which make you stay full for longer (this doesn't mean meat, there's plenty of vegetarian protein dense options like tempeh, tofu, and seitan out there.) But applying these tricks at a population level continues to be a huge, unsolved public health problem. [1]: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/3266980891411/filet-de-poulet-le-gaulois https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/3266980891411/filet-... [2]: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/8410789140118/tofu-firme-hacendado https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/8410789140118/tofu-f...

4gotunameagain 2y ago
I do not understand your quarrel with a chicken breast being unprocessed. It is extracted, yes, but the actual thing that you eat has its original consistency, therefore is unprocessed. Is it a perfect categorisation method? No, such does not exist. Is it immensely more useful than the other categorisation methods that we have, and does it correlate with negative health effects ? For sure. The idea about ultra processed food cause overconsumption just because of their hyperpalatability is questionable and questioned, as ultra processed food contains a myriad of novel molecules that our digestive system has never encountered. A leading theory is that these molecules circumvent our satiation detection mechanisms, along with their hyperpalatability.
- humanrebar 2y ago
  A better argument against chicken breast is that the commercial chickens have been selectively bred, fed, and treated with not-found-in-nature medicines to the point that they don't resemble a "natural" ingredient anymore. This would be in contrast to wild poultry like wild duck, goose, turkey, pheasant, squab, etc.
  - watwut 2y ago
    The same goes for vegetables and fruits. What we eat has nothing to do with what would you find in the nature.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
      Let's not go crazy here. There are wild apples, wild plums, wild grapes, and metric tonnes of wild raspberries growing on my property. They all taste more or less like the supermarket variety. The main difference is that they are noticeably smaller. The black raspberries in particular do taste much better though and are roughly the same size as store-bought. But saying that they have nothing to do with what's commercially available is a cheap shot.
  - strken 2y ago
    Why would this be the case? What quantifiable difference is there in health outcomes between people who eat one or the other?
adrian_b 2y ago
There are two kinds of food processing. One kind of food processing separates the edible or more desirable parts of the food from the inedible or less desirable parts of the food. This kind of processing has been done industrially for thousands of years, e.g. with the production of meal or flour from seeds or the extraction of oil from oily fruits or oily seeds. As long as care is taken to prevent changes in the parts of the food that are separated (e.g. by using cold pressing or sCO2 extraction instead of hot pressing for oil extraction), such processing methods cannot have any detrimental effects on food, but they can greatly reduce the costs needed for the storage and for the transport of food. The second class of food processing methods mix various food ingredients and/or transform the food in various ways, by using heating, whipping etc. When food processing methods of the second class are used industrially, as opposed to being performed at home by the end consumer, they almost always result in unhealthy food, because the interest of the food vendor of obtaining a maximum profit conflicts with the requirements that have to be observed in order to make a healthy food. Terms like "highly-processed food" or "ultra-processed food" make sense only when applied to food processed with methods of the second class. Chicken breast separated from bones and skin is not more processed than an apple separated from its tree.
watwut 2y ago
> t's considered an Ultra-Processed Food of course, despite being a staple in East Asian countries that have much lower incidence of obesity than many Western countries. "Ultra-Processed" and "causes obesity" are two massively different claims. If the claim is that said tofu is ultra-processed, obesity rates in countries where it is eaten are completely unrelated and do not work as argument. Also, it is perfectly fine to define "non processed" group in a way that wont put every single meat into it. If you say that everything that requires killing or cleaning is ultra processed, then the whole term is meaningless.

4gotunameagain 2y ago

I do not understand your quarrel with a chicken breast being unprocessed. It is extracted, yes, but the actual thing that you eat has its original consistency, therefore is unprocessed. Is it a perfect categorisation method? No, such does not exist. Is it immensely more useful than the other categorisation methods that we have, and does it correlate with negative health effects ? For sure. The idea about ultra processed food cause overconsumption just because of their hyperpalatability is questionable and questioned, as ultra processed food contains a myriad of novel molecules that our digestive system has never encountered. A leading theory is that these molecules circumvent our satiation detection mechanisms, along with their hyperpalatability.

humanrebar 2y ago
A better argument against chicken breast is that the commercial chickens have been selectively bred, fed, and treated with not-found-in-nature medicines to the point that they don't resemble a "natural" ingredient anymore. This would be in contrast to wild poultry like wild duck, goose, turkey, pheasant, squab, etc.
- watwut 2y ago
  The same goes for vegetables and fruits. What we eat has nothing to do with what would you find in the nature.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
    Let's not go crazy here. There are wild apples, wild plums, wild grapes, and metric tonnes of wild raspberries growing on my property. They all taste more or less like the supermarket variety. The main difference is that they are noticeably smaller. The black raspberries in particular do taste much better though and are roughly the same size as store-bought. But saying that they have nothing to do with what's commercially available is a cheap shot.
- strken 2y ago
  Why would this be the case? What quantifiable difference is there in health outcomes between people who eat one or the other?

adrian_b 2y ago

There are two kinds of food processing. One kind of food processing separates the edible or more desirable parts of the food from the inedible or less desirable parts of the food. This kind of processing has been done industrially for thousands of years, e.g. with the production of meal or flour from seeds or the extraction of oil from oily fruits or oily seeds. As long as care is taken to prevent changes in the parts of the food that are separated (e.g. by using cold pressing or sCO2 extraction instead of hot pressing for oil extraction), such processing methods cannot have any detrimental effects on food, but they can greatly reduce the costs needed for the storage and for the transport of food. The second class of food processing methods mix various food ingredients and/or transform the food in various ways, by using heating, whipping etc. When food processing methods of the second class are used industrially, as opposed to being performed at home by the end consumer, they almost always result in unhealthy food, because the interest of the food vendor of obtaining a maximum profit conflicts with the requirements that have to be observed in order to make a healthy food. Terms like "highly-processed food" or "ultra-processed food" make sense only when applied to food processed with methods of the second class. Chicken breast separated from bones and skin is not more processed than an apple separated from its tree.

watwut 2y ago

> t's considered an Ultra-Processed Food of course, despite being a staple in East Asian countries that have much lower incidence of obesity than many Western countries. "Ultra-Processed" and "causes obesity" are two massively different claims. If the claim is that said tofu is ultra-processed, obesity rates in countries where it is eaten are completely unrelated and do not work as argument. Also, it is perfectly fine to define "non processed" group in a way that wont put every single meat into it. If you say that everything that requires killing or cleaning is ultra processed, then the whole term is meaningless.