11 ms·

From the article: > Even if the results show conclusively that processing, and not just nutrients, leads to poor health, policymakers will face another difficu

• snapcaster 2y ago
  I agree it leaves a lot to be desired but i wouldn't say it's totally worthless. It's clearly identifying something and even a poorly understood adherence to avoiding UPFs would likely make the average person healthier. Overall though we obviously need to come up with better terms for this
  • Kirby64 2y ago
    Adherence to avoiding UPFs, by the current Nova classification, would lead to most people having to radically change their diets, assuming you actually follow the Nova classification of UPFs to a tee. And assuming they're already reasonably healthy, there would be no meaningful health benefits I suspect.
    • OutOfHere 2y ago
      That's precisely what the food product industry wants you to believe.
    • stephen_g 2y ago
      Potentially there could no noticable health improvements but potentially far less health degradation over time when you think about things like risk of type-2 diabetes with high sugar and high-UPF diets. But it's true that we mustn't focus only on UPFs but it is looking more and more like a significant factor (even if the definitions could be improved).
      • Kirby64 2y ago
        Again, I’m not saying “all UPFs are safe/healthy”. I’m saying the definition is worthless when you include potato chips and protein bars in the same category.
  • resoluteteeth 2y ago
    > avoiding UPFs would likely make the average person healthier UPFs are defined in a way where you could replace them with essentially identical foods that only count as "processed" by swapping out a couple ingredients with nutritionally identical ingredients (e.g. replace HFCS with sucrose). The research on UPFs doesn't actually compare ultra-processed food with similar "processed" foods. So if you replace a pie containing HFCS with a kale salad, yeah it's probably healthier, but there isn't really evidence that replacing an "ultra-processed" pie containing HFCS with a home-made "processed" pie containing sucrose that otherwise has the same nutritional content is healthier (there is some researching showing that fructose can be harmful but the glucose/fructose content of HFCS isn't significantly different from sucrose). If there is no direct comparison between similar ultraprocessed foods and processed foods, the research doesn't actually show that ultraprocessed foods are bad in a way that homemade processed foods aren't, in which case I'm not sure what the point of defining ultraprocessed foods as a separate category is.
    • heisenbit 2y ago
      > there is some researching showing that fructose can be harmful but the glucose/fructose content of HFCS isn't significantly different from sucrose Indeed a lot of people ignore this. Still it is worth pointing out that a) a higher glucose content due to sucrose based sweetness helps absorbing fructose in a home-made cake. b) the ultra-processed cake likely got added a fair share of sugar alcohols (keeping it moist) which for a single digit percentage but still significant portion of the population interferes with fructose absorption leading to fermentation in the gut. c) the longer and cold storage of the industrial cake will lead to an increase of recombined starch which is harder to digest. (a, b due to fructose transport from gut less efficient than for glucose and the transport part relying on presence of glucose. Some people suffer from fructose mal-absorption where the main transport mechanism is not working and the backup mechanism can be blocked by sugar alcohols)
• cynicalpeace 2y ago
  40-60% of nutritional studies cannot be replicated. You can't reliably draw any conclusions from them. You have to use common sense and rules of thumb.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
    • zeroCalories 2y ago
      My favorite plant is wheat, deep friend in peanut oil, covered in corn(syrup).
    • jejeyyy77 2y ago
      is the last one even widely accepted anymore
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
        What's not widely accepted? https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-eating-plate/ https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-eating-plat...
    • cynicalpeace 2y ago
      That's pretty good. Though it should be balanced with avoiding factory made food. I personally think non processed meat is good for you, but that's a minor point compared to ultra processed vs not really processed foods. I once argued with med students that Oreos (which are vegan) are not healthier than a steak. Absolutely crazy and tbh frightening that anyone (let alone med students!) would think Oreos are healthier than a steak. The reasoning of course is that processing and sugar content don't matter as much as any level of saturated fat.
      • rout39574 2y ago
        The avoidance of factory food is part of the point. GP is invoking Michael Pollan from the Omnivore's Dillema, among others. By 'Food', Pollan specifically means to exclude the sorts of chemical-engineered vague nutrient simacrula you're talking about.
• hu3 2y ago
  > sweetened drinks and processed meats, were associated with a higher risk of heart disease, others, like breakfast cereals, bread and yogurt, were instead linked to lower risks for cardiovascular disease. I highly doubt these extra sweetened breakfast cereals are a net positive for health. So perhaps they should be more specific when it comes to mentioning breakfast cereals.
  • mint2 2y ago
    Likewise breakfast yogurt could be either yoplait “yogurt” or plain unsweetened actual yogurt, or anything in between. One is basically gelatinized sugar and the other is pretty healthy. If one’s classification doesn’t easily distinguish those two, that’s absurd.
    • sabbaticaldev 2y ago
      one has added sugar and the other not, it’s clear which one is ultra processed
      • standardUser 2y ago
        That doesn't make any sense. If I have a bowl of oatmeal, and I sprinkle sugar on top, it does not magically become ultra-processed.
        • digging 2y ago
          Well if the sugar is ultra-processed, yes it does, doesn't it?
          • mecsred 2y ago
            Is the sugar ultra processed?
          • standardUser 2y ago
            No, it does not, since ultra-processed, though not a strictly defined term, does not include household ingredients like granulated sugar or brown sugar. If you happen to have a jar of HFCS in your cabinet then that would quality.
• moomin 2y ago
  Strong agree. The Nova classification is extremist and heavily useless. Yes if you come up with two classifications and one includes McDonalds burgers and the other doesn't you'll be able to show a health effect. Doesn't mean your categorisation is useful.
  • anonym29 2y ago
    Do you really think it's not useful at all to know you can protect your health proactively with one classification system of UPFs, that is deemed a bit extreme? Or is it possible you're coming from a place of motivated reasoning? If you've got a worldview that deems your own food choices "healthy", but they're not on the Nova classification list, that doesn't automatically mean your own food choices aren't healthy, they're just not known to be healthy within one of many frameworks. Instead of tearing down what we know works because it doesn't include the foods you deem healthy, why not advocate for more research into the foods in question specifically?
    • pjc50 2y ago
      The history of nutritional advice studies is extremely noisy and full of questionable, later reversed discoveries that have been p-hacked into existence. I think people are right to be very, very wary of rejecting the null hypothesis about anything without extremely solid clear evidence.
      • anonym29 2y ago
        I don't disagree at all, but is there anything ambiguous about the health benefits of avoiding UPFs as defined by the Nova classification system? It seems the criticism I was responding to was more about the classification system being too strict, rather than lacking clear evidence of health benefits.
        • Kirby64 2y ago
          Nova does not make any judgment on the healthiness of foods, to my knowledge. The problem is that people take the extremely broad classification of UPFs by Nova, infer health detriments, and then cast judgment on the overly broad UPF classification as if everything in that category is equally as bad. Here's a reminder of the Nova UPF classification: > Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials. Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals. Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates', invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients. A few items that stick out like a sore thumb to me regarding healthiness: * How could sophisicated packaging, usually with synthetic materials impact health? * How does making something highly profitably necessarily impact health? * Nova's definition of something with 'no culinary use' is extremely biased in my view. How do specific sugars (each with specific properties that are useful) have no culinary use? How are protein mixes not culinarily useful? * Nova's definition of 'cosmetic function' is also just.. stupid in my view. Flavors are cosmetic? Emulsifiers are cosmetic? By this definition, adding MSG to a food makes it UPF.
• ifyoubuildit 2y ago
  > others, like breakfast cereals, bread and yogurt, were instead linked to lower risks for cardiovascular disease. This surprises me. A lot of breakfast cereals and sweetened yogurts are basically candy, and I would have assumed are heavy contributors to poor health.
  • Jensson 2y ago
    > A lot of breakfast cereals and sweetened yogurts are basically candy Apparently "basically candy" is not the same thing as candy. That is a great find, lets us eat basically candy without the health consequences.
  • sfink 2y ago
    I don't see where your assumption is being challenged. "Breakfast cereals" is a very loose category. I would not conclude that Froot Loops lower risks of cardiovascular disease just because Ezekiel's Gravel Bits have been shown to do the same.
  • chrchr 2y ago
    Wait until you learn about The Ice Cream Paradox: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cream-bad-for-you-health-study/673487/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cre...
• drcongo 2y ago
  Brit here: the idea that "ultra-processed foods" are really bad for you is definitely something that's entered the general consciousness here, but I don't think I know anybody who has any kind of meaningful answer to what "ultra-processed foods" actually are.
  • cynicalpeace 2y ago
    If it couldn't be made outside a factory, it's ultra processed.
    • vel0city 2y ago
      At what point does a bakery become a factory?
      • cynicalpeace 2y ago
        I personally would avoid pretty much everything that comes out of a bakery.
        • vel0city 2y ago
          Ok, so when does a butcher shop become a factory? When does a fruit farm become a factory? Is candied bacon an ultra-processed food? And even then, things made in a bakery can be made at home so I don't get how your above standard still makes any sense. Is homemade bread with flour milled at home ultra-processed as well? Candied bacon can be made outside of a factory as well. If so, it's not really a "was it made in a factory" argument now was it?
          • cynicalpeace 2y ago
            Ah yes, the ol' I can't tell a fruit farm from a factory shtick
            • mauflows 2y ago
• tlb 2y ago
  Most bread and yogurt in the average grocery store is pretty bad stuff, full of HFCS, hydrogenated oils, and hydrolyzed proteins. But yes, I'd rather have a classification that clearly separates Coke and Cheez Doodles from actual foods. There are some multi-billion dollar lobbies to prevent that happening, though.
  • wyldfire 2y ago
    > Most bread and yogurt in the average grocery store is pretty bad stuff, full of HFCS, hydrogenated oils, and hydrolyzed proteins. I eat a lot of (plain) yogurt. But my kids often eat sweetened yogurt, which I've suspected is not-at-all-healthy. So I went to check the ingredients of several sweetened brands. I could be wrong but I don't see any of those you're concerned about explicitly mentioned. I do see "fructose" which seems like it could be just about as bad as HFCS? Or maybe the terms you use are generic and there's some specific ingredients that qualify? Or did I just get lucky with these examples I picked? Examples: Yoplait GoGurt Protein Berry Yogurt Tubes contains: Grade A Reduced Fat Milk, Ultrafiltered Skim Milk, Sugar, Contains 1% or Less of: Kosher Gelatin, Modified Food Starch, Fruit and Vegetable Juice (for Color), Tricalcium Phosphate, Potassium Sorbate Added to Maintain Freshness, Natural Flavor, Carrageenan, Yogurt Cultures (L. Bulgaricus, S. Thermophilus), Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3. Danimals Smoothie Strawberry Explosion And Mixed Berry Dairy contains: Cultured Grade A Low Fat Milk, Water, Cane Sugar, Modified Food Starch, Contains Less Than 1% Of Milk Minerals, Natural Flavors, Fruit & Vegetable Juice (For Color), Lemon Juice Concentrate, Vitamin D3, Active Yogurt Cultures S. Thermophilus & L. Bulgaricus.
    • randerson 2y ago
      "Natural Flavor" is an ultra-processed ingredient.
    • thimkerbell 2y ago
      Contains added sugar.
    • tlb 2y ago
      Added fructose seems bad for you. Specifically, a high ratio of fructose:glucose (which doesn't occur in nature) does something weird to your metabolism. Your gut uses some hack like detecting only glucose to trigger intermediate steps in the metabolism of both, and consumption of high fructose:glucose foods causes weight gain. More: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4145298/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4145298/
• raverbashing 2y ago
  I agree. Classification of UPFs seems more to be a "religious purity" discussion than actuall classification of good/bad Univariable classifications are usually not helpful, and this seems to just confirm it. In the same way "sugar free" or "fat free" make little sense
  • rpdillon 2y ago
    It's like the 'screen time' of the food industry.
• kelipso 2y ago
  > breakfast cereals, bread and yogurt, were instead linked to lower risks for cardiovascular disease Breakfast cereals? That sugary stuff? Someone else said 40-60% of nutritional studies are not replicable. Sounds more like the whole field is BS. Scream naturalistic fallacy all you like but I would absolutely avoid all chemical additives and go natural all the way. If humans haven't been eating it for thousands of years, I would absolutely avoid it.
  • blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    Yep. It’s hard to trust anything, especially because in the US things that aren’t banned are allowed by default. Companies add new substances to products constantly, often just minor variations of something that was banned.
  • JoshTko 2y ago
    This is the best advice. Also proportion should match historical proportion, ie. very little sugar most of the time.
  • slt2021 2y ago
    not all cereals have added sugar, I dont buy 40% added sugar, but rather 0% and 14% added sugar cereals
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  What we need first is transparency. Complete information about every ingredient, its supplier, where it was grown, what process it went through, etc. then we can perform research without confusing and conflicting results. Unfortunately I’ve seen people fight state or local level labeling laws by falling for corporate propaganda, particularly from companies in the GMO industry.
  • standardUser 2y ago
    One hundred percent agree. Companies should be obligated to provide comprehensive information on the ingredients they use in producing the food they sell us. It seems so basic, but even small steps in that direction are always met with maximum industry resistance.
  • e_y_ 2y ago
    I think adding labels to the product is only useful to a certain extent. There's a few things that stand out, like if a product has 70% DV sodium that's usually a bad sign, or "cheese product" tells you that it's not real cheese (for better or worse). But stopping to look at the ingredient list of every product you buy is time consuming. This is where online food databases might work better. Scan the UPC/EAN with an app and the app can tell you which ingredients are generally safe, which ones to avoid. The recommendations could be personalized to your dietary needs or allow ratings from different organizations that might have varying criteria for what they consider OK vs bad. Such apps exist but usually requires someone (volunteer crowdsourcing or paid) to input products into the system so it may not be complete or fully up to date. And as you suggested, supplier information and more detail on the processing isn't available. Having an international, public database of that information (with an API for app makers) could help make nutrition label apps -- or maybe even built into Google Lens -- much more accessible to the general public.
• slothtrop 2y ago
  It's not hard to intuit, but yes it can be less useful owing to ambiguity and confusion. It would be less difficult to settle on a definition that does not lean so hard on "processing" and actually conveys what is problematic. For example, "shelf-stable packaged foods with a large flour component, wherein the flour component is stripped of all fiber, with added fat, salt, and sometimes sugar". You can also include candy, soft-drinks and juice. That doesn't tell you something is "ultra-processed", but it identifies more meaningful factors. These are typically non-satiating snack foods, very low in protein and fiber, but very savory with added salt and fat. The combination of refined flour, salt and fat seems to be of particular note (and sugar regardless).
• blablabla123 2y ago
  > This to me is the most damning evidence against the current classification of 'ultra-processed foods' being absolutely, totally worthless. It's quite funny that even 15 years after labeling UPF as such there's still a struggle to "officially" mark it as unhealthy and I don't understand why it should be challenged. I would think that most children growing up are being told that candy, fries and Gatorade aren't healthy foods. Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients. As mentioned in the article there are statistics that under the UPF classifications people are way more unhealthy both physically and even mentally. Shouldn't that be enough? Now a new study is needed to benchmark UPF that is low in fat, sugar and salt. Basically against a product class that hardly exists. I mean nobody eats like that. Most people put extra salt on their food, the Mediterranean diet somewhat the gold standard in good yet healthy food contains tons of fat and various cuisines from the region have rather sugary desserts. I'd be fine classifying UPF as unhealthy and calling it a day. If food businesses want to explore "healthy" UPFs they should probably do so and take the burden to re-classify it as healthy. This seems like a quite Kafka-esque endeavor.
  • andybak 2y ago
    > Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients. (From a quick 30 second search) E300 is Vitamin C, E101 is Vitamin B2 And yes - I'm aware that vitamins that are naturally present are probably better than "fortifying" food - but still.
    • r00fus 2y ago
      I've never seen Vitamin C listed as E300 on a label. So while you are correct, the heuristic (avoid E-numbers) works in practice.
      • Jensson 2y ago
        Yeah, anything good wont be listed as an E number, you use the name people recognize.
      • andybak 2y ago
• tugdual 2y ago
  When Carlos Monteiro decided to operationalize UPFs by giving them a definition (laymans terms: UPF is one ingredient you wouldn't find in a traditional kitchen and wrapped in plastic) Kevin Hall from the US had the same reaction as you and decided to make a multi-million dollar experiment to disprove the definition proposed by Dr. Monteiro. Result: People who ate unprocessed lost weight, and the other group gained weight. (Groups were exchanged after 2 weeks and saw similar effects).
  • 317070 2y ago
    A link for other people who are interested in this: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-heavily-processed-foods-cause-overeating-weight-gain https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-find...
• wnevets 2y ago
  People don't understand that basic task like washing is "processing" the food and can be frustrating when talking to them about this subject.
  • tremon 2y ago
    That's not about understanding, that's deliberate obfuscation. If people cannot (or don't want to) distinguish between a faucet and a blender, there is no further discussion to be had.
    • wnevets 2y ago
      I don't know if that is true when speaking to the general public about this. They usually think processed food means toxic chemicals were added. Certain podcasters/influences/etc are absolutely misleading people either for the views or to sell people a "detox" tea they can drop ship from China.
  • chrchr 2y ago
    Food that is merely washed might be processed, but is not ultra-processed according to the Nova classification [1]. There's an actual criteria that's being applied in these studies that concern ultra-processed food. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
    • wnevets 2y ago
      And have you read their definition?
      • chrchr 2y ago
        Yes. The Nova classifications are on the page I linked.
• YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  I think there's some fudging of the terms here. When the article is talking about "bread" being healthy- well, there's bread, and then there's bread. Supermarket bread (sliced, packaged) typically lists a couple dozen ingredients. Ordinary bread... you know, bread-bread, like the one some of us bake at home, is made of: flour, water, salt, leavening agent (yeast or sourdough for those as have the patience). Bread-bread is probably healthy especially if you make it with (expensive) wholemeal flours. But supermarket bread? I don't think so. Same goes for breakfast cereals and breakfast cereals. e.g. there's oatmeal and weetabix that are basically just a bit of fiber, not the healthiest thing you can eat but won't kill you. And then there's ... well my favourite poison is Kellog's Smacks and it's basically just as nourishing as eating cardboard with sugar on top.
  • troyvit 2y ago
    There's a cool book I didn't finish White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-Strain. It talks about the history of store bought bread supplanting home baked bread, and the marketing wars waged both for and against store bought bread. I'm gonna start it up again and I recommend it.
  • goalieca 2y ago
    > But supermarket bread? I don't think so. Why? The point of the quotation was to question if this was a problem in the quantities listed. I know I’d rather eat whole grain enriched supermarket bread than refined white flour bread from some low protein source wheat.
    • willy_k 2y ago
      The whole grain bread is definitely preferable, but it is still very likely to have added oils, gums, and/or preservatives. I think their main point is that supermarket bread is rarely made of just bread. There are exceptions but that requires one to first take the time to identify them and then fork up the extra dough (punintended).
      • adamparsons 2y ago
• navaed01 2y ago
  Obesity and diabetes are western societies biggest health issues and the best research we have is a small n for a 4 week trial. Clearly there’s regulatory capture at play here. Once we better understand what is driving the poor health outcomes we can work back and better classify problem foods and ingredients. Right now it’s all a bit unknown and doesn’t seem to have the right resourcing. There’s research that shows that UPFs are so simple that the body gets all the bad stuff in all its unfettered glory. Compare that to a date fruit, very high in sugar, but packed with fiber, the body metabolizes the date much more slowly, no sugar spike and gets some nutrition
• resonious 2y ago
  Why on earth do they include the word "ultra" when the definition is "literally any amount of any additive"?
  • Spooky23 2y ago
    Because the whole premise is being bike-shedded out of existence. On paper, fruity pebbles and Cheerios are pretty similar. But the dyes, sugar, etc make it a very different product. Sorta how we pump sugar into yogurt, spray it on as a frosting and peddle it like it’s actual, healthy yogurt. A great way to undermine the argument is to make the terminology and classification impossible.