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Ultra-processed food linked to harm in every major human organ, study finds
- skeezyjefferson 11mo ago[flagged]
- TheAceOfHearts 11mo agoIn case anyone wants a proper definition: ultra-processed food is defined using the Nova classification system [0]. I still find the definition a bit confusing though. This is the outcome of having researchers dedicating multiple lifetimes towards optimizing food to be as palatable and optimized as possible, such that people are forced to have a self-control battle each meal. Maybe GLP-1 drug proliferation will force companies towards other optimization goals. We ultimately end up paying for the negative externalities of UPF through higher healthcare costs and overall worse long-term quality of life. It's difficult to change and maintain healthy eating habits when so much of your environment is designed to push you towards foods with questionable health properties. Even if it's technically possible to eat healthy, the cognitive overhead is enough that individualistic solutions are always going to be limited in effectiveness. The ideal is living in an environment where the healthy options are the default choice, so you don't have to waste time, energy, and willpower on maintenance-level tasks. I imagine that a healthier population would also be more productive, for the number-go-up optimizers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
- _aavaa_ 11mo agoMy problem with it is that it’s a circular definition without a mechanism for why they are bad for health. Discussions I’ve seen for why they are bad always basically boil down to “it’s the ingredients” without wanting to say this.
- kragen 11mo agoThe evidence that UPFs are bad for health is much, much stronger than the evidence for any candidate mechanism. There are lots of candidate mechanisms. So I don't think anybody knows why they're bad. Surely the UPF classification includes lots of foods that are harmless. We just don't know which ones because we don't understand the mechanism.
- _aavaa_ 11mo agoIf there is no understanding of mechanisms, why put such a strong emphasis on the processing, and why organize them? I, and other people argue that it has nothing to do with the processing and it’s all about the ingredients. So the whole differentiation by “processing” amount is useless. We are talking about ingredients without wanting to say so.
- sophacles 11mo agoEvery time i turn on the stove my kitchen catches on fire. I can't point out whats wrong with my stove, so obviously I keep the stove in my kitchen since I can't say it's causing the fire with a specific malfunction.
- conductr 11mo agoIt reminds me of tobacco again. All these smokers, coughing up lungs, dying of lung/throat cancers, gee I wonder if it’s correlated? I knew when I was a kid and everyone in my family smoked it was unhealthy, it’s just obvious, how it was denied and people believed it for so long baffles me
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jjk166 11mo agoThe addition of ingredients is the processing. The different levels of processing refer to what types and quantities of ingredients are added. It's like complaining that people are labelling food as poisoned when they should really be concerned about whether it contains poison. Likewise the categorization of processing is useful for exactly the same reason the category of poisoned is useful. I'd rather not consume poisoned food of any variety even if I'm uncertain which poison has been added to it.
- general1465 11mo agoYeah the whole definition is bogus. i.e. "mechanically separated meat" is considered ultraprocessed food? Why? By this logic putting apples into mixer and creating pyre is ultraprocessed food too.
- _aavaa_ 11mo agoAnd even if you want to define it as such, why is that bad for health?
- zug_zug 11mo agoIt’s bad for health because the science says so. You’re welcome to do your own years of research to learn more (everything, cooking, freezing, drying, blending, adding acids affects amino acids and certainly bacteria in the food) but until then stick with what the studies prove
- JoeAltmaier 11mo agoI guess a reasonable person can question the science, when ordinary words are used wildly inappropriately. E.g. 'ultra-processed' to mean things that are far from that. If 'the science' is so conclusive, then maybe a single link to a single study would be an appropriate response.
- zug_zug 11mo agoHow about responding to the one in the article…?
- IAmBroom 11mo agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=studies+of+ultra-processed+foods&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1150US1150&oq=studies+of+ultra-processed+foods&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDU3MTlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=studies+of+ultra-processed+f...
- UncleMeat 11mo ago
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jhallenworld 11mo agoI always assumed ultra-processed means that the food is loaded with preservatives like phosphates or BHT. I guess that's part of it, but maybe the efficiency of digestion should be considered. I remember Ben Krasnow (Applied Science) measured the calories in poop, humans are not very efficient at extracting all calories leading to very likely large efficiency variance between foods. But extending this further, the calories lost during preparation should be accounted for... So how about: calories * digestion-efficiency - calories you personally need to expend to prepare or acquire it. The higher this number, the more processed is the food. So cane sugar is very bad, unless you personally harvested it. Bad news for highly paid programmers.. basically all food should be considered ultra-processed since no physical labor was needed to acquire it.
- sigwinch 11mo agoA better example is astronauts. Their diet (on the job) is 100% ultra-processed food. They perform highly and have limited access to normal physical activity. But they’re hard to study because radiation and gravity differ so much that categorization of food might not be influential at all.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo agoMy question might he stupid: is cottage cheese (kirkland) ultra processed food? I cook most of my stuff, but I use egg whites and cottage cheese from Kirkland for the high amount of proteins
- ajross 11mo agoFrustratingly, I note that the clip art used to illustrate the article (showing a bunch of junk-ish food like chips, donuts, pizza and burgers) contains not a single example of a UPF that I can see. The Guardian couldn't even be jazzed to research their own story.
- iammjm 11mo agoWeird choice of the image by TheGuardian: there's some obviously highly processed foods such as doughnuts and candy, but you also have french fries, popcorn and even some nuts there. The text itself doesn't elaborate on this much either. What is it exactly that I am supposed to avoid?
- Lord-Jobo 11mo agoThe easy answer that encompasses 99% of the target foods is: Avoid any foods that involve multiple rounds of processing, a term that includes baking, frying, adding preservatives,sugars or oils. Generally, if it has a lot of sugar or oil and has a weirdly long shelf life, be suspicious. Drift towards: easily washable (smooth/peelable) fruits and vegetables, 100% whole wheat bread products, simple meat products like whole animal parts or deboned animal parts. Dairy lives in the middle ground. If you have zero lactose problem, most dairy is mostly okay, just watch for sugar levels and recognize that most dairy products are calorie dense. Nuts are in this group too for the same reason but oil instead of sugar. Bonus points for consuming real pro and pre biotics when you can. In the United States this is pretty limited to live culture yogurts, refrigerated kimchi, and refrigerated sourkraut.
- Jensson 11mo agoPopcorn is just 1 round of cooking though, you can fry them yourself at home, its less processing than bread.
- morgengold 11mo agoThen have fun eating your popcorn without sugar or salt :)
- UncleMeat 11mo agoSurely "adding butter and salt" can't be sufficient to make something a UPF.
- glitchc 11mo ago
- skeezyjefferson 11mo agowhy was this flagged? imagine just buying normal food that wasnt done on the cheap. nobody could afford to live. even in usa, richest country in the world, people are eating cheap crap, living in wooden houses... of course you can be the richest country in the world if you just lower your living standards perpetually
- moi2388 11mo agoI buy normal food and it’s plenty cheap tbh
- ranger_danger 11mo agoProbably because "ultra-processed" is a bogus definition that doesn't prove what exactly is unsafe or why, which the authors of the study even acknowledge directly in the article: > Critics argue UPF is an ill-defined category and existing health policies, such as those aimed at reducing sugar and salt consumption, are sufficient to deal with the threat. > Monteiro and his co-authors acknowledged valid scientific critiques of Nova and UPF – such as lack of long-term clinical and community trials, an emerging understanding of mechanisms, and the existence of subgroups with different nutritional values. It's not "processing" in itself that is causing problems, there is something specific (possibly a set of common ingredients used in many such foods) that we just haven't identified yet as what the actual harm is, so people lump all processed food into the harmful category and tell people to just stay away from all of it, which is not a realistic solution given current food production practices.
- zug_zug 11mo agoSounds like those people are having an irrational emotional response to a term rather than addressing the presented research in good faith. Also being a broad or nebulous category doesn’t make it not science… much of what science studies starts broad and nebulous or even theoretical.
- UncleMeat 11mo agoRight but we aren't at the "hey we found this category has some interesting correlations with health outcomes, let's look into this" stage. The authors are advocating for specific policy interventions using the definition of UPF.
- Isamu 11mo agoDiscussion about this tends to get hung up on the relative harm of a particular food, let’s say a donut. But the article is really about a diet that is dominated by food like donuts. >Evidence reviewed by 43 of the world’s leading experts suggests that diets high in UPF are linked to overeating, poor nutritional quality and higher exposure to harmful chemicals and additives. >This category is made up of products that have been industrially manufactured, often using artificial flavours, emulsifiers and colouring. They include soft drinks and packaged snacks, and tend to be extremely palatable and high in calories but low in nutrients. >They are also designed and marketed to displace fresh food and traditional meals, while maximising corporate profits, Monteiro said.
- UncleMeat 11mo agoAn issue is that a meal of donuts and doritos is equally as ultraprocessed as a diet of bleached pasta and jarred tomato sauce with some preservatives. I don't have access to the paper, but it'd be interesting to see from the food surveys if the UPF domination is coming from stuff we'd traditionally call "junk food" or from foods that are similar to whole foods made from scratch but with some preservatives added.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoThe main point is: the category is correlated with poor health. That you can narrowly choose items in the category that (you believe) don't correlate with poor health doesn't refute the finding. IOW: you just made the mistake that the comment you are replying to warns you against.
- UncleMeat 11mo agoThat's not just the main point. The article references three papers, two of which are making policy arguments about UPFs. If we are going to propose interventions then it is rather important to understand these details.
- WesolyKubeczek 11mo agoIs there some clear boundary where a food stops being just processed and starts to be ultraprocessed?
- IAmBroom 11mo agoNo. Read the wikipedia article on the Nova classification. You can rules-lawyer it for days, or accept that it's a general categorization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
- j_w 11mo agoThe problem I have with their classification is that people that seem to REALLY care about avoiding ultra processed foods tend to rules-lawyer.
- smusamashah 11mo agoI just found that the bread is also considered ultra processed food (and hence not healthy?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food This seems shocking a bit. If bread is a UPF, there will be a lot more items we never even think about.
- sieep 11mo agoAlso from this wiki page[0], identifying UPF (paraphrased by me): Long ingredient list: Foods that contain many ingredients, especially those that could not be found in a kitchen, are likely to be ultra-processed. Claims on the packaging: Ultra-processed foods often come in packaging with nutrition claims like "low-fat," "sugar-free," or "fortified with vitamins." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food
- IAmBroom 11mo agoSome bread. The stuff you buy from Wonder contains stuff no breadmaking book on Earth lists in their recipes.
- RamblingCTO 11mo agoI have always found it so weird to go to a supermarket when you have a (somewhat) "clean" diet. I go from veggies and fruits to meat and dairy and then I'm out again. 95% of the shelves I don't even look at. Also, the definition of (ultra) processed food isn't so hard: just buy original food, not extrapolations of that. Buy veggies and potatoes, not chips. Buy meat, not sausages or burgers. Buy an apple and yoghurt, not the yoghurt you can buy off the shelf. Just basic ingredients.
- sigwinch 11mo agoWhat about cocoa powder (which is fermented and dried and separated at least)? And coffee? Does it matter whether you buy beans and grind them yourself, or offload that grinding to a processor person?
- RamblingCTO 11mo agoHonestly, you all are just trying to pick me apart when we all know what to buy and what not to buy. Of course cocoa powder (raw) and coffee is ok. You can look up the research on these ingredients beforehand. Some foods need processing to become edible. Salt is also somewhat processed. But there's industrial salt with additional ingredients and then there's sea salt. Do your own research and apply common sense. Easy
- sigwinch 11mo agoBased on your post, I assumed you avoided grain, as part of a diet. I know a few people who cannot touch the stuff. But the article is about these different graduations of processing. And I couldn’t tell if your diet also avoided those. I don’t know anyone who categorically avoids cocoa or coffee.
- RamblingCTO 11mo agoImagine life without coffee or cocoa ... Gotta have some pleasures in life!
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