In other news, the definition of ultraprocessed remains all over the fucking place with little consistency and rooting in logic. It’s a term that grew out of marketing and ended up being defined by non-scientists/non-doctors.
raw oats in a bag: unprocessed
rolled oats: processed
rolled oats spun in a blender, instant oatmeal: ultra processedCookies made from unprocessed ingredients: minimally processed put them in a bag and sell them on a shelf: ultra-processed
Same nutritional value. Doesn’t require additives.
Raw Milk: unprocessed Fresh, pasteurized milk : “minimally processed”
Brown Sugar: unprocessed white sugar: processed
white sugar and pasteurized milk mixed together: processed
Freeze that mixture? Ultra processed.
Again, same nutritional value.
Going from raw to pasteurized, has a substantial change in nutrition, yet, it’s minimally processed.
We need, as a society, for scientists and doctors to agree on processing and food values, not on the general public’s consensus. Certainly, some foods lose their value or are handled differently by the body. Some things, like nitrates, earn an easy bad-for-you label.
As is stands now, home made cookies are seen as more healthy, than if put them in a bag and sell them. We need to trigger on nutrition loss, and added ingredients, not if wheat was put through a blender or berries were frozen unless it has a meaningful loss on actual health.
Really interesting. I often thought “what is actually so bad about processed food?” because in the end everything we eat is just chemicals in different mixtures, so as a nerd it makes me skeptical of most food health advice. There doesn’t seem to be an easily explainable understandable theory or scientific model model behind this.
I could have sworn I read “hyperpalatable food” in the blurb but I can’t find it now. Maybe I dreamed it lol. But that would be a good objective issue with ultraprocessed food, triggering the brain’s reward system and encouraging excessive eating. The ability to split ingredients into separate parts and then recombine them to be too palatable, and/or not balanced enough in the sense that e.g. fibers or proteins or vitamins that would naturally occur in raw food.
I read the hyper-palatable thing when it came out. We can actually jam on it. To my memory, there are a couple of foods that really trigger that concept, one of them being Doritos. The other being Diet Coke.
The regular red bag of Doritos, it’s not hard to sit down and eat an entire bag.
Getting used to Diet Coke even if you exclude the caffeine by getting it from other sources, still drinking a Diet Coke or two will trigger you to drink a lot more Diet Coke.
But I’d say the absolute vast majority of UPF is less palatable than other food. That pack of donuts with the waxy chocolate and they’ve done everything possible to extend shelf life on it. Doesn’t taste as good as fresh donuts. (assuming you can even find fresh donuts anymore.)
All those snack cakes and shelf stable lunch items are unpleasant when compared with anything made fresh.
And the stuff they put on the Doritos, it’s not the add-ons that make it good. I took a shot at making Dorito cheese once and was wildly successful. Try out some yellow cheddar and turn it into powder. Add garlic powder, onion powder, Salt, yeast flakes, except for the coloring being a little blonder than it should be. It’s a dead ringer for Doritos.
I don’t think that UPF foods that are borderline addictive are addictive because of the UPF. I think they’re addictive in spite of it.
I think is true that the idea of ultraprocessed food is not totally well defined, but I think there are some clues that help to at least identify the most important or more ultraprocessed ones. I think one tip is: industrial manufactured ingredients that can’t be find in a regular home would potentially fall in the ultraprocessed category, so from your list:
rolled oats spun in a blender, instant oatmeal: is processed not ultraprocessed, unless the instant oatmeal it comes with ultraprocessed ingredients.
Cookies made from unprocessed ingredients, put them in a bag and sell them on a shelf: processed. The problem here is a lot of cookies that say that they use unprocessed ingredients is just not true, but if we are talking about home made cookies with basic unprocessed ingredients they would fall as just processed.
*Raw Milk: unprocessed Fresh, pasteurized milk : “minimally processed”
Brown Sugar: unprocessed white sugar: processed
white sugar and pasteurized milk mixed together: processed
Freeze that mixture? Ultra processed.* Not true, the fact of freezing doesn’t make it ultraprocessed.
I think the corporations are also trying to make this distinction more confusing to make the idea of ultraprocessed food les guilty, because if everything it may be ultraprocessed then none it is.
Not true, the fact of freezing doesn’t make it ultraprocessed.
Therein lies the rub; in some lists, it doesn’t, in other lists, it does. Your list is handled in what you wrote here, it’s not the same as everyone’s list.
The concept that it’s hyper bad for them to throw cellulose in with grated parm is insane. It’s just some fiber to keep it from turning into brick. Or that any food preservative is detrimental, we’re already wasting 40% of our food.
The entire processed fad has gone so far from reality that it holds no concrete meaning to actual health
That dough stabilizer in that bread that makes it stay soft instead of the starch crystallizing and turning it to trash in 3 days, can you point to an actual fact of how it hurts you?
There are plenty of things on the UP list that are allowed the world over. The whole thing is performance art at this point.
I used to really piss hippies by telling them that anything food put in a food processor is processed food. This includes your homemade hummus & raw smoothies.
Why feed your children that shit.
The western world needs to reintroduce “home economics” back into the curriculum, nobody knows how to cook their own food anymore, managing a kitchen is half of it not just putting stuff onto a stove.
The problem is not new. Just that the stuff is more expensive than just steaming vegetables and meats then put them through the blender, and in some developing countries, for poor families it’s rice or wheat gruel.
I think it is not only issue with the price but also with the time to prepare it. They do not survive using one salary to have more time to care of the children. Or lets say two salaries but 1/2 work time both.
Actually, there is no place on earth nowadays to have possibility like that, with one salary.
And people are wondering why young generations do not make children.
Gen Silent with one salary had 5 boomer children. I would love to have one salary and 2.5 children working half time
I just read the exact same headline about prison food. Assuming that’s because 80% of food in Magastan is ultra-processed, I guess we’re gonna get the same headline for every possible institution now over the coming days.
For prisons, my fellow Americans immorally view prisoners as less than human and not deserving of the basic elements of life – poll a large swath of everyday Americans and I’m convinced 6+/10 will agree that prisons should serve intentionally unpleasant and non nutritious food as part of the punishment process. It’s sad.
Someone tell RFK. It might be this instead of tylenol or circumcision that causes autism. /s
Yes, as we all know, infants should be fed a steady diet of raw milk and steak. All the better if the steak is from road kill. And eat it directly from a toilet seat. Germs can only hurt you if you’re afraid of them!
Americentrism at it again.
4/5, in the USA, the rest of the world have such a thing as Government Mandated Food Standards that ban or discourage this shite.
Ultra processed food isn’t just an american thimg. It’s normalised to take cgildren to a McDonalds and feed them garbage has also become normalized all over the place. Ever seen a menue in a average restaurant? The kids menu isn’t just a smaller version of a normal menu, it’s chicken nuggets and fries, hamburger and fries and something else that has been tortured and processed
The kids menu is cheap sisco crap. I’ve had the same exact kids menu chicken tenders in 10 different states, which was the same chicken tenders as on some bar menus.
The kids menu thing drives me fucking nuts. I’ll be at a Mexican restaurant and the kids options are hamburger, hot dog, buttered noodles or quesadilla. My kid eats everything because I always just shared my food with him, at least have some flipping tacos on the kids menu.
It’s normalised to take cgildren to a McDonalds and feed them garbage has also become normalized all over the place.
I didn’t know going to McDonald’s once in a blue moon was killing children.
In. The. States.
most baby food instore is either gerber or similar foods, or those fruit/veggie pouches, and baby junk food.
In the only country that exists inter world, US&A. Caus clearly no other counties exist.
Any other country is just a copy of the usa with a ‘slightly worse’, or ’ slightly better’ modifier.
/s
Quite the opposite. And sometimes it’s not “slightly” ;)
Good lord how much hand holding and coddling do you need?
What’s a toddler food.
“Ultraprocessed” includes raw meat
It literally doesn’t
since when is raw meat considered ultra processed?
“Ultra processed” is frankly a meaningless label in health discussions.
Raw milk is not healthier than “ultra processed” (i.e. pasteurised) milk for example. Ultra processed baby food is and should be the norm over raw, untreated baby food.
That is processing, not ultra processing.
Pasteurisation is not ultra processed in anything I have seen before.
That’s the problem though, there is no fixed definition for “Ultra processed foods” that doesn’t include healthy foods. Its a label people slap onto unhealthy foods and then retroactively attempt to categorise.
Maybe it depends on what processes call under “processed”? Like I could see a world where the way cows are treated counts as being processed (being pumped full of drugs and such)
I can’t seem to get a straight answer but it seems most raw meats are in category 4. Salami is category 4.
Salami is not raw meat.
also you wouldnt feed a baby raw meat anyways.
I think they were saying it’s dumb for raw meat to be in the same category as salami.
No I was using it as an example. It was just a bad choice. Sausage is cat 4. I can’t get a direct answer on something like raw Chicken.
Forever I think. What category is it in?
Why he eating the pizza backwards
The baby has issues
Possibly stuffed crust
Kids do all kinds of crazy things if left unattended.
Crust-first pizza eaters are sociopaths
Say that to Donatello (the ninja turtle)
What about a calzone?
Not a pizza. It’s the inverse, if you eat only the contents of the calzone and not the crust, you’re a sociopath
If it’s inverse they must eat it like reverse bread bowl. Eat only the crust then lick the contents off the plate. Or a spoon… If one were so civilized
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I’ve never heard anyone say that.
Nestle
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Again, I am glad I never procreated.
I’m glad I wasn’t born in burgerland.
Same. In hindsight, my parents raising me on McDonald’s was a terrible parenting choice.
Yes it was.
I’m sure they thought it wasn’t a big deal because I’ve been athletic my whole life, but I had a serious weight problem as an adult and lost 150 pounds. Probably wouldn’t have ended up that way if I didn’t have a taste for fast food.
Stay strong, man.
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Oh man, my brain left out “foods” in the title. Read it as “4 out of 5 toddlers are ultra processed”. This thread turned out WAY different than I was expecting.
