The term Ultra-processed is a red flag. There’s no clear scientific definition. It’s a term used to whip the public into a frenzy.
We were “designed” to drink raw milk and transfat with raw beef, until we found out it was really bad for our health.
We’ve eliminated most of the horrible stuff, we need to fucking work on moderation.
What are you talking about… it’s totally UPFs fault and not that 40+% of us are now obese and sedentary…you know people need 6k calories a day for an office job…
/s
There isn’t a clear one because it’s not simple to define. If you follow the research, we can’t simply say it’s the ingredients used as the process itself can be bad. So it’s a hodge-podge of, “well watch out for this ingredient, but also ask them if they’ve put it through x and then we’ll know”.
It’s a whole area of research and it’s going to remain complicated, but we can’t give up on describing it at all.
It isn’t clear because it doesn’t exist. We did the research, we eliminated the really bad things. Then people demanded we remove things where the research didn’t indicate very clearly (better safe than sorry), which is how you ended up with way tighter restrictions and higher food waste in the UK. The chemicals make stuff last longer and make bread softer so it lasts longer. The acids make the food resistant to bacteria. That palatable thing is just making the food supply last longer.
We’re fine eating the stuff. We need to stop eating after a couple thousand calories a day of it. Blaming the pizza for existing instead of our own ability to eat a slice and walk away after two slices is quite insane.
The whole area of research is complicated because it’s a bunch of made of concepts to squeeze money out of grants where there are no longer any clear lines and yeah we need to move on to other things or we’ll just progress down that line until we’re all trying to eat paleo for no good reason and turn the entire food supply into same day discard items.
It isn’t clear because it doesn’t exist.
Ah brilliant! Case closed. Pack up everyone.
Look, there’s plenty of research indicating very negative effects of UPF on us, but it’s still an early field. The categorisation of UPF isn’t perfect no question, but that’s largely a result of the fact that, cooking processes combined with ingredients don’t make nice categories. We need ways to simplify the research for people who realistically aren’t going to look into the data, such as yourself.
If you’re really that opposed to the field, like your dismissive tone implies, then I’d advise not researching it, and eating what you like. But you aren’t going to erase the fact that obesity rises as exposure to UPF rises, that food preparation alters how our bodies process it, or that there are different health outcomes especially if you eat a lot of it. I’m afraid that’s science.
Ah brilliant! Case closed. Pack up everyone.
I wish they would
Milk GREAT! Sugar OK
Milk and sugar? WILL KILL YOU
Pizza, made right, isn’t ultra processed. Flour, oil, tomato sauce and cheese are simply processed foods.
It’s the ingredients that are changed using chemistry, food science, and heavy machinery that are ultra processed. Stuff like, Silicon dioxide, calcium silicate, magnesium stearate, BHA, BHT, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate…these things are ultra processed. Flour is simply processed.
There is a big difference between processed foods, and ultra processed. I don’t think it’s a bad idea for anyone to limit or avoid ultra processed foods.
Edit, fuck rfk
Edit edit, for my comrades, if you avoild UPFs, you also avoid food corpos automatically. You dont support Nestlé, or Hershey, or whoever makes Pringles, Kraft or Kellogg, you dont support these giant food corps who underpay their workers and have shady anti human business practices. Using whole food ingredients and simple processed ingredients, farming, gardening and cooking are all revolutionary practices you can do today. Fuck the big man ya know, you don’t like capitalism stop eating its food.
The whole thing is a con.
https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/nutrition-fitness/key-ingredients-to-avoid-in-ultra-processed-foods/
Nitrate Cured meat: Processed (actual recorded small cancer risk)
Smoked meat: Processed (actual recorded small cancer risk)
Milk and sugar frozen to make Ice Cream: ultra processed Commerically baked bread: ultra processed
Same bread home baked: Processed
Nuts: unprocessed
Salted nuts: processed
Canned Tuna: processed (it’s literally just non-browned cooked meat)
It’s all made up and the points don’t matter.
this all makes sense to me.
It’s how the ingredients were made, that go into the food.
If you were avoiding UPFs you could have everything on this list except the ice cream (and not all ice cream are UPF to note) and standard American grocery loaf of bread (bread that usually has a few grams of sugar per slice for some reason, to tangent).
Per the mayo clinic source, its not made up.
UPFs no longer resemble any food found in nature or within historical human processing. These foods are new invention using already processed foods combined with food chemistry and industrialization.
Group 4 is the naughty stuff. Group 4 ingredients are only used by food manufacturers. For example, You don’t purchase Silicon dioxide as a kitchen staple.
They’re hawking a mayo-clinic diet here. It’s propaganda. Check the ads on the page and the items they’re selling. This is an appeal to authority fallacy. The whole NOVA system is a con.
I point out inconsistencies, it all makes sense to you, because you like the idea.
The whole page is garbage all the way to the end.
Nothing in group 2 is distinguishable from group 1,
Adding salt to a group 1 item doesn’t make it magically different. Adding salt to nuts does not change them meaningfully. Adding salt to flour does not change its nutritional value.
Items in group four can be made out of two group one/two items. There are single-ingredient breakfast serials that are group 2. Notice, they don’t even list flour in the group, one of the most important staples in the human diet. The whole page is one big inconsistency.
If the salt to nuts and sugar and milk don’t make it clear, you’re drinking the upf Koolaide just to drink it and there’s nothing else we have to say here.
My aldi tortilla Chips are processed.
My aldi bread is UPF.
I don’t understand your anger/frustration.
I just dont like the idea of ingesting stuff I can’t make on my own. And obviously we still use some of it, but it’s not a bad idea to limit UPF for your health. Meals cooked from scratch are a health benefit.
I didn’t post the Mayo clinic source, they did, so I used that.
I went through this learning when I lost 80 pounds when I was 20, during the Obama years, and I kept it off leaning on home cooking, whole food meals most of the time. Avoiding stuff like yellow #5 which, I think is disgusting as its a petroleum by product, but avoiding UPF is how I maintain my weight in car centric Usa. It cuts out all the junk very easily this way, and its not actually that complicated
Human biology was never “intended” to handle anything. Intent implies intelligent design.
I would like to believe that you are indeed smart enough to know what was being communicated but are choosing to act offended for internet points.
Way to pick the right fight with the wrong article, person, time.
Bold coming from someone who drove there wearing glasses
Wearing glasses is ultra processed? damn
“biology was never intended to handle”
Not really the same thing.
It’s absolutely insane that all a lot of people need to do is eating more fiber, especially leafy greens…
But a pilotless brain worm mech is running the HHS right now, so he told everyone to only eat meat and fat, just do coke off toilet seats to build up our immune systems
Remember when the US was a serious country?
Those were good times.
No and I’ve been here for almost half a century
A decade is not the life cycle of most medical technology. Granted most of the stuff we came up with was built and perfected in Europe. But it’ll be twelve years when trump’s bitch ass is gone from their introduction. And we have remained the country that other dictators use to fix themselves since way before then.
I’m not saying we’re going to remain that with the current brain drain. But saying we haven’t been the leaders is wrecklessly obtuse.
