How Bad Are Ultraprocessed Foods, Really?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/well/eat/ultraprocessed-foods-harmful-health.html

by Luc • 2 years ago

26 68 2 years ago

nsxwolf• 2 years ago

Does this paywalled article even contain a definition of "processed" in this context?

I've never understood what that word means in the context of food. I have something in my kitchen called a "food processor". It spins around and chops things with a blade. Is the product of a "food processor" not "processed food"?

The closest I can figure to the media definition is that it is food that contains a lot of salt. Perhaps also preservatives. So are we really talking about the health effects of salt and preservatives?

_dark_matter_2• 2 years ago

Here's a gift link (and yes, it describes them in depth!): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/well/eat/ultraprocessed-f...

ronnier• 2 years ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/high-levels-of-ultra-...

Ultra-processed foods encompass a broad category ranging from cookies, doughnuts and potato chips to hot dogs, white bread and frozen meals.

jcutrell2• 2 years ago

I take umbrage with "frozen meals." Very often a frozen meal has straight up whole vegetables or pieces of meat. Freezing is one of the best ways to retain nutrition of vegetables etc as well.

Totally different than white bread or hot dogs.

ufo5• 2 years ago

It refers to the NOVA classification of foods, developed from research at the University of São Paulo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

The tl;dr of ultraprocessed is that it's those exclusively industrial foods prepared with ingredients you wouldn't stock in your pantry (high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, protein isolate, etc)

In part, these foods are bad because they are high in sygar and salt. But that's not the point of the classification, which intentionally takes a step back from the old approach based of mesuring the individul ingredients and macronutrients. The central thesis is that, for public health policy it's easier to frame it as a discussion of traditional food vs industrial junk, and how ultraprocessed foods are replacing traditional foods. The classification doesn't want to get lost in the details of ingredients, which the industry has always been adept at gaming anyway (fat is the boogeyman -> replace it with sugar, add vitamins to make it sound healthier, etc)

dolni2• 2 years ago

for public health policy it's easier

Your entire explanation seems to rest critically on this point.

After COVID, I cannot support what's "easier" for public health policy. Do the work.

"Easier" got us "N95s don't protect against COVID" and then it was "oh wait, actually cloth masks do!"

A lot of this stuff relies on trust.

I won't sit here and try to pretend that you will find health eating Doritos or McDonald's Big Macs. But is something like a low-sugar protein bar a decent option? How about Soylent?

These are the nuanced questions that are actually useful to answer. Nobody actually thinks "ultra processed foods" are good for you to begin with.

novariation• 2 years ago

"for public policy it's easier to frame it as traditional food vs industrial junk"

This isn't research, this is simplistic populist fear-mongering.

It's a bit like saying "the economic research does not want to go into the details of the different economic benefits and drawbacks of immigration, instead it's easier to frame it as the smart educated whites versus the hordes of dirty foreigners coming into the country" and expecting this argument to be taken seriously.

taylorius• 2 years ago

One definition of ultraprocessed that I heard was the sort of food that needs specialised industrial processes and / or ingredients to create - something you couldn't really prepare in your kitchen.

skirmish2• 2 years ago

So, any cheese or wine would be ultraprocessed according to that definition?

bryanlarsen3• 2 years ago

Very fine white flour is pretty easy to make in your kitchen with the right tools and is an ultra-processed food.

Coarse ground brown flour is processed, but not ultra-processed.

firebot• 2 years ago

There's the NOVA classifications. I'd say the major concerns are refinement, like white bread, white sugar, white rice, most oils are highly chemically processed besides "cold-pressed".

On the flip side, foods should ideally be identifiable(look natural), and ideally, according to numerous studies, like on blue zones, where people tend to prioritize fresh fruits and vegetables, prepared 'simply'. The ideal amount of fruits and veggies tends to be around 9-12 servings, daily.

ilamont2• 2 years ago

It does, and further provides an easy way to remember it: Food that you can't easily make in your kitchen with standard equipment and ingredients.

fyt20242• 2 years ago

I guess it depends https://m.youtube.com/@ZDFbesseresser

Best cocking show ever. German but still watchable. You will realize that you must be nuts to eat processed food

Ferret74462• 2 years ago

Define "standard equipment and ingredients". Many "standard ingredients" are already (ultra-)processed.

incomingpain3• 2 years ago

Does this paywalled article even contain a definition of "processed" in this context?

Or worse the ultraprocessed level. I dont think the article adequately defines either, but one can see what they are attempting to explain.

I've never understood what that word means in the context of food. I have something in my kitchen called a "food processor". It spins around and chops things with a blade. Is the product of a "food processor" not "processed food"?

I think the author is not talking about food processors or doing procedures on food exactly. But rather suggesting the problem is industrialized food. "Soy protein isolate" is not something you're making in your kitchen. Or various other chemistry lab foods are allegedly a problem.

The closest I can figure to the media definition is that it is food that contains a lot of salt. Perhaps also preservatives. So are we really talking about the health effects of salt and preservatives?

Preservatives do come into it. But it seems to me the diet folks are really struggling to figure out the correct diet.

camel-cdr2• 2 years ago

"Soy protein isolate" is not something you're making in your kitchen

Is the idea that there is cemical resedue from the processing? Or is it that it's usually used in food that also include unhealty ingrediants?

skirmish2• 2 years ago

it seems to me the diet folks are really struggling to figure out the correct diet.

There is no "nutrition science", just waves of fad after fad. Look up Dr. Ancel Keys, father of "low fat" and how he would simply throw out results of experiments if they did not match his per-conceptions.

AstralStorm3• 2 years ago

Soy protein isolate is most definitely something that can be home made. Assuming you have a high rev centrifuge.

Otherwise you end up with soy protein that is not an isolate. Similar to purified soy flour which is already a highly processed food, and soymilk. It will still be vastly purer nutritionally than either tofu or soy.

It's the same as the difference between whey protein (from milk) and whey protein isolate of various grades. Not that huge in the grand scheme of things, except for taste and amount of sugars left in it.

grvdrm5• 2 years ago

I determine the difference with this simple model:

1. It's processed if the list of ingredients spans a sizable portion of the package or label. 2. It's less (or not) processed if the list of ingredients is quite small.

The line between 1 and 2 is totally subjective, of course.

One example comes to mind: peanut butter, something my kids devour.

Lots of peanut butter jars have extra things: salt, random oils (for spreading), etc. But, can peanut butter just be just peanuts? Yep, if you spend some extra time looking.

Another example is an RxBar (less processed, few ingredients) vs. any standard granola (very processed, lots of ingredients) bar.

And of course, so much stuff for kids is processed and worse.

_dark_matter_2• 2 years ago

I enjoyed this article, and it mostly confirms my mental model: the worst part about processed foods is how easy and enjoyable they are to eat. Avoiding them may have ancillary benefits for health (like fiber or vitamin intake), but mostly it's about being satiated and not overconsuming.

ianand• 2 years ago

This has been my mental model as well. I often use two analogies to describe this.

The processed a food is the more likely you’re eating a “Product”, i.e. something that’s been designed to consumed and enjoyed.

I don’t say that as a necessarily bad thing. We’ve making foods more enjoyable for the history of civilization (broccoli was bred by humans from a wild cabbage) but industrialization has given us an ability to create new things faster than our biology can adapt.

The other analogy is to think of UPF, especially nominally nutritious ones like protein bars, as the nutritional equivalent of power tools. They can be really powerful for dialing in your macros or taste desires. But must be used carefully and are potentially dangerous if untrained.

jcutrell2• 2 years ago

In other words it's not necessarily about some scary sleuth carcinogen or some oil that's gonna wipe out your cardiac health... it's about calories and the body's response to too many of them, and the ancillary "ratio" of calories to nutrition being too high.

sanitycheck• 2 years ago

Yeah, pretty much my thoughts too.

There needs to be some good (not 20 people for 2 weeks) studies which compare the effects of "ultraprocessed food" vs "really tasty food", keeping total kcals constantly high. My guess is that a high proportion of the negative effects come from an excess of salt, sugar and fat (and too many calories in general) - which is precisely how they get the food tasting so nice in fancy restaurants.

I'm also sure there definitely are chemicals we're consuming in UPFs which are bad for us, but a lot of them are probably fine. Lumping everything together so it's possible for people to get the idea that an organic yogurt is somehow just as bad as a tube of Pringles seems counterproductive.

somenameforme2• 2 years ago

There's one problem you face with issues like this. One reason it took so long to prove, beyond significant doubt, that cigarettes cause cancer is because it's something that happens over many decades and with high variance. Fewer than 20% of smokers will get lung cancer over their whole lives. You cannot experimentally prove side effects that happen only over such prolonged periods of time. So you're left with observational correlations that, to this day, are even scrutinized by some eccentric scientists.

When you look at society today, it's going downhill in terms of overall health in a multitude of ways across both the physical and mental/psychological domains. Lowered testosterone, increased obesity, increased mental illness, decreasing IQs [1], and so on endlessly. And if something like e.g. processed foods ends up being one of the factors in this, it may well be another one of those things that's basically impossible to actually prove - outside of extremely long-term correlations which can be endlessly challenged, exactly like this article is doing.

And the correlations in this case will be even easier to challenge. Like you mentioned processed foods are enjoyable to eat. They're made to generate profit and so hone in on every little receptor, desire, and impulsive (or even addictive) tendency in our bodies. People are only going to avoid this if they're already substantially health conscious, so even observational correlations can be trivially challenged. So how can we ever hope to prove anything, especially when there may be every reason to expect absolutely zilch will show up in short controlled experimental trials?

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...

chelmzy• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/GAL1c

conqrr• 2 years ago

Best analogy for me is juice vs fruit. Its easy to gulp down 2 glasses of Orange juice, but cannot eat 8 oranges. Unprocessed food usually is more wholesome and makes you feel satiated.

NickC255• 2 years ago

This. And honestly, I feel satisfied after a single orange's worth of OJ from my juice press, which is about half a standard cup. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes less. But it's all I need, and it tastes absolutely delicious.

I grew up drinking OJ from concentrate, and when I was a kid I didn't like the natural stuff. Now it's all I'll ever drink, fuck buying premade juice from the store.

Fresh juice is so good. Yes, it's a bit pricier (I pay $1.99/pound for organic valencias at Whole Foods), and yes, it is more time consuming (gotta assemble the machine, juice, clean the machine, take it apart) but the taste and nutritional difference is astounding.

Workaccount2• 2 years ago

I really think we need to come up with separate words for

"Healthy because it isn't very fattening"

and

"Healthy because it's nutritious and doesn't contain stuff that damages your body"

The amount of confusion this generates is enormous, and leads to things like people eating peanut butter to lose weight, or eating synthetic junk because it has low calories.

Cookies are unhealthy because they are very fattening. But if you are normal weight, it's not that big of a deal.

Sausage is unhealthy because it contains nitrates. Overweight or underweight it's not good to consume.

smallmancontrov• 2 years ago

These definitions are surprisingly tricky because there is an adversarial process at play: any slack will be ruthlessly exploited by those looking to pretend that their pizza is healthy because they ground the flour themselves (or whatever).

jareklupinski2• 2 years ago

pizza is healthy because they ground the flour themselves

with the amount of energy you expend grinding the flour, you may just end up with a pizza that has net negative calories

grvdrm5• 2 years ago

Well said.

The example that popped into my head was this: Impossible Burger is "healthier" than regular beef burger.

Health aside, these sorts of conclusions (I'm guilty too) say nothing about how processed or not something is. My anecdotal take: an Impossible burger is processed food.

bryanlarsen3• 2 years ago

Put another way, health is very multi-dimensional. I'm quite confident that an Impossible Burger is healthier along some dimensions, and a beef burger healthier along others.

Food marketers are experts at exploiting this: if a food is unhealthier in 397 different ways but healthier in 1, then guess what gets highlighted on the packaging....

Ekaros• 2 years ago

I would say impossible burger is at very far end of ultraprocessing. Hamburger could be simply just processed. It really comes to what those terms mean, but impossible burgers are more processed than hamburgers. And likely don't solve other issues of burgers.

xeckr3• 2 years ago

"Healthy because it isn't very fattening"

Every single food item can be "fattening", so categorizing them as such is inaccurate. You can eat cookies and lose fat if you're in a net caloric deficit, and you can gain fat from celery if it puts you in a surplus.

AstralStorm3• 2 years ago

Probably not from celery unless it's heavily processed already, at which point you should call it a celery soup, cream of celery or something.

Otherwise the thing takes more energy to process than it provides.

somenameforme2• 2 years ago

I think this is ignoring the fundamental issues with weight and health. Each day you naturally burn a set amount of calories dependent upon a number of factors - largest being your activity level and your current weight. If you go over what your body burns, you will gain weight. If you stay under it, you will lose weight. It's that simple.

Of course nutrition is critical in this. You need a set amount of vitamins, proteins/amino acids, and so on, to keep your body functioning optimally. Eating a cookie provides basically nothing in terms of nutrition and sends your a pretty good chunk of the way towards your daily 'limit' of consumption. So it means if you eat a cookie you're going to need to be that much more nutritionally conscious on a smaller limit of max calories, to remain healthy.

Paradoxically, this is even more true for fit individuals than fat. Even when you're doing nothing, your body is constantly burning calories to keep things going. Fat individual's bodies have to work far harder during this process, and so they passively burn far more calories than fit individuals. This is why an obese person could, in general, start losing weight by "just" eating 3000 calories a day. By contrast, eating 3000 calories a day would see a fit person's weight start rapidly increasing. So a fit person has a far smaller limit to squeeze in all their nutrients. It leads to the paradoxical outcome that that cookie is relatively worse for you if you're fit than if you're fat!

ilamont2• 2 years ago

Not too great, coming from the NYT.

The angle is "Ultraprocessed Foods" are bad but skirts around the issue that some are not bad, such as multigrain bread and plant milks. Further, Ultraprocessed Foods tend to be very inexpensive from a cost and time perspective.

The proposed solutions - cooking everything from scratch, cutting out processed pasta, going down to buy fresh bread from a bakery "if you can afford it" - are unworkable for millions of people living paycheck to paycheck.

Maybe it would have been better to frame this as junk food/high calorie/high sugar/high sodium/high carb/high saturated fats are the main problem from a public health perspective. And that's already widely known.

ufo5• 2 years ago

Ultraprocessed bread has more fat & sugar than regular bread, for improved shelf life.

fyt20242• 2 years ago

Related to obesity

Are plastics killing us?

https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/are-plastics-killing-us

I think very highly of ugo bardi

robomartin• 2 years ago

Relevant:

Eating for Two: Nourishing Yourself and Your Gut Microbiome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l4ofIBJ0GQ

NickC255• 2 years ago

I started a small beverage company focused on the athletic market in my local area. The main drawback to my product is that it's not shelf-life stable - it's only good for a few days (weeks if kept frozen).

Some love my stuff and swear by it. However, one of my big issues when talking to investors, even health-obsessed ones is "well, Pepsi makes stuff that lasts years on the shelf, so why can't you?" or "I'm not even considering this as a product until I can buy it in bulk at CostCo". They don't understand that there's literally no comparison when you're comparing:

1. A product made in a lab with almost zero natural ingredients, and designed to last years on the shelf without refrigeration and be shipped all over the world.

and

2. A product made in a local professional kitchen, with natural ingredients, designed to be consumed quickly by a very specific demographic of people.

It's maddening, even though my sales are pretty damn good. Some people just have this mentality that "if it doesn't last long, and I can't buy it in bulk, it's not good".

Because our entire food industry has been co-opted by profit-first corporations (who work from a profitability standpoint versus a health standpoint), nobody seems to want to understand that stuff that lasts long and can be kept in heat without going bad is probably not healthy.

tmaly2• 2 years ago

What marketing channels are you using to get the word out?

NickC255• 2 years ago

The only marketing I really do is occasionally do table days and I also hand out drinks every now and then to trainers, front desk staff, and management.

I retained a marketing firm last week to help me grow my marketing as I improve my production capacity.

But my first year of sales were all word-of-mouth at a high-end gym chain (where I'm also a member, and was a member for nearly 5 years prior to starting the business). In such environments where people aren't usually swayed by traditional marketing efforts, monkey-see-monkey-do is usually the way products take hold. If the regular attendees see people whose bodies they want to emulate consuming my products, they tend to try them and often turn into repeat customers.

That said if you have any thoughts, questions, comments, experience, etc - I'm all ears.

grvdrm5• 2 years ago

I'd love to hear where or if you think there is an obvious balancing point between shelf-stable and not in solid food?

I've thought of making my own protein bars, as I work out quite a bit and would prefer understanding exactly what I'm consuming. But I also don't want to throw away food that isn't getting consumed.

Similar thinking around kid food.

NickC255• 2 years ago

I'd love to hear where or if you think there is an obvious balancing point between shelf-stable and not in solid food?

Not sure I understand the question - but what I will say is that the longer the shelf-life is (non-refrigerated) the more likely it is that it was made in a lab, not a kitchen.

I've thought of making my own protein bars, as I work out quite a bit and would prefer understanding exactly what I'm consuming. But I also don't want to throw away food that isn't getting consumed.

That was the mentality the guys who created RxBar had. They were avid gym goers and wanted something better, so they made it themselves. Worked out for the two of them to the tune of a $600 Million exit.

Making your own protein bars is actually surprisingly simple.

lkuty• 2 years ago

Surprised not seeing a reference to the book "Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food" by "Chris van Tulleken". The article looks like it comes straight from the book.

jacknews• 2 years ago

I get a sense this whole "ultra-processed foods" meme is a giant distraction from some actual culprit.

No doubt it's unhealthy to eat an unbalanced diet represented by UPFs, with lots of carbs, fat, sugar and additives, etc, but I think there are likely some specific ingredients that differentiate between a simple unbalanced diet, and a UPF diet.

Sugar was a perfectly fine ingredient until fairly recently, and I suspect vegetable oil, perhaps some specific oils, might be the next revelation.

How Bad Are Ultraprocessed Foods, Really?

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