How a scientist is pushing to supersize research into ultra-processed foods

https://www.statnews.com/2024/09/11/ultra-processed-foods-health-nih-research-kevin-hall-controlled-trials/

by jyunwai • 2 years ago

70 95 2 years ago

statnews.com

hooverd2• 2 years ago

What defines an "ultra-processed" food?

Also, there are some amazing pictures in this article.

l5870uoo9y3• 2 years ago

You can use the Nova classification[0] which has 4 groupings. First 3 are nutritionally harmless, the fourth is highly processed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

RevEng4• 2 years ago

You inserted a dichotomy that isn't present in that article. The article explicitly points out that it does not say anything about the nutritional value. It does not say that the first three are nutritionally harmless, nor does it say the implied opposite that ultra processed foods are nutritionally harmful.

Zigurd• 2 years ago

I don't want to defend what's in those aisles of the grocery store I don't visit, but I have a problem with the definition. It amounts to a list of ick nobody should put in their mouth in any combination. The problem is that some of the supposed ick is marginal: Is a Pop Tart(tm) with a dyed HFC "berry" filling really, measurably, "worse" than a slice of toasted artisanal bread with farm to table butter and jam? You shouldn't eat either one in large quantities. One is obviously ickier, but, so?

Whey protein vs tofu? One is in your favorite Hunan dish, the other is sold in tubs next to dubious supplements. But, so?

aulin• 2 years ago

Curious choice of mustard as main picture of the article. Dijon mustard has like 4 ingredients: mustard seeds, salt, vinegar and bisolfite. Among processed canned condiments it must be the healthiest one.

Pine_Mushroom• 2 years ago

Per the article: “made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods and additives, with little if any intact [unprocessed] foods.”

hooverd2• 2 years ago

Thanks, I missed that line.

brokensegue• 2 years ago

So that includes cheese?

l5870uoo9y3• 2 years ago

It is interesting to think of just how massive a shift the food industry, supermarkets and consumers would have to undertake to cut out high-processed foods (supermarkets would have to empty majority of their shelves).

And then additional strides would have to be made to be convert restaurants (not to mention school cantinas) into actually healthy dining places. I don't think a single burger place would survive such an assessment.

akira25014• 2 years ago

supermarkets would have to empty majority of their shelves

I doubt this. The supermarket I go to would be about 1/2 empty if they removed processed foods. The rest is still largely taken up by the deli, meat, produce, dairy, and fresh foods. None of these are highly processed.

And then additional strides would have to be made to be convert restaurants

Chain restaurants that supply themselves exclusively from Sysco. Almost all other restaurants actually cook with mostly whole ingredients.

a single burger place

Everything there can be a whole food except the bun and the beverage. You're presenting this is as if it's a huge challenge when in reality it barely would be.

RevEng4• 2 years ago

I welcome some research in to this if only to put some credible evidence behind whether or to what extent processing of foods affects their nutritional value. I constantly see assertions that highly processed foods are killing us and causing obesity, but I've yet to see any credible evidence for it.

Even reading the Nova classification, the scientific verbiage describing the ultra processed category could easily describe making egg noodles at home. Extrusion is how we get noodle shapes. Molds are how we get cakes and muffins. Emulsifiers are everywhere and are a common reason for adding egg to a recipe. Specific protein isolates less so, but we isolate compounds all the time when brewing and stewing. The only significant difference I see between group 3 and 4 is that they are spoken about in completely different registers that make one sound familiar and the other foreign.

So please, put some sincere research behind this so we can finally get useful clarification on this subject.

sabbaticaldev3• 2 years ago

this is processed food. Processed food is fine. Ultra-processed food is processed food put into a plastic bag, shipped far away to be consumed 6 months after it was produced.

maccard• 2 years ago

So tinned, or frozen veg?

gizmo686• 2 years ago

Fruits and vegetables get processed, put into plastic bags, and shipped far away to be consumed 6 months after being produced all the time. None of that makes them ultra processed.

hinkley2• 2 years ago

Ultra processed food is foods broken down into base chemicals and stored in vats or boxes like it’s baking soda for years before being turned back into food. Many things we make from corn in particular, and I would probably include commercial orange juice in this as well. I don’t drink the stuff anymore. That’s gross.

dboreham• 2 years ago

I have/had similar thoughts. For example: it's all just various hydrocarbons that are going to be chopped up by enzymes, so what's the difference exactly which atom is where?

My guess that the "processed food is poison" people are only by chance hitting on something. They have zero evidence and zero supporting data.

However, I've come to suspect that the gut is a very complex thing, with a computer in it, and highly connected to the brain. Once you start to go down that line of thinking, I think it's plausible that they've identified a real problem. One possibility among many is that "corporate food" is the result of a giant A/B test series over a hundred years that has machine-learned the model embodied in the gut-computer. It's essentially a DoS attack. And so on. Suggest folk consider what if the gut has a neural network with various sensors and subject to training data.

bloaf2• 2 years ago

That's why I gravitate towards the 'hyper-palatable' label vs 'hyper-processed', to me it captures a more plausible set of criteria (engineered via fat/sugar/salt addition to maximize its appeal, etc) that cause a more plausible and specific set of problems (hijacking reward pathways to cause overeating, etc)

jamesmotherway2• 2 years ago

There's zero evidence showing the harm of processed foods?

Consider that nutrition labels are largely focused on macronutrients. Carbs, fat, protein. Calories in and calories out.

What processed food tends to lack are micronutrients found in fresh, high-quality produce. This goes beyond vitamins (which are becoming scarcer due to agricultural practices). Anthocyanins, carotenoids, and other phytochemicals are produced by plants as protective agents. Those same chemicals help mitigate the entropic forces the body is subjected to over time.

Going back to macros, not all of them are created equal. Glucose syrup can have the same carbohydrate content as a sweet potato, but their glycemic index (how it impacts the functioning of the body) will vary. That doesn't get into the value of the fiber for the gut microbiome.

The differences are there when looking beyond the surface.

gxs• 2 years ago

I get your point and I agree, but for me I perhaps inaccurately use processed as a proxy for calorie density.

Working at a restaurant in college, I saw that a single plate of pasta they made during a busy night when it was hard to keep up could easily wind up an entire stick of butter. That’s on top of the cream.

Soda - tons of sugar packed into 12 oz.

When you don’t eat restaurant/processed foods at home, it does shock you a bit just what a giant volume of good 2,000 calories can be.

This is all it means to me. I’m not out here trying to prove science, just trying to stay healthy.

jampekka7• 2 years ago

Even reading the Nova classification, the scientific verbiage describing the ultra processed category could easily describe making egg noodles at home.

It can't because per Nova for something to be "ultra-processed" it has to be "industrially manufactured". Unless you're involved in cottage industry I guess.

"Ultra-processed" is a ridiculous categorization, a bit like some compounds artificially being labeled as "chemicals" and some not.

Symmetry• 2 years ago

There are certainly certain categories of chemical that might be of interest. For instance you don't normally find emulsification agents in non-processed food but you do in industrial food, whether the particular chemical is made in a lab or extracted from some plant or other. But many, many other ways that we industrially manufacture food are obviously no worse than making our own noodles at home.

cassepipe• 2 years ago

It's not a about the chemical it's about the quantity. If there is sorbitol in each food I eat, I will feel unwell all the time without knowing why. That's a terrible life experience.

thoughtFrame• 2 years ago

My worry with processed food is that precise manufacture opens up the doors to producing all sorts of foods with an unhealthy imbalance of components. Specifically, that the unnatural surplus of, say, hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup, or whatever, is something that will have disastrous nth order consequences we can't predict, so it looks promising in the short term and corporations looking to maximize their profit will all doubtlessly do more of this.

I only have slightly more than a passing interest in food science and nutrition, but from all I've learned my gut feeling is that I ought to avoid this stuff, and rely on cooking my own food as much as possible so I don't get into any imbalances (it's very hard to get a surplus of any macro or any other component via "natural" products)

I don't have any evidence on the nutrition side, but it's certainly not an experiment I'd like to do with my only body. And in the psychological side, it's definitely something to avoid if we value our physical and mental health

thucydides4• 2 years ago

there are some fascinating hypotheses on what's caused the worldwide exponential increase in obesity in humans (and also some wild animals). here is the best summary i've seen: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...

jampekka7• 2 years ago

Is this really a mystery? People eat more energy wise and move less.

As to why people eat more, it's probably due to higher energy density food, advertising (especially to children) and lost norms about eating (e.g. sugary stuff is not "proper food"). As to why we move less is less manual labor, more sedentary entertainment and increased use of vehicles.

The obesity discussion seems to somehow deliberately try to avoid the obvious.

tourmalinetaco2• 2 years ago

I’ll be honest, this is a pretty poor article. It focuses solely on macronutrients but doesn’t even touch on satiety. Sure, some random tribe may eat 50% more carbs than we do, but the difference is our calories come from low satiety carbs such as high fructose corn syrup, and their carbs come from sweet potatoes, one of the more satisfying foods to eat. So it can hardly be called a “mystery” why a more physically active, lower calorie lifestyle produces a group of people who are healthier. It’s throwing a ton of stats at you that sound plausible but break down under scrutiny. Not to mention this is just the “mysteries”, and no actual hypotheses are drawn.

d0mine• 2 years ago

More research wouldn’t hurt but is not like there is none e.g., here’s video on seed oil that does cite some research https://youtu.be/XJ_uyV-ER_g

tl;dr seed oil is better than butter (saturated fat-wise), it is ok to heat it at home upto 200 Celsius, not ok “ultra processed” fastfood fries due to more heat, reheating (trans fat-wise)

akira25014• 2 years ago

I constantly see assertions that highly processed foods are killing us and causing obesity,

"Highly palatable" foods do this. One way to create those is through "highly processed" techniques.

but I've yet to see any credible evidence for it.

Obesity is more common in the world where highly processed foods are more common. There is evidence. There is no RCT. This has nothing to do with "credibility" it's just "non-standard analysis."

prisenco• 2 years ago

And highly palatable means processed foods are easier to consume in large quantities.

So it's not just an issue of chemical composition but how we respond to these foods behaviorally.

A 7.5oz bag of potato chips is made using around 6-8 medium sized potatoes. Eating a whole bag of potato chips in one sitting is frighteningly easy to do. But I challenge anyone to eat 6-8 medium potatoes at once, despite being around the same amount of calories.

Going on a whole foods diet often results in weight loss without any increased hunger sensation.

RevEng4• 2 years ago

Simply observing a correlation in the wild is not evidence. Spurious correlations occur all the time. Even if it's a true correlation, that doesn't imply causation - they could both be unrelated results of some common cause.

You need something more rigorous than "there is a correlation" to support something that important.

vintermann2• 2 years ago

I agree. To me it always seemed a bit like insisting that foods from the first half of the alphabet are bad for you.

Are they? Maybe! Alcohol, Burgers, Croissants, for all I know there are more bad-diet things in the first half of the alphabet than the last. It could even be that if we convinced people to buy less high-alphabet food, they'd be healthier. But that doesn't mean it's a sensible category. We don't "need more research into high-alphabet foods", we need a causal theory of what makes food healthy or not. It's pretty clear it isn't alphabetic priority, and it's also pretty clear it's not simply "processing".

Most food needs to be processed in some way or another to be edible. I read a terrible catalog many years ago, from an alternative magazine, listing a ton of weird diets and questionable health practices. There were only a handful of things in that catalog of hundreds of things that even they warned against, and one of them was the "raw food diet".

If it's benzopyrene from frying that's the problem, talk about frying. If it's micronutrients being lost from soaking or boiling or long storage with preservatives, talk about that! But don't dumb us down by putting it all in a box and refusing to engage with what actually makes it bad.

spatalo• 2 years ago

upf is known to be bad for the microbiome and increases gut issues

ufo3• 2 years ago

Arguably the whole point of the ultraprocessed classification is to spend less time micromanaging the nutritional value. The purpose is to separate the kinds of food that you can prepare and cook at home, from the kinds of food that only exist in a highly industrial setting.

The latter optimizes for using the cheapest possible ingredients, with the longest shelf life, and to be hyper palatable. Part of the problem is that, to achieve those goals, industrialized food tends to be high in sugar, fats, salt, and calories in general. But looking at only those nutritional numbers is shortsighted. In the last decades we have seen all sorts of junk food that used their nutrition labels to masquerade as healthy food: diet colas without added sugar, sugary breakfast cereals that are "rich in vitamins", and so on. And those did little to stop the obesity epidemic.

iamthemonster• 2 years ago

It reminds me of the food processor salesman who came to our house to demonstrate how you can avoid processed food by making it at home... in a food processor.

geoduck14• 2 years ago

The definition of "ultra processed food" that a nutritionist gave me was "high amount of sodium". Which kind of makes sense to me.

The conversation came about because she was encouraging me to reduce lunch meats from my diet. Lunch meat is a staple in many diets, but there are a lot of salts

ziggyzecat2• 2 years ago

Great to read someone wants to scale this!

It would be amazing if the tech to test samples of anything edible could become a target of the DIY & Maker community. This has to be a citizen science effort.

Production results vary. Just recently an acquaintance who owns a small coffee shop in a small town got a visit form the local public health administration telling him that they got a notice from a company that he purchased a product that is being called back due to xyz.

We were all surprised that this system works so incredibly well.

But in terms of health, there are just too many factors that impact individual bodies and brains while being barely relevant in samples of the general population. We need to build a database of human profiles whose health was impacted by something in their food. Of course, there's allergies, and nutritional coaches, and so on but those processes are incredibly long and people get lost and give up or often enough, nothing is found and the person is left to his or her own devices.

I have a friend who reacts bad to some dairy products, whipped cream for example, but the intensity varies with the producer! And he tried some of the most expensive products and some are 'ok' while others produce pain. There must be traces of something that is simply not looked at when tested by food safety labs. And labs like that of the dude from the article are rare and cost a lot.

A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned fertility rates and why some generations had worse ones than others. Not birth rates, fertility rates. Apparently there are periods in time where causes for worse fertility can't be deducted from research and economic data of the time. Microplastics and such didn't play that big of a role back then and the water, soil weren't even remotely as bad back then. Pre WW1 to post WW2. So I proposed it must be something that was in the food that nobody looked at. Might even be sabotage, who knows.

So yeah, I really hope the Maker community can up the game a little and pave the way for more citizen science in food safety and in the research of how different compounds &/or combinations impact energy metabolisms.

technotarek• 2 years ago

Tangential…Anyone from the HN community using Yuka app. (Scan barcodes to get info about dangerous additives and other health info about food and healthcare products.) I discovered it in France where it’s rather popular and continue to use it state side. Has changed a lot of my buying/consuming decisions. No affiliation.

iwanttocomment2• 2 years ago

I really hate the notion of "ultra-processed" foods. The NOVA food classification system[1], which established the term, is loose and unscientific about what "ultra-processing" means, and different articles use the term interchangeably with different types of foods, many of which could barely be considered to be processed beyond what a home cook might do.

For example, pictures of potato chips or bacon are often pictured and vilified as ultra-processed foods. The NOVA system describes these as "processed" (but not "ultra-processed") foods, and that's almost certainly the case. A home cook can make bacon by curing pork belly in salt and natural spices and then cooking it in a conventional fashion, or frying potato slices in oil and then salting them. Many bacons and potato chips list few ingredients beyond pork or potatoes, salt, and in the case of chips, oil. These can hardly be considered "ultra-processed", even if the American diet of cured and smoked meats may not be optimal for cardiovascular health. These are things people were eating for centuries, long before modern grocery stores and preparations.

But even then, the NOVA system is obtuse. Ice cream is listed as an ultra-processed food, even as you can pick up Haagen Dazs vanilla at Walgreens with only "cream, milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla." You can certainly make a simulacrum of it of similar quality at home using the same ingredients and an ice cream maker. Is it "healthy"? Almost certainly no! Is it ultra-processed? Also, almost certainly no!

Other "ultra-processed" foods according to NOVA are "sweetened and flavored yogurts including fruit yogurts" which again can be made at home using no artificial ingredients with... sugar and fruit, hardly ultra-processing. Chocolate milk is an ultra-processed food according to NOVA, consisting of... milk, cocoa and sugar, which again, you can certainly make at home and is not some sort of industrial concoction.

We are all well aware of the issues with excessive sugar and salt in the diet, and this was established long before any of us were born.

Everything you read about "ultra-processed foods" is junk science. There may well be certain preservatives or preparations that aren't good for us, but the classifications in place are total garbage, and don't point us to any actual risks beyond the natural ingredients we have all known to be problematic from time immemorial.

[1] The NOVA classifications: https://ecuphysicians.ecu.edu/wp-content/pv-uploads/sites/78...

akira25014• 2 years ago

It's an example list. It's not exhaustive nor is it exclusive. The hint is in the paragraph preceeding that section:

"Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch)"

Haagen Dazs vanilla at Walgreens with only "cream, milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla."

Yes, that's an "ice cream" according to the FDA. The problem is the definition is so loose that any product with 10% milkfat or milkfat solids can be called ice cream. Which means that "ice cream" may or may not be highly processed.

You'll need to examine the ingredients to know. Which is why Ben & Jerry's can't call themselves "all natural" anymore, because, they happily include many more industrial ingredients over your Hagen Dazz.

iwanttocomment2• 2 years ago

If the list contains preparations like ice cream and fruit-sweetened yogurt that have been made for centuries in non-industrial kitchens, perhaps the list is not only non-exhaustive, but it's also just not a very good list? Perhaps it should actually quantify the industrial ingredients or preparations that are problematic and evidence of the "ultra" in ultra-processed, rather than just wave its hands towards extracts or derived ingredients and include foods that are easily made at home (albeit in a time-consuming way)?

The only ingredients in Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream that aren't in Haagen Dazs are guar gum (which is a ground bean, and natural enough to be sold in a bag for your kitchen by Bob's Red Mill) and carageenan, which sure, can be considered a derived ingredient but is ultimately derived from seaweed and is almost certainly not the cause of any health issues. Those thickeners are a far cry from industrial concoctions like hydrogenated oils.

I mean, canned soups are on the list an ultra-processed food. Oh no!! I assure you we're not suffering a health crisis due to canned soups in the generic. It's all nonsense.

GeoAtreides• 2 years ago

ah yes, mention "ultra-processed foods" in the title and all of the comments are about the definition of ultra-processed foods and none about the article

which maybe would be fine, if people made a modicum of effort and researched the definition. Instead everyone is playing word games "what about this, what about that", "does it mean cheese is ultraprocessed", and implying a vague coverage at the edges means the whole concept is worthless

99_00• 2 years ago

Smart. Cash in on the fad while you can.

BobbyTables2• 2 years ago

Compared to eating raw wheat, baked bread is an ultra-processed food…

doug_durham• 2 years ago

I find it interesting that a most of Vegan meat substitutes fall into the ultra-processed categories. It seems to be an issue across all diets.

calmbonsai• 2 years ago

I do think one day we’ll look back at the “best practices” of the processed foods industry as being fundamentally at odds with the best practices of nutritional ensemble signaling for our bodies.

naming_the_user2• 2 years ago

UPF's in as much as they affect health and obesity rates are almost certainly just doing some combination of the following:

People eating more calories because it's more calorie dense / easier to digest/eat

People eating more because of things like umami (has no protein but seems like it might be protein)

High GI foods causing blood sugar spikes

Weird E-numbery ingredients that aren't well studied (e.g. are sweeteners actually healthy for human consumption as opposed to simply not causing acute issues)

General lack of nutrition (e.g. if you live on bread and meat with no vegetables things gon get bad)

etc.

There seems to be a huge aversion in mainstream society to accepting the basic fact that calories in calories out works. It's used by millions and millions of athletes to hit weight classifications, to bulk and add muscle, to cut and reduce body fat, etc. It's about as proven as gravity. You cannot be fat as an average height person if you eat 2000 calories a day consistently.

I really doubt that there is any magic here - based on the experience of everyone I know, the thin and fit people eat a certain diet and do certain exercises, the thin and semi-fat (e.g. powerlifter type) people eat a different diet and do certain exercises, and the fat people eat, well, they eat shit, they do not consciously think about what they are eating, in the same way that a well earning person living paycheck to paycheck doesn't have a budget.

How a scientist is pushing to supersize research into ultra-processed foods

Related Stories