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 processed
Cookies 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 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.
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.
And now the whole crunchy revolution is running with that, and a few dieticians in prestigious places, looking for views, are trying to build studies on it.
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 processed
Cookies 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 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.
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.
And now the whole crunchy revolution is running with that, and a few dieticians in prestigious places, looking for views, are trying to build studies on it.