Conversations about processed, heavily processed, and ultra-processed foods always trigger people who recognize that it’s an imperfect measure. It should be interpreted as a heuristic, not a perfect 1D measure of a food’s healthiness.
As a heuristic it correlates quite well to many measures. The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
A simple example of the effects of processing would be considering an apple: Eating a whole apple is the healthiest because you consume all of the fiber and the digestion process is slowed because you have to break it down. Crushing it into something like apple sauce preserves much of the structure but now it absorbs faster and it’s easier to overeat it before your body can recognize it’s full. Processing it further to apple juice removes the fiber and now makes it spike your blood sugar and it’s easy to consume a lot of sugar.
Ultra processed would take this even further, packaging it in a container with added sugar and some preservatives for shelf life. This is where it enters kids (and adults) diets, where it is far removed from the unprocessed Apple it started as.
It triggers people because it's dumbing down something to the point of near uselessness. It's very much similar to the nonsense that is telling people not to eat "chemicals."
Congrats, you found an example involving a basic item that works. I suppose that means something, and now people should go drink unpasteurized milk and RFK Jr. was right all along.
The reason telling people not to eat chemicals is dumb is precisely because you lose the richness of the structure of the argument by taking the category of chemicals and casting them all in the same 1 dimension. Like saying, "Pharmaceuticals are dangerous."
Proponents of the dumbing down basically suggest just memorizing all the counter examples. Congratulations, you successfully reduced the problem of recognizing junk food down the problem of recognizing junk food. I'll avoid processed food except the processes that are good, like baking bread instead of eating raw flour, and it's good when it is bread but bad when it's cookies.
In reality, the measures that people need to legitimately follow aren't actually all that complex. You don't need to reduce it down to one dimension. You would be much better off if you just kept track of these 3 or 4 dimensions.
1. How many calories do you eat in a typical day.
2. How satiated they are after a reasonable number of calories.
3. If they aren't pooping well, eat more fibre.
4. If you really want to get nerdy about it, track macros.
Doing so isn't actually all that complicated. In fact, I don't think a lack of knowledge or recognition of the issues in their diets is the issue. It's really the harsh reality that people struggle to manage the vices they already are fully aware of, and telling them about the dangerous of "processed" foods doesn't meet this issue in any way.
This is a bad characterization of the processed food scale which suggests you haven’t actually read any of the research or the processed food criteria, you’re just assuming what it means.
Equating the research to RFK Jr is a strange attack, given that this is actual research that you’re dismissing and replacing with your own idea that you can sense if your food is healthy by some arbitrary criteria you came up with.
It’s also ironic that you dismiss it as a dumbing down and then propose your own extremely reductive criteria as a replacement which completely misses the issues being studied. It’s possible to have a eucaloric diet and eat enough fiber while also having significant negative health effects ranging from glycemic control issues to rapidly progressing cardiovascular disease.
>The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
False, based publicly available data, even data pushed by the UPF cultists there is no correlation between UPF consumption and 'Life Expectancy at Birth', 'CVD Deaths per 100K', 'Heart Disease Deaths per 100K', 'Cancer Incidence Rate per 100K', 'Stroke deaths per 100k', '%age Population with High Blood Pressure ISCED standard', 'Mean Systolic Blood Pressure (mmHG)', or shockingly 'BMI'.
In fact, in some cases there is an anti correlation such as life expectancy, now it would be absurd to suggest UPFs increase longevity of course but the reality is richer countries eat more processed foods and richer countries live longer.
This is completely false and easily refuted. I don’t understand how you’re calling the processed foods research a “cult” while also making sweeping claims without any sources.
> Overall, direct associations were found between exposure to ultra-processed foods and 32 (71%) health parameters spanning mortality, cancer, and mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and metabolic health outcomes. Based on the pre-specified evidence classification criteria, convincing evidence (class I) supported direct associations between greater ultra-processed food exposure and higher risks of incident cardiovascular disease related mortality (risk ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.37 to 1.63; GRADE=very low) and type 2 diabetes (dose-response risk ratio 1.12, 1.11 to 1.13; moderate), as well as higher risks of prevalent anxiety outcomes (odds ratio 1.48, 1.37 to 1.59; low) and combined common mental disorder outcomes (odds ratio 1.53, 1.43 to 1.63; low). Highly suggestive (class II) evidence indicated that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was directly associated with higher risks of incident all cause mortality (risk ratio 1.21, 1.15 to 1.27; low), heart disease related mortality (hazard ratio 1.66, 1.51 to 1.84; low), type 2 diabetes (odds ratio 1.40, 1.23 to 1.59; very low), and depressive outcomes (hazard ratio 1.22, 1.16 to 1.28; low), together with higher risks of prevalent adverse sleep related outcomes (odds ratio 1.41, 1.24 to 1.61; low), wheezing (risk ratio 1.40, 1.27 to 1.55; low), and obesity (odds ratio 1.55, 1.36 to 1.77; low).
I’m amazing how anti-science this conversation always becomes on HN, with those who don’t understand the research claiming to have the scientific upper hand.
Any system that can't tell the difference between a nutrigrain bar (which is a candy bar basically) and a turkey sandwich (which is fine) is gimped and useless and no longer has value.
Even your apple example is lacking! There's a difference between unsweetened apple sauce which is crushed and the most common applesauces which have juice and sugar added.
Fiber is also beneficial for the "good" gut bacteria, as it feeds on fiber. Fiber also binds to your LDL "bad" cholesterol in the digestive system and helps to eliminate it.
Ultra-processed doesn't automatically mean unhealthy. It's what it's made of and how it's processed, and the quantities you ingest that can make it unhealthy, just like some unprocessed foods can still be unhealthy depending on what they are.
Whole grain cereal with low sugar contents fall under ultra-processed, and it could still be more nutritious and less sugary than freshly squeezed OJ.
Whole grain cereal with sugar would be classed as 'processed' food as I understand it.
Examples of processed food:
> Canned or bottled vegetables and legumes in
brine; salted or sugared nuts and seeds; salted,
dried, cured, or smoked meats and fish; canned
fish (with or without added preservatives); fruit
in syrup (with or without added anti-oxidants);
freshly made unpackaged breads and cheeses.
It doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy but in reality there is a very strong correlation between food being processed and having too much sugar, salt , fat or other stuff. A lot of these foods are designed for addictiveness .
It depends on the classification system, but yes, whole grain cereal with added sugar and preservatives for shelf-life is often classified as ultra-processed.
That said, I think framing all UPFs or processed foods as "bad" misses the point. What really matters is the nutritional value of the food itself. A food being ultra-processed doesn’t automatically make it less healthy than a minimally processed one.
We should focus more on what’s actually in the food: the sugar content, fiber, protein, fat, micro-nutrients, rather than just whether it’s been processed or not.
TLDR: It's the label telling what is in the food that matters, not the processes it underwent, although that can be VERY helpful for certain people who value how their food is made for moral/ethical/health reasons.
This podcast had an excellent discussion of how “ultraprocessed” means whatever authors want. It seems like people who pay for expensive maple syrup, oils, tallow and butter are put on some pedestal and everyone else lives under the cloud of “ultra” something.
I've not listened to the podcast, but please note that processed/ultraprocessed have formal definitions that are followed by many studies.
These are the NOVA classifications, where processed and ultraprocessed are groups 3-4 respectively. These definitions have evolved over time [1], which means that it can be confusing to read different studies, when the formal definitions have changed after publication. So the best thing is to ignore the "ultraprocessed" category as a general term and instead read what the methodology was in any given study.
What researchers mostly don't do is lump all sorts of things into an undefined bucket of whatever processes and ingredients they think are unhealthy that day. This is what pop-sci media does, and may be what the podcast is railing does. But studies on ultraprocessed foods tend not to do this.
I'd recommend "Ultra processed people" be van Tulleken. He references the relevant studies, doesn't try to convince you to change your diet but gives enough food for thought. ;)
What really amazes me is seeing little kids at the playground etc, walking around and eating things like Cheetos. Not only is this ultra-processed junk terrible for them, it's programming them bad habits (and manners) to just free feed and roam around like that. Is it any wonder why America is so fat and unhealthy and so many struggle with eating issues? You don't see this behavior nearly as often in Europe, Asia, etc and it should come at no surprise that those kids are more mature and have better self control over American kids.
>They can’t imagine going without food for a few hours.
The best example of this phenomena is the movies. People start snacking the moment they enter and continue through the whole show, which is a conditioned response that theatres quite literally created -- normalizing that it's a "part of the experience" -- for revenue production.
Can people really not fathom going a couple of hours without stuffing their faces? It's bizarre.
I feel the same way about flying. It's amazing how demanding people are to be fed on even short flights, when the whole process is just annoying and overbearing.
Which excludes the massive difference in obesity. No Wal-Mart motorized shopping carts in Europe.
> The color-coded visualization shared by Brilliant Maps shows that in many U.S. states, obesity rates exceed 30 percent, with some surpassing 40 percent. Southern and Midwestern states, such as Mississippi and West Virginia, report the highest levels, while Western states like Colorado and Hawaii have comparatively lower rates, though still above most European nations.
> Comparatively, obesity rates in most European countries remain below 25 percent, with some nations, particularly in Southern and Western Europe, reporting levels under 15 percent.
That's a binary, right? Either you're overweight or you're not. What about the magnitude of the overweight? (Asking because I'm curious about the data, not because I necessarily disagree with you)
Here is where Robert can come in and do something good by disincentivizing ultra-processed foods with the tools he has available at the FDA. Sure, getting bad color ingredients out is good --now go for the gusto and disincentivize ultra-processed foods.
"Ultra-processed food" is the new term for "junk food" for people who thought it needed three more syllables.
They're both vague you-know-what-I-mean terms, and don't have any place in research papers, which really ought to be asking more specific questions. Are ultra-processed foods bad for you? You might as well ask whether "yucky foods" are good for you, or what the health effects of "appetizers" are.
If you want to know if white bread or artificial colors or emulsifiers are unhealthy, ask that question directly instead of using this vague proxy category.
I am aware of the Nova classification. "Vague" was the wrong word for me to use. "Overly broad" is probably closer to what I mean. Just read Group 4's definition. If "ultra-processed" can mean a million different things, then it doesn't matter that you've precisely defined all the things it can mean, your study will still be conflating a million independent variables.
If you think emulsifiers are unhealthy, conduct a study on emulsifiers. If you think the absence of Nova group 1 foods is unhealthy, study that. I am questioning the value of studying foods with emulsifiers OR no group 1 ingredients OR added sugar OR were extruded OR were moulded OR which have "sophisticated packaging" OR have fruit juice concentrates OR hydrogenated oils OR etc. etc. etc., as if they formed a single scientifically meaningful group.
The math doesn't add up: even if the top 10% of US kids ate 0% of ultra-processed foods and the rest have 80+% in their diet, it would still be a larger average than the one reported.
> If the ingredients include artificial colors and chemicals that aren’t normally found in the kitchen, the item is likely ultra-processed.
Curious to see sandwiches included in the list (and the top "offender", no less). Home-made ones can be pretty healthy!
Edit to add: the study says:
> "Ultra-processed foods tend to be hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fats".
The study page also contains a more precise definition (using something called Nova classification).
Highly processed flour bun. Slice of highly processed cheese. Highly processed ketchup sauce on top.
An unprocessed slice of tomato and lettuce if you’re lucky.
Conversations about processed foods reveal a lot about how our perspectives have shifted so much. Something like a burger is stacked with highly processed items.
No, it’s flour, which is a heavily processed wheat product.
> mozzarella
Which is a heavily processed food that differs greatly from the input products.
> tomato sauce
Also processed. Likely has added sugar.
It’s interested to read these conversations and see that the frame of reference has shifted so much that obviously highly processed ingredients aren’t tripping people’s processed food detectors. Then the language used isn’t picking up on the processing (calling it wheat instead of flour).
Part of the processing is to add something harmful or remove something useful either as the target of the process, or as a byproduct.
I give you a tomato, that's unprocessed. I squash it a bit and maybe add some salt? That's processed. I boil the hell out of it and mix it with 30 other ingredients (like salt, sugar, flavoring, preservatives, other additives, etc.), especially in large quantities? That's heavily processed or above. As you can see, the processing is what made a tomato worse for the health.
Readit News
As a heuristic it correlates quite well to many measures. The more someone’s diet falls on the ultra-processed end of the spectrum and the less they eat of unprocessed foods, the higher the rate of health problems.
A simple example of the effects of processing would be considering an apple: Eating a whole apple is the healthiest because you consume all of the fiber and the digestion process is slowed because you have to break it down. Crushing it into something like apple sauce preserves much of the structure but now it absorbs faster and it’s easier to overeat it before your body can recognize it’s full. Processing it further to apple juice removes the fiber and now makes it spike your blood sugar and it’s easy to consume a lot of sugar.
Ultra processed would take this even further, packaging it in a container with added sugar and some preservatives for shelf life. This is where it enters kids (and adults) diets, where it is far removed from the unprocessed Apple it started as.
Congrats, you found an example involving a basic item that works. I suppose that means something, and now people should go drink unpasteurized milk and RFK Jr. was right all along.
The reason telling people not to eat chemicals is dumb is precisely because you lose the richness of the structure of the argument by taking the category of chemicals and casting them all in the same 1 dimension. Like saying, "Pharmaceuticals are dangerous."
Proponents of the dumbing down basically suggest just memorizing all the counter examples. Congratulations, you successfully reduced the problem of recognizing junk food down the problem of recognizing junk food. I'll avoid processed food except the processes that are good, like baking bread instead of eating raw flour, and it's good when it is bread but bad when it's cookies.
In reality, the measures that people need to legitimately follow aren't actually all that complex. You don't need to reduce it down to one dimension. You would be much better off if you just kept track of these 3 or 4 dimensions.
1. How many calories do you eat in a typical day. 2. How satiated they are after a reasonable number of calories. 3. If they aren't pooping well, eat more fibre. 4. If you really want to get nerdy about it, track macros.
Doing so isn't actually all that complicated. In fact, I don't think a lack of knowledge or recognition of the issues in their diets is the issue. It's really the harsh reality that people struggle to manage the vices they already are fully aware of, and telling them about the dangerous of "processed" foods doesn't meet this issue in any way.
Equating the research to RFK Jr is a strange attack, given that this is actual research that you’re dismissing and replacing with your own idea that you can sense if your food is healthy by some arbitrary criteria you came up with.
It’s also ironic that you dismiss it as a dumbing down and then propose your own extremely reductive criteria as a replacement which completely misses the issues being studied. It’s possible to have a eucaloric diet and eat enough fiber while also having significant negative health effects ranging from glycemic control issues to rapidly progressing cardiovascular disease.
False, based publicly available data, even data pushed by the UPF cultists there is no correlation between UPF consumption and 'Life Expectancy at Birth', 'CVD Deaths per 100K', 'Heart Disease Deaths per 100K', 'Cancer Incidence Rate per 100K', 'Stroke deaths per 100k', '%age Population with High Blood Pressure ISCED standard', 'Mean Systolic Blood Pressure (mmHG)', or shockingly 'BMI'.
In fact, in some cases there is an anti correlation such as life expectancy, now it would be absurd to suggest UPFs increase longevity of course but the reality is richer countries eat more processed foods and richer countries live longer.
https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310
> Overall, direct associations were found between exposure to ultra-processed foods and 32 (71%) health parameters spanning mortality, cancer, and mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and metabolic health outcomes. Based on the pre-specified evidence classification criteria, convincing evidence (class I) supported direct associations between greater ultra-processed food exposure and higher risks of incident cardiovascular disease related mortality (risk ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.37 to 1.63; GRADE=very low) and type 2 diabetes (dose-response risk ratio 1.12, 1.11 to 1.13; moderate), as well as higher risks of prevalent anxiety outcomes (odds ratio 1.48, 1.37 to 1.59; low) and combined common mental disorder outcomes (odds ratio 1.53, 1.43 to 1.63; low). Highly suggestive (class II) evidence indicated that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was directly associated with higher risks of incident all cause mortality (risk ratio 1.21, 1.15 to 1.27; low), heart disease related mortality (hazard ratio 1.66, 1.51 to 1.84; low), type 2 diabetes (odds ratio 1.40, 1.23 to 1.59; very low), and depressive outcomes (hazard ratio 1.22, 1.16 to 1.28; low), together with higher risks of prevalent adverse sleep related outcomes (odds ratio 1.41, 1.24 to 1.61; low), wheezing (risk ratio 1.40, 1.27 to 1.55; low), and obesity (odds ratio 1.55, 1.36 to 1.77; low).
I’m amazing how anti-science this conversation always becomes on HN, with those who don’t understand the research claiming to have the scientific upper hand.
Even your apple example is lacking! There's a difference between unsweetened apple sauce which is crushed and the most common applesauces which have juice and sugar added.
Whole grain cereal with low sugar contents fall under ultra-processed, and it could still be more nutritious and less sugary than freshly squeezed OJ.
Examples of processed food:
> Canned or bottled vegetables and legumes in brine; salted or sugared nuts and seeds; salted, dried, cured, or smoked meats and fish; canned fish (with or without added preservatives); fruit in syrup (with or without added anti-oxidants); freshly made unpackaged breads and cheeses.
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/527...
That said, I think framing all UPFs or processed foods as "bad" misses the point. What really matters is the nutritional value of the food itself. A food being ultra-processed doesn’t automatically make it less healthy than a minimally processed one.
We should focus more on what’s actually in the food: the sugar content, fiber, protein, fat, micro-nutrients, rather than just whether it’s been processed or not.
TLDR: It's the label telling what is in the food that matters, not the processes it underwent, although that can be VERY helpful for certain people who value how their food is made for moral/ethical/health reasons.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/17271368
These are the NOVA classifications, where processed and ultraprocessed are groups 3-4 respectively. These definitions have evolved over time [1], which means that it can be confusing to read different studies, when the formal definitions have changed after publication. So the best thing is to ignore the "ultraprocessed" category as a general term and instead read what the methodology was in any given study.
What researchers mostly don't do is lump all sorts of things into an undefined bucket of whatever processes and ingredients they think are unhealthy that day. This is what pop-sci media does, and may be what the podcast is railing does. But studies on ultraprocessed foods tend not to do this.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6389637/
The best example of this phenomena is the movies. People start snacking the moment they enter and continue through the whole show, which is a conditioned response that theatres quite literally created -- normalizing that it's a "part of the experience" -- for revenue production.
Can people really not fathom going a couple of hours without stuffing their faces? It's bizarre.
I feel the same way about flying. It's amazing how demanding people are to be fed on even short flights, when the whole process is just annoying and overbearing.
72% overweight rate for US adults, 45-60% for most European countries.
https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sh-sta-owad-zs...
> The color-coded visualization shared by Brilliant Maps shows that in many U.S. states, obesity rates exceed 30 percent, with some surpassing 40 percent. Southern and Midwestern states, such as Mississippi and West Virginia, report the highest levels, while Western states like Colorado and Hawaii have comparatively lower rates, though still above most European nations.
> Comparatively, obesity rates in most European countries remain below 25 percent, with some nations, particularly in Southern and Western Europe, reporting levels under 15 percent.
https://www.newsweek.com/map-reveals-obesity-rates-us-compar...
They're both vague you-know-what-I-mean terms, and don't have any place in research papers, which really ought to be asking more specific questions. Are ultra-processed foods bad for you? You might as well ask whether "yucky foods" are good for you, or what the health effects of "appetizers" are.
If you want to know if white bread or artificial colors or emulsifiers are unhealthy, ask that question directly instead of using this vague proxy category.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
If you think emulsifiers are unhealthy, conduct a study on emulsifiers. If you think the absence of Nova group 1 foods is unhealthy, study that. I am questioning the value of studying foods with emulsifiers OR no group 1 ingredients OR added sugar OR were extruded OR were moulded OR which have "sophisticated packaging" OR have fruit juice concentrates OR hydrogenated oils OR etc. etc. etc., as if they formed a single scientifically meaningful group.
This is false. There are specific criteria for these categories in the research papers.
It’s also acknowledge that it’s not a 100% perfect objective all-encompassing measure, but it is a very good heuristic.
I don’t know why some people read a headline and think they know more about the topic than the research papers (which they clearly also have not read)
If they broke it down to demographics then would show a divide depending on income/education levels, area and so on.
Is a burger highly processed? Home-made burgers seem not to fall into that bucket. (Hot dogs, I can buy as being it, but burgers not.)
> If the ingredients include artificial colors and chemicals that aren’t normally found in the kitchen, the item is likely ultra-processed.
Curious to see sandwiches included in the list (and the top "offender", no less). Home-made ones can be pretty healthy!
Edit to add: the study says:
> "Ultra-processed foods tend to be hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fats".
The study page also contains a more precise definition (using something called Nova classification).
An unprocessed slice of tomato and lettuce if you’re lucky.
Conversations about processed foods reveal a lot about how our perspectives have shifted so much. Something like a burger is stacked with highly processed items.
I can't determine whether the study differentiates between healthy home made sandwiches and junk food that contains some kind of "bread".
That would include baking your own bread which is not common in the US afaik.
No, it’s flour, which is a heavily processed wheat product.
> mozzarella
Which is a heavily processed food that differs greatly from the input products.
> tomato sauce
Also processed. Likely has added sugar.
It’s interested to read these conversations and see that the frame of reference has shifted so much that obviously highly processed ingredients aren’t tripping people’s processed food detectors. Then the language used isn’t picking up on the processing (calling it wheat instead of flour).
I give you a tomato, that's unprocessed. I squash it a bit and maybe add some salt? That's processed. I boil the hell out of it and mix it with 30 other ingredients (like salt, sugar, flavoring, preservatives, other additives, etc.), especially in large quantities? That's heavily processed or above. As you can see, the processing is what made a tomato worse for the health.
The term is perfectly apt.
Hence "processed" is not necessarily bad. And thus the term, imho, is not suitable.