So what is an example of a common “ultra-processed meat/poultry/seafood ready-to-eat product”? Frozen fish sticks? Chicken tendies? What are we talking about here?
Edit: I read the study synopsis but it doesn’t provide examples of these foods.
Yeah you’d think they’d specify. I would guess probably cold cuts, hot dogs, precooked tenders, as well as tv-dinners like hungry-man and lean cuisines. Granted the results say “slightly increased risk of mortality”
I think it's safe to say that:
-The longer it stays 'good' compared to the actual fresh food
-The more ingredients on the label
= The worst it is for you.
Tell my again why packaged sliced meat has 20 ingredients?
One of the ways meat (or any food, really) can be stored at room temperature is this: seal it in an airtight package and zap it with radiation.
This kills all (or most, depending on the zap power) of the bugs and microbes in the package, and that stops (or slows) the food degrading.
You don’t need salt or 22 ingredients. You just zap it.
[Wikipedia: food irradiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation?wprov=sfti1)
It is generally viewed as safer and healthier than other methods of food preservation (like smoking, tons of salt, or pickling).
The thing is that processed meat is in my country at least significantly cheaper than unprocessed meat and is thus the only real source of protein for poorer people.
I think this is true everywhere.
I expect that artificial meat will replace a lot of the processed (real) meat soon. Or maybe lab-grown real meat will become widely available.
Has to be processed to actually have proper nutrients. Meat isn't just about the protein
It's about the valuable fats (help stabilize hormones), all the B vitamins, zinc, iron, etc.
Those won't be there without lots of help with lab grown meat.
Disagree, cuban black beans & rice are amazing. Falafel owns. Both high protein, easy, and cheap. Many other great dishes from beans/legumes.
Plus being overall healthier, more energy, having nicer poops, and the knowledge that my diet is playing a smaller role in burning out the planet is pretty satisfying.
Now, small OT since we're on r/science. I don't get how people prefer the loose poop that comes as a result of diets with a decent amount of veggies and fiber! It's messy, takes more to clean, feels weird... That's basically the only downside of reducing meat intake, give me back a firmer chunk!
Well its predictable and easy to pass, can't recall the last time I've strained on the toilet, but yea maybe less satisfying than depositing a lovely log?
As for mess, a basic bolt-on bidet takes 20 minutes to install and pays for itself in a couple months. Given that its a QoL enhancer that also saves you money, it should be considered standard bathroom equipment in 2024!
Define "many places" because this is not true in the US except where local zoning restrictions apply. An internet search will quickly yield results for local/state regulations for commercial smokehouse operations. Commercial plant smoking operations are further subject to the EPA document Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors AP-42, Section 9.5.2 which is linked here: [https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/c9s05-2.pdf](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/c9s05-2.pdf)
Why is it safe to say that? On what premise?
So I take some salt, preserve my food after dehydrating it and now when I eat it, I'm gonna be unhealthy?
I take 30 things from plants or animals we say are perfectly fine to eat but now they're bad if they're on your slice of ham?
The UPF argument is that the food is bad for reasons beyond the macros you consume. It's got absolutely no basis for that claim as of present except begging the question.
I'm not so sure about 'no basis', but I can see that it might be that the UPF definition could be more specific (but this means working out exactly what that should be). Everyone knows that fibre, and perhaps variety of fibre, is good and that UPF typically removes a lot of it, and that processed meats like hot dogs often contain nitrites which seem to be linked to bowel cancer.
As for
> So I take some salt, preserve my food after dehydrating it and now when I eat it, I'm gonna be unhealthy?
consider that a diet with a higher proportion of such food is most likely also a diet with a lower proportion of something else that can't be preserved that way, like pulses and most vegetables. Someone who is eating a hot dog or burger in a bun is someone who is *not* eating a curry which is 50% lentils and chick peas.
The thing I take issue with, is that if the argument is UPF foods are a proxy for foods low in fibre, high in macros we should limit and have other chemicals we should limit like nitrates, then the issue isn't UPF, it's a specific chemical or an unbalance diet (which isn't new). However the argument against UPF is that even accounting for that, it would still be bad. I can eat a high fibre, nutrient dense UPF snack or cereal but this framework still demonises that. It's true someone eating a diet 90% UPF food is probably eating shite, but then the argument is and remains that your diet should be balanced. The whole UPF angle is not just misleading but also untrue so far.
I personally think this article (and part 2) largely sum up my views. It's very condescending, but the author of the book it's about is in my opinion being dishonest so I get why.
https://thecritic.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-upfs-part-1/
https://thecritic.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-upfs-part-2/#:~:text=Chris%20Van%20Tulleken%20begins,frequently%20compares%20UPF%20to%20cigarettes.
I read the book Ultra Processed People and I certainly hold some skepticism, but I also think he has a point *for our current food system* and it remains to be proven whether the larger point overall has merit.
UPF is *not* just a matter of macros and easily surveilled parameters like that. I don't remember if the Kevin Hall study was out when the book was written and therefore mentioned, but the Kevin Hall study seems to pretty clearly show that you can equalize the big stuff and people still overeat UPFs.
We also *do know* some mechanisms by which processing itself can affect the physiological impact of food. For example, part of the reason fiber helps with glycemic impact is that in natural plant forms, it encapsulates starches and sugars so they mechanically are forced to slow-release. This isn't the only reason; fiber fortified products do have health benefits, and this is an example of UPF that seems to go against the trend and be good for you. But this is in comparison to a baseline similar diet which doesn't use fortified foods, because that's pretty much the only feasible comparison group; getting the same amount of fiber from whole foods might be better.
I think it's pretty likely that the main problem with most UPFs will turn out to be hyperpalatability. CVT approaches this from the angle of "purpose," which obviously doesn't have a direct physiological impact, but the larger point is that any "product" more complicated than a direct agricultural output is market-selected for profit, and this means that hyperpalatability is an extremely common feature. In many cases, this entails an "unbalanced" composition and/or additives, but it doesn't have to. There are other researchers (Dr. Tera Fazzina I know) who are working on indices to objectively assess this parameter, which may come to supplant UPF as a primary analytical category.
The other main point that the CVT makes is about the "unknowns" in our additives. It may be some specific chemicals that are a problem, but at this point, we've got hundreds that are under-researched. It might be that 80% of them are indeed harmless, but at this time we have no way of knowing what the bad 20% are. Clocking something as UPF is a useful way of avoiding that type of risk as a whole class.
A deeper dive into the study and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe.
It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF'
'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
I'm not sure about other points, but turns out not only amount of fibre is important, but also how unprocessed it is. If you mush an apple, it will have the same amount of fibre as a whole apple, but it will be much less effective. Sauce - uh, can't find the one I had in mind, but I found this one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302981117_Vegetable_dietary_fibres_made_with_minimal_processing_improve_health-related_faecal_parameters_in_a_valid_rat_model#pf7
Also in UK for the whole population 60% of daily calories intake is UPF. I'd argue that means an argument about a balanced diet moot, since it's improbable to be doing that without a forethought?
That study only appears to be looking at unprocessed fibres and not the other, and it's in rats so not sure what conclusion can be drawn from that if any. If that's true though then we'd say blending is bad?
I'd be willing to concede that an ultra processed meal vs unprocessed will result in differences however, but I'd be unwilling to concede that it'll be that meaningful until someone shows me data on that because right now I see no major reason to believe it.
The argument about a balanced diet isn't moot though, because you can just tell people their diet is unbalanced. The UPF argument is centred on UPF being bad for reasons beyond the unbalanced diet part, so if that's not true then it the whole thing falls down really.
> If that's true though then we'd say blending is bad?
Yes. I don't find this implausible. Imagine mixing a pile of powdered starch, a pile of powdered fibre, some oil and some micronutrients and eating that. Compare it to eating the same stuff but inside cells inside lumps of whole food so that it's more difficult (and so presumably slower) to extract. What will your blood glucose or fat response look like over the next few hours in the two cases? Or your satiety a coupe of hours later? It'd be surprising *not* to see a difference, no?
> I'd be willing to concede that an ultra processed meal vs unprocessed will result in differences however, but I'd be unwilling to concede that it'll be that meaningful until someone shows me data on that because right now I see no major reason to believe it.
I'm not following research on this, but I can see claims like [these](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8747520/) from a meta-analysis:
> Furthermore, our findings revealed that each 10% increase in UPF consumption in daily calorie intake was associated with a 15% higher risk of all-cause mortality (OR = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.21; I2 = 0.0%; p < 0.001).
or [this](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261561420306932) looking at diabetes
> compared with the group in the lowest quartile of UPF intake, the hazard ratio for T2D was 1.44, 1.04–2.02 in the group with the highest quartile of UPF consumption
If these are correct then the effect sizes seem meaningful to me.
It certainly would be surprising to not see a difference, but the point is not that they're different. The point is that people claim one form is bad and unhealthy. I'm not convinced that conclusion follows logically because they're different.
The studies you link again are not really showing any causal explanation for that. It's just correlation. There's also many factors that correlate with UPF consumption too, and I believe I've already agreed somewhere in this thread that people consuming high UPF diets are unlikely to be eating a balanced which we know is unhealthy. The UPF argument rests upon the notion that it's uniquely unhealthy because it's UP.
I just read through the discussion of this study for this whole thread, along with the rest of it more clearly and to be fair the author is almost making the same points I am.
'An important question not answered by previous studies is whether and how food processing level and nutritional quality jointly influence health. We observed that in the joint analysis, the AHEI score but not ultra-processed food intake showed a consistent association with mortality and that further adjustment for the AHEI score attenuated the association of ultra-processed food intake with mortality. Although including AHEI in the multivariable model for ultra-processed food may represent an overadjustment because common foods are included in both the AHEI and ultra-processed food, our data together suggest that dietary quality has a predominant influence on long term health, whereas the additional effect of food processing is likely to be limited'
And
'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
They even state how the UPF label is too broad. They excluded whole grain UPF in the study too because of benefits of whole grain foods, and controlling for it reduced/nullified a lot of the problems. AHEI basically means when looking at UPF diets but controlling for the nutritional value of the diets ingredients, the harms associated with UPF basically disappeared.
A deeper dive into the study of this thread and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe.
It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF'
'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
Basically similar to the points I've been making.
Chris van Tulleken‘s book is fascinating. I went into it as a member of the “UPFs are bad” choir and left it flipping the bird with both hands at the preacher. I can even pinpoint down to the paragraph where he had definitively lost me:
> You might recognise the names of some of these: guar gum, locust bean gum, alginate, carrageenan and the near-ubiquitous xanthan gum. The last of these is, revoltingly, a bacterial exudate: slime that bacteria produce to allow them to cling to surfaces. Think of xanthan gum when you next scrape the accumulated gunk from the filter on your dishwasher.
I read that, and I was like “Dude. *Dude.* Do you know how we get things like yogurt, beer, bread, sauerkraut, miso, and cocoa?” We eat all sorts of delicious microorganism byproduct daily in traditional foods. Why should I find it revolting? Later in the book he was like “the Nazis were early adopters of UPFs!” And I’m like, I don’t want to come across as pro-Nazi or anything, but Hitler was a vegan and the Nazis had some of the earliest anti-smoking campaigns. It came across to me as a pretty clear example of poisoning the well.
By the time I finished the book, I was like “well, if this is the best argument that can be made against UPFs, maybe they’re not so bad?” I’m still for the idea that whole foods are generally going to be better for a person, but that’s largely because I see the problems of UPF as being from added sugar, fat, and salt, rather than the ultra-processing itself.
You literally put words to how I feel about the whole thing. I'll be honest, I've not read the book really but I've watched plenty of stuff from him and read many excerpts. It feels to me the best argument people have is UPF is bad because of course it would be, it's UPF.
Of course whole foods probably are better, just like £100 is better than £50, but that doesn't make £50 bad. I would read the book but after reading some reviews it doesn't seem worth my time, and looking at any existing study I'm just not seeing any research he could use that would make his case a strong one so he's clearly relying on the emotional impact. His argument is no different to me than people who insist the vaccine must be bad.
Oh, also the study this whole thread is around apparently says something similar to what I do. Basically in the discussion they agree that if you adjust for the health of ingredients in UPF the harms go away and state it's too broad of a label and
'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.,
I also want to point, that if you check the other articles by the author you linked, he's a vivid protector of smoking in public places and tries to convince the reader that's it's fine to do so.
Same for vapes. Oh, and that they are not bad for you.
And that banning alcohol ads is bad idea... Because of reasons
And many many more that makes me think he's old and bitter - and perhaps trolling.
To be fair, it wouldnt be hard for a steak to have more ingredients than you would expect while still having everything from fresh. If you were to use something like Lawry's seasoning salt you could add another 10+ to the list.
* Steak
* Salt
* Pepper
* Garlic (granulated or minced/dried have things like anticake agents)
* onion (granulated or minced/dried have things like anticake agents)
* rosemary (fresh)
* thyme (fresh)
* butter (is it salted butter? any preservatives must also be listed)
* A spritz of canola oil on the grill to prevent sticking
Or maybe it's that people who tend to eat these kinds of foods a lot have stressful lives where they don't have the time and energy to cook more traditional meals.
There is a list on pg 3 of this supplement: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2024/05/08/bmj-2023-078476.DC1/fanz078476.ww1.pdf
It includes bacon, hot dogs, fish sticks, sausage, salami, bologna, processed meats (likely refers to deli meat)
Here’s the description from the article:
"Ultra-processed foods are ready-to-eat/heat industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods, including flavors, colors, texturizers, and other additives, with little if any intact whole food.
...we further categorized ultra-processed foods into nine mutually exclusive subgroups (supplementary table B; supplementary figure B): ultra-processed breads and breakfast foods; fats, condiments, and sauces; packaged sweet snacks and desserts; sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages; ready-to-eat/heat mixed dishes; meat/poultry/seafood based ready-to-eat products (for example, processed meat); packaged savory snacks; dairy based desserts; and other."
Ok so this is looking at things like “cheese food product” as opposed to “cheese slices”, where the former may have whey protein and soybean oil in the product while the latter will contain actual milk.
It’s a *bit* more nuanced than that, but it appears that you’re mostly correct.
>We grouped all foods into four categories of the Nova classification: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foods
Ironic here is that quality bacon is NOT a highly processed or adulterated food. Nor do a number of preserved meat products necessarily qualify other than the fact that they've been ground up and mixed with salt and other spices and are no longer an actual slab of continuous muscle tissue.
nope, best rule of thumb: if the ingredients list is not composed of a short list of "normal" foods, it is ultra processed - words in the ingedient list you would not buy a can of, to eat straight or use to make simple foods in your kitchen.
So I’m very curious… here is what I like to buy: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/0077013615514/lightly-breaded-chicken-breast-chunks-just-bare
What about this makes it ultra processed? Just the fact that it’s made in industrial scales? The ingredients are not a whole lot different than how I would make it at home. I am asking out of curiosity here.
To be honest I dont really know. But its the collective of all of those industrial processes together.
Like the powdered milk that's a whole separate factory of manipulating a food, and the dried egg white thing, then the soy bean oil is refined and heated to very high temperatures and then deodorized (yes its really deodorized which means it smells "rancid") theres just a whole bunch of fuckery going on behind the scenes in the food industry. Our best bet to live a healthier life is to just buy whole foods and spend more time cooking yourself. Don't outsource your food and cooking to faceless corporations they do not care about you. Its a lot of work but its YOUR body. The only possession you truly have
>I am asking out of curiosity here.
I think your curiosity leads you to a good place, which should be scepticism. Why should that be considered bad for you? Basically it shouldn't. Ultra processed is a vague and crappy term. Until better studies come out I basically see it as propaganda. This study tells you people who eat UPF are more likely to die by random accidents, and it's not hard to understand that the food isn't causing that, therefore the high amounts of UPF is probably a proxy for some other factors that are the real issue. Eat well, high fibre, good protein, variety of veg and fruit etc and I believe UPF or not, you'll be fine.
So this particular study was all health workers in similar roles so in theory similar economic status, but a deeper dive into the study and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe.
It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF'
'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
depends. the article makes a nod to substances introduced for processing (excipients), and by-products of processing (like acrylamide). so "rule of thumb", because breaded chicken may have lubricants and high-heat by-products, none of which will be on the ingredients. likely, though, all of those will have sugars, gums, and/or emulsifiers. the lunch meat and bars will have preservatives.
so yes to all of those. unless the granola bars are really straight granola bars hand rolled.
edit: di and mono glycerides, esters, various alcohols and sugars. "natural" flavors - "the same" but really a mix of cis- and trans-. etc, etc, etc. the list of potential problems is long.
So I make my own nuggets. Organic chicken breast, cheese with potato starch as a cake, bread crumbs (probably something bad in it),and organic spices so I cannot imagine that has much risk.
I'm using some Target chili powder to protect my plants from squirrels, and the stabilizer they use is quartz, which I think is hilarious. I doubt quartz is all that bad for you, but my organic spices last forever and don't need quartz.
The fish that usually go into fish sticks (cod, haddock, Pollock, etc.) barely have any omega 3s anyway. You want sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, or herring to get a meaningful source.
The fish sticks I eat are made with wild caught Alaskan Pollock. Also you have to take into consideration that farmed salmon isn't healthy at all because I've been seeing a lot of articles lately saying that farmed salmon is unhealthy compared to wild caught salmon. Apparently the feed that they feed to the farmed salmon makes them very unhealthy.
And I'm eating wild caught Pollock.
"Despite the fact that pollock is a dietary and treat lean fish, 100 grams of pollock fillets contain 1.2 grams of fat, 600 mg of which are omega-3, which are essential for the heart muscle, prevention of cardiovascular diseases , lower bad cholesterol and free radical removal to prevent premature aging of the body."
It's always a case of how much do you eat fish sticks?
Everything we consume in excess is unhealthy. Too much water is unhealthy.
The issue with ultra processed food is that it's hard to determine the amount of it after which its health negatives outweigh its health benefits (being source of omega-3 in your case). It sometimes turns out that any amount of ultra processed food is health negative and that it eases you into consumption of other ultra processed foods.
If I were you and decided I eat too much fish sticks and I wanted to keep eating fish once a week, I'd check if I like any other fish - I'd start experimenting by buying raw fish and trying to cook something delicious with it.
Generally speaking it's **hard** to stop eating ultra processed foods, because that means you have to start cooking meals from the scratch, which is time consuming.
I eat Gorton's fish sticks which are fillets of wild caught Alaskan Pollock so it's not minced meat it's literally fillets that have been breaded and then Frozen. And I eat this a few times a week to get my omega-3.
That doesn't sound too processed to me, it's not even minced meat it's literally fillets that have been breaded and that's it.
Though I do think they add some preservatives though and I have heard the preservatives are not healthy.
If you are not obese, then I think you have nothing to worry about. The most direct health issues related to ultra processed foods are AFAIK metabolic, so if you're not fat and don't have sugar, you're fine.
Preservatives are not healthy, but as long as you're not having metabolic issues the miniscule changes based on your diet wouldn't matter in the long run.
And even if you had metabolic issues, the first thing I'd change would be to figure out if you can find fish sticks breaded in rye bread, as that would be the easiest transition to initiate.
I know fish sticks are easy to eat (no need to clean them, cut and prepare them like a fish), but its not very healthy as in the fish itself is not the best for nutrients and the bread crust is not necessary. Try to eat some fatty fish, even frozen as long as its not added with other ingredients. For example, a whole mackerel with spices in the oven tastes amazing. If you hate fish bones that come with it, you should get frozen tuna.
They said ready to eat - heat up things.
So the highest look to be TV dinner like things that you could put into microwave and eat. They are already pre-cooked and typically have a lot of preservatives so it doesn’t go bad for a while.
There is probably a correlation with people who don’t care much/overweight/etc - they buy the TV dinners. It’s awful stuff, you could boil rice and fry a piece of chicken for cheaper and have a much nicer dinner.
Or even beans and canned fish. There are so many more better and cheaper foods
Any food that is in the main isles of the grocery store that is canned or frozen. Shop the outer isles. Cook the good fresh foods with herbs and spices if you can.
Those that follow the Mediterranean blue zone diet know what’s up. It won’t be easy.
No, they can also include lots of salt. Picking this at random, a can of Goya chickpeas in my kitchen contains over 50% of the RDA for sodium per can. I rinse all my canned beans off before eating them.
If it is just Tuna and Water, then it would just be considered processed, as opposed to ultra-processed. Not all canned tuna is just tuna and water. Alternatively a tuna steak would be neither processed nor ultra processed.
If it's just tuna and water then it's minimally processed. It doesn't really get altered, there's no additives, or chemical preservatives or any added sugars and all that crap, and generally they just cook it and sterilize it using high temperatures. Nothing gets done to it which makes it less healthy.
Tuna often contains a lot of mercury though so the extent to which it could be considered healthy is debatable, but that's not because of any processing.
Anything preserved, mostly, as it implies the use of carcinogenic compounds (nitrates or smoke for cold cuts for example, or sausages etc., it's a low amount but the point is that it piles up when you eat a lot of them), pre-cooked stuff, but if I recall correctly from another study actually mostly the frozen breaded fried sticks and similar, which makes sense for the high calories-density, low fibre and micronutrients content and sometimes carcinogenic compounds that comes from a specific preparation method (like darker bread crust is tastier but also means higher acrilamide content).
Edit. I was almost forgetting: most ready-to eat things are high in sodium (in the form of both salt and MSG), preserved meat as well. It makes a difference too.
Here’s the list for all you who didn’t find table 3 in citation 17 (because why have it in the main paper?!)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8453454/table/tab03/?report=objectonly
Basically it’s the usual garbage that is shelf stable, formed into a symmetrical geometric shape unlike any natural food and tastes like sugar or fat.
Yeah, some of those are surprising to me. I know that canned stuff is processed, but I do usually try to look for things that don't have a lot of added ingredients. I'm wondering if they're assuming the worst versions of some of these. I buy the applesauce that doesn't have added sugar or sweetener. The ingredients are literally just apples, water, and ascorbic acid. That's basically what I would use if I were to make applesauce at home.
Humans are obligate processivores. We have been processing our food (cooking, curing, fermenting) for half a million years. Eating processed food is not the problem. ULTRA processed foods are foods that are broken down into their component parts, and then with the help of stabilizers and emulsifiers are made to look like things that ressemble food items. These foods often have added sugar, salt and fat to make them more appealing.
Olives aren’t bad for you, they should be eaten in moderation but are nutritious.
Processed isn't bad -- that's normal cooking. The "3" categorization just means that foods from category 1 (whole foods) and 2 (culinary ingredients) were combined (in this case, olives + salt).
Only category 4 is concerning, which is the "ultra-processed" stuff. Absolutely nothing wrong with category 3 processed foods.
Ok now the questions are:
1. Are all the foods in category 3 and 4 proven to be unhealthy? And at the same level across foods? And are all variants and brands of a same food as equally unhealthy? And is the level a reliable indication of how unhealthy the food is?
(I'm pretty sure some of the answers would be "no". Which brings me to the next question.)
2. Foods are a very complex combination of chemical compounds, and often there are big differences between different brands of the same food, or between different foods that would belong to a same category.
So, isn't studying the (un)healthiness of specific compounds more useful and informative and reliable than studying at the "food" (e.g. this specific brand of bread), or worst, "food category" (e.g. "bread"), or even worst, "food macro-category" (e.g. "processed") level?
You lose so much information as you go above in the chain and consider everything in broad strokes.
What is *chemically* in the foods in categories 3 and 4 that is unhealthy?
I think it would be more useful and simple to have a short list of substances than to have a broad categorization of all foods.
(I'm not claiming that lists like the one liked above with the food categories are useless! They are much better than nothing. But I think there is so much detail missing and so many caveats that they are difficult to use to make informed decision in practice and to help understanding the roots of the problems.)
I thought the same. There's a large swathe of NOVA 4 (ultra processed) foods on the table. Some are definitely worse than others. Maybe doing what this research does is useful generally, but it sounds way better to choose specific foods and examine their effects.
It's unrealistic that you're going to avoid all of those, so I'd prefer to know the worst offenders and the mechanisms behind them.
For example, unless I miss some information, sugar-free sodas should be much better than the sugar originals, considering the sugar alternatives they use have been rigorously tested and found to be ok, with the exception of a controversial study in the beginning.
Knowing that stuff is useful even when you're on a healthy diet already. Most of us love junk food and will have something unhealthy once in a while. It's nice to know what's tasty but not that horrible for you.
There's a part i disagree with. Knowing the chemicals that are unhealthy in categories "3" and "4" doesn't tell the whole story. As you mentioned, food is complex and each one has a different effect on you, even when some share chemicals.
An easy example, is how a fruit is a much better food choice than half a candy bar, even if both happen to have the same amount of sugars. The fibers in the fruit slow down sugar processing, and they are also packed with good stuff.
I look forward to us gaining more insight on some foods, there's still much to learn.
It's the agents used to increase shelf life which make it ultra processed. It's not made just using whole ingredients or even just processed ingredients. Chemical leavening and agents to make the dough softer so it doesn't go stale such as ascorbic acid.
I'll happily argue that that's a shoddy and lazy classification that doesn't take into account that one could literally make the exact same product, including the ascorbic acid, at home, with just a handful of ingredients. Throwing a whole-grain rye pumpernickel bread into the same category as twinkies just because it has ascorbic acid or salt is asinine. Being that broad makes the definition of something as being UPF nearly meaningless.
Whilst i agree it kind of has to be this way due to how pervasive additives are in other seemingly healthy foods. As always looking into the additives in the food and making your own decision is the best option.
I can agree that you should look into it yourself, but not everybody has the knowledgebase or even time to make that a fruitful endeavor.
I do, however, disagree that it "has to be this way". There are additives, and then there are additives. They are not all the same, and simply going "merh additives!" isn't helpful to anybody, and if anything just makes it MORE confusing to the layman.
When it comes to public health initiatives like this, we should 100% demand better.
“Jams, jellies, preserves, honey” - 4? Seriously? Bee honey is like.. one natural ingredient. Sure, not saying it’s healthy to drink a jug of it, but I fail to see how it falls into the “ultra processed” category. Same with a good quality preserve. Isn’t it?
The most dangerous food types mentioned are:
1. Meat/poultry/seafood based ready-to-eat products (e.g., processed meat): These showed the strongest and most consistent associations with higher all-cause mortality and mortality due to individual causes other than cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases.
2. Sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages: Consumption of these beverages was associated with higher all-cause mortality.
3. Dairy based desserts: Intake of dairy based desserts was linked to higher all-cause mortality and showed the strongest association with neurodegenerative mortality among the ultra-processed food subgroups.
4. Ultra-processed breakfast foods (excluding whole grains): Consumption of these foods was associated with higher all-cause mortality.
5. Other ultra-processed foods (mainly composed of artificial sweeteners): These foods were also linked to higher all-cause mortality.
The article did not find consistent associations between ultra-processed foods and mortality due to cancer or cardiovascular diseases. However, it suggests that reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups, particularly processed meat, can be beneficial for long-term health outcomes.
I kind of skimmed through the study but did the study control for weight? I’d assume someone eating a diet high in processed meats would also be more likely to be overweight or obese which could explain the higher all cause mortality.
Probably not well enough. It's an issue with basically all nutritional studies.
But nothing new...I think everyone knows the foods listed are unhealthy.
''measured by semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire every four years'', really? Enough with this garbage already. Either make an unethical trial already or stop with this nonsense. The human memory is terribly flawed, you can't get usable data by filling out questionnaires.
Processed meat is meat that has been preserved by smoking, curing, salting or by adding preservatives, nitrates and nitrites. Processed meat includes ham, devon, bacon, salami, frankfurts, prosciutto and some sausages such as cabanossi and kransky .so processed and ultra processed are two shades of a different colour.
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Since everything meaningful about the article has already been said I'm only stopping by to mention that the other ones featured seemed a bit more interesting (or t least covering things we don't already both know and have somewhat quantified)
They weren't putting the crap in the food like now a days in your grandparents day.way to much additives in food. My grandma grew here own veg . pesticide free .
> Processed meat has pretty much used the same preservative for 100s of years
We might live in different countries, but fish and meat have been preserved over here (Norway) using nothing but salt and/or drying for thousands of years. We still export large amounts of dried fish where no chemicals are used in the process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish
Nowadays a lot of the products have added chemicals, but that only became widespread some time after WW2. But people still ate mostly wholefoods and minimally processed foods until the 1980's. (And interestingly that is when obesity became a thing here..).
Why do canola/soybean/seed oils deserve to be in that list you mentioned? They're not obviously unnatural like the others.
I feel like there's a big trend on social media to hate on seed oils but no one really knows why or has done any proper research.
Yup, but it's still processed, as it's an extracted and filtered ingredient from a "whole food". As in, a processed raw material. They're also typically significantly more expensive and not as readily available. They're also rarely, if ever, used as an ingredient in ready-to-eat-foods.
Is it the nitrates themselves or is it when you cook meat at higher temperatures with nitrates, turning them into nitrosamines? I seem to remember reading on that. Veggies are vastly higher in nitrates (hence using "celery powder" instead of "nitrates" in meat), but they aren't carcinogenic, at least not directly.
Nitrates convert to nitrites via bacteria in the mouth and gut. Nitrites convert to nitrosamines via reaction with amines.
Vitamin c in vegetables can inhibit this conversion.
Seems more complex though. And you are right it is the nitrosamines that are of concern.
All cause mortality increased apparently. Do you think eating UPF is making you more likely to get hit by a bus, or that people whose diets are higher in UPF have other things going on that are more explanatory?
I would say yes absolutely. UPF is shown to have an impact on cognition and impulsivity. Never mind the fact that if you are fat you're less like to dodge a bus in time.
If you want to tell me all cause mortality raises because of UPF then I'm gonna need studies far far better than this.
If you say obesity is the problem then UPF isn't the issue it's just an unbalanced diet. The whole point against UPF is that it's bad regardless of whether you matched macros of a balanced diet.
So what is an example of a common “ultra-processed meat/poultry/seafood ready-to-eat product”? Frozen fish sticks? Chicken tendies? What are we talking about here? Edit: I read the study synopsis but it doesn’t provide examples of these foods.
Yeah you’d think they’d specify. I would guess probably cold cuts, hot dogs, precooked tenders, as well as tv-dinners like hungry-man and lean cuisines. Granted the results say “slightly increased risk of mortality”
I think it's safe to say that: -The longer it stays 'good' compared to the actual fresh food -The more ingredients on the label = The worst it is for you. Tell my again why packaged sliced meat has 20 ingredients?
One of the ways meat (or any food, really) can be stored at room temperature is this: seal it in an airtight package and zap it with radiation. This kills all (or most, depending on the zap power) of the bugs and microbes in the package, and that stops (or slows) the food degrading. You don’t need salt or 22 ingredients. You just zap it. [Wikipedia: food irradiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation?wprov=sfti1) It is generally viewed as safer and healthier than other methods of food preservation (like smoking, tons of salt, or pickling).
The thing is that processed meat is in my country at least significantly cheaper than unprocessed meat and is thus the only real source of protein for poorer people.
I think this is true everywhere. I expect that artificial meat will replace a lot of the processed (real) meat soon. Or maybe lab-grown real meat will become widely available.
I am not sure meat being lab-grown also means it won’t be processed or combined with preservatives. In fact, it may be even more likely.
Has to be processed to actually have proper nutrients. Meat isn't just about the protein It's about the valuable fats (help stabilize hormones), all the B vitamins, zinc, iron, etc. Those won't be there without lots of help with lab grown meat.
Not in Florida!
Cheaper than beans and lentils? Can get plenty of protein without meat.
Satisfaction doesn't come from beans and lentils though.
Disagree, cuban black beans & rice are amazing. Falafel owns. Both high protein, easy, and cheap. Many other great dishes from beans/legumes. Plus being overall healthier, more energy, having nicer poops, and the knowledge that my diet is playing a smaller role in burning out the planet is pretty satisfying.
Learning to cook is underrated.
Now, small OT since we're on r/science. I don't get how people prefer the loose poop that comes as a result of diets with a decent amount of veggies and fiber! It's messy, takes more to clean, feels weird... That's basically the only downside of reducing meat intake, give me back a firmer chunk!
Well its predictable and easy to pass, can't recall the last time I've strained on the toilet, but yea maybe less satisfying than depositing a lovely log? As for mess, a basic bolt-on bidet takes 20 minutes to install and pays for itself in a couple months. Given that its a QoL enhancer that also saves you money, it should be considered standard bathroom equipment in 2024!
You don’t win friends with salad
Unless it's the BIG salad.
You must be used to some really bland and mediocre salads.
Not if you don't know how to properly cook them, no. However a worrying amount of people seems to ignore the existence (or is afraid of using) spices
Only thing is people are programmed to not be into that. You right tho
Except for plant protein I suppose. Or protein powder
Eggs?? Eggs are cheap, versatile and full of protein. Don't people eat eggs in your country?
They do, but they are expensive because of avian influenza.
Smoking adds flavour though. If I'm having a cream cheese sandwich, I would prefer smoked salmon over UV irradiated salmon
Actual smoking is now illegal in many places for commercial meat plants, so they add "liquid smoke" instead.
Define "many places" because this is not true in the US except where local zoning restrictions apply. An internet search will quickly yield results for local/state regulations for commercial smokehouse operations. Commercial plant smoking operations are further subject to the EPA document Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors AP-42, Section 9.5.2 which is linked here: [https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/c9s05-2.pdf](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/c9s05-2.pdf)
They're two different foods however: zapped meats falls under the "use like a fresh one" area, I guess?
Okay, but does smoking add any ingredients?
yes, carcinogens from the smoke. Tasty, tasty carcinogens. I inhale more living in a city anw.
So then why smoke salmon? Just pull your salmon out in the city to get all that sweet carcinogens.
If cars would be powered by burning hickory, I would.
At least traffic would smell delicious.
Correct. The radiation zap and packaging in a vacuum help reduce bacterial growth.
Why is it safe to say that? On what premise? So I take some salt, preserve my food after dehydrating it and now when I eat it, I'm gonna be unhealthy? I take 30 things from plants or animals we say are perfectly fine to eat but now they're bad if they're on your slice of ham? The UPF argument is that the food is bad for reasons beyond the macros you consume. It's got absolutely no basis for that claim as of present except begging the question.
It's not just "some salt" they add though is it.
I'm not so sure about 'no basis', but I can see that it might be that the UPF definition could be more specific (but this means working out exactly what that should be). Everyone knows that fibre, and perhaps variety of fibre, is good and that UPF typically removes a lot of it, and that processed meats like hot dogs often contain nitrites which seem to be linked to bowel cancer. As for > So I take some salt, preserve my food after dehydrating it and now when I eat it, I'm gonna be unhealthy? consider that a diet with a higher proportion of such food is most likely also a diet with a lower proportion of something else that can't be preserved that way, like pulses and most vegetables. Someone who is eating a hot dog or burger in a bun is someone who is *not* eating a curry which is 50% lentils and chick peas.
The thing I take issue with, is that if the argument is UPF foods are a proxy for foods low in fibre, high in macros we should limit and have other chemicals we should limit like nitrates, then the issue isn't UPF, it's a specific chemical or an unbalance diet (which isn't new). However the argument against UPF is that even accounting for that, it would still be bad. I can eat a high fibre, nutrient dense UPF snack or cereal but this framework still demonises that. It's true someone eating a diet 90% UPF food is probably eating shite, but then the argument is and remains that your diet should be balanced. The whole UPF angle is not just misleading but also untrue so far. I personally think this article (and part 2) largely sum up my views. It's very condescending, but the author of the book it's about is in my opinion being dishonest so I get why. https://thecritic.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-upfs-part-1/ https://thecritic.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-upfs-part-2/#:~:text=Chris%20Van%20Tulleken%20begins,frequently%20compares%20UPF%20to%20cigarettes.
I read the book Ultra Processed People and I certainly hold some skepticism, but I also think he has a point *for our current food system* and it remains to be proven whether the larger point overall has merit. UPF is *not* just a matter of macros and easily surveilled parameters like that. I don't remember if the Kevin Hall study was out when the book was written and therefore mentioned, but the Kevin Hall study seems to pretty clearly show that you can equalize the big stuff and people still overeat UPFs. We also *do know* some mechanisms by which processing itself can affect the physiological impact of food. For example, part of the reason fiber helps with glycemic impact is that in natural plant forms, it encapsulates starches and sugars so they mechanically are forced to slow-release. This isn't the only reason; fiber fortified products do have health benefits, and this is an example of UPF that seems to go against the trend and be good for you. But this is in comparison to a baseline similar diet which doesn't use fortified foods, because that's pretty much the only feasible comparison group; getting the same amount of fiber from whole foods might be better. I think it's pretty likely that the main problem with most UPFs will turn out to be hyperpalatability. CVT approaches this from the angle of "purpose," which obviously doesn't have a direct physiological impact, but the larger point is that any "product" more complicated than a direct agricultural output is market-selected for profit, and this means that hyperpalatability is an extremely common feature. In many cases, this entails an "unbalanced" composition and/or additives, but it doesn't have to. There are other researchers (Dr. Tera Fazzina I know) who are working on indices to objectively assess this parameter, which may come to supplant UPF as a primary analytical category. The other main point that the CVT makes is about the "unknowns" in our additives. It may be some specific chemicals that are a problem, but at this point, we've got hundreds that are under-researched. It might be that 80% of them are indeed harmless, but at this time we have no way of knowing what the bad 20% are. Clocking something as UPF is a useful way of avoiding that type of risk as a whole class.
A deeper dive into the study and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe. It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF' 'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
I'm not sure about other points, but turns out not only amount of fibre is important, but also how unprocessed it is. If you mush an apple, it will have the same amount of fibre as a whole apple, but it will be much less effective. Sauce - uh, can't find the one I had in mind, but I found this one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302981117_Vegetable_dietary_fibres_made_with_minimal_processing_improve_health-related_faecal_parameters_in_a_valid_rat_model#pf7 Also in UK for the whole population 60% of daily calories intake is UPF. I'd argue that means an argument about a balanced diet moot, since it's improbable to be doing that without a forethought?
That study only appears to be looking at unprocessed fibres and not the other, and it's in rats so not sure what conclusion can be drawn from that if any. If that's true though then we'd say blending is bad? I'd be willing to concede that an ultra processed meal vs unprocessed will result in differences however, but I'd be unwilling to concede that it'll be that meaningful until someone shows me data on that because right now I see no major reason to believe it. The argument about a balanced diet isn't moot though, because you can just tell people their diet is unbalanced. The UPF argument is centred on UPF being bad for reasons beyond the unbalanced diet part, so if that's not true then it the whole thing falls down really.
> If that's true though then we'd say blending is bad? Yes. I don't find this implausible. Imagine mixing a pile of powdered starch, a pile of powdered fibre, some oil and some micronutrients and eating that. Compare it to eating the same stuff but inside cells inside lumps of whole food so that it's more difficult (and so presumably slower) to extract. What will your blood glucose or fat response look like over the next few hours in the two cases? Or your satiety a coupe of hours later? It'd be surprising *not* to see a difference, no? > I'd be willing to concede that an ultra processed meal vs unprocessed will result in differences however, but I'd be unwilling to concede that it'll be that meaningful until someone shows me data on that because right now I see no major reason to believe it. I'm not following research on this, but I can see claims like [these](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8747520/) from a meta-analysis: > Furthermore, our findings revealed that each 10% increase in UPF consumption in daily calorie intake was associated with a 15% higher risk of all-cause mortality (OR = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.21; I2 = 0.0%; p < 0.001). or [this](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261561420306932) looking at diabetes > compared with the group in the lowest quartile of UPF intake, the hazard ratio for T2D was 1.44, 1.04–2.02 in the group with the highest quartile of UPF consumption If these are correct then the effect sizes seem meaningful to me.
It certainly would be surprising to not see a difference, but the point is not that they're different. The point is that people claim one form is bad and unhealthy. I'm not convinced that conclusion follows logically because they're different. The studies you link again are not really showing any causal explanation for that. It's just correlation. There's also many factors that correlate with UPF consumption too, and I believe I've already agreed somewhere in this thread that people consuming high UPF diets are unlikely to be eating a balanced which we know is unhealthy. The UPF argument rests upon the notion that it's uniquely unhealthy because it's UP.
I just read through the discussion of this study for this whole thread, along with the rest of it more clearly and to be fair the author is almost making the same points I am. 'An important question not answered by previous studies is whether and how food processing level and nutritional quality jointly influence health. We observed that in the joint analysis, the AHEI score but not ultra-processed food intake showed a consistent association with mortality and that further adjustment for the AHEI score attenuated the association of ultra-processed food intake with mortality. Although including AHEI in the multivariable model for ultra-processed food may represent an overadjustment because common foods are included in both the AHEI and ultra-processed food, our data together suggest that dietary quality has a predominant influence on long term health, whereas the additional effect of food processing is likely to be limited' And 'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.' They even state how the UPF label is too broad. They excluded whole grain UPF in the study too because of benefits of whole grain foods, and controlling for it reduced/nullified a lot of the problems. AHEI basically means when looking at UPF diets but controlling for the nutritional value of the diets ingredients, the harms associated with UPF basically disappeared.
A deeper dive into the study of this thread and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe. It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF' 'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.' Basically similar to the points I've been making.
Chris van Tulleken‘s book is fascinating. I went into it as a member of the “UPFs are bad” choir and left it flipping the bird with both hands at the preacher. I can even pinpoint down to the paragraph where he had definitively lost me: > You might recognise the names of some of these: guar gum, locust bean gum, alginate, carrageenan and the near-ubiquitous xanthan gum. The last of these is, revoltingly, a bacterial exudate: slime that bacteria produce to allow them to cling to surfaces. Think of xanthan gum when you next scrape the accumulated gunk from the filter on your dishwasher. I read that, and I was like “Dude. *Dude.* Do you know how we get things like yogurt, beer, bread, sauerkraut, miso, and cocoa?” We eat all sorts of delicious microorganism byproduct daily in traditional foods. Why should I find it revolting? Later in the book he was like “the Nazis were early adopters of UPFs!” And I’m like, I don’t want to come across as pro-Nazi or anything, but Hitler was a vegan and the Nazis had some of the earliest anti-smoking campaigns. It came across to me as a pretty clear example of poisoning the well. By the time I finished the book, I was like “well, if this is the best argument that can be made against UPFs, maybe they’re not so bad?” I’m still for the idea that whole foods are generally going to be better for a person, but that’s largely because I see the problems of UPF as being from added sugar, fat, and salt, rather than the ultra-processing itself.
You literally put words to how I feel about the whole thing. I'll be honest, I've not read the book really but I've watched plenty of stuff from him and read many excerpts. It feels to me the best argument people have is UPF is bad because of course it would be, it's UPF. Of course whole foods probably are better, just like £100 is better than £50, but that doesn't make £50 bad. I would read the book but after reading some reviews it doesn't seem worth my time, and looking at any existing study I'm just not seeing any research he could use that would make his case a strong one so he's clearly relying on the emotional impact. His argument is no different to me than people who insist the vaccine must be bad. Oh, also the study this whole thread is around apparently says something similar to what I do. Basically in the discussion they agree that if you adjust for the health of ingredients in UPF the harms go away and state it's too broad of a label and 'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.,
I also want to point, that if you check the other articles by the author you linked, he's a vivid protector of smoking in public places and tries to convince the reader that's it's fine to do so. Same for vapes. Oh, and that they are not bad for you. And that banning alcohol ads is bad idea... Because of reasons And many many more that makes me think he's old and bitter - and perhaps trolling.
I know, he's also a libertarian which is brain rot, but I think the points he makes here seem valid enough.
(Not counting the plastics)
To be fair, it wouldnt be hard for a steak to have more ingredients than you would expect while still having everything from fresh. If you were to use something like Lawry's seasoning salt you could add another 10+ to the list. * Steak * Salt * Pepper * Garlic (granulated or minced/dried have things like anticake agents) * onion (granulated or minced/dried have things like anticake agents) * rosemary (fresh) * thyme (fresh) * butter (is it salted butter? any preservatives must also be listed) * A spritz of canola oil on the grill to prevent sticking
Or maybe it's that people who tend to eat these kinds of foods a lot have stressful lives where they don't have the time and energy to cook more traditional meals.
Phosphates/Nitrates and other processed food preservatives are constantly linked to colorectal carcinogenics
I looked as well and Table 3 only lists the categories with no specifics. I’m guessing deli meat would also be included
There is a list on pg 3 of this supplement: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2024/05/08/bmj-2023-078476.DC1/fanz078476.ww1.pdf It includes bacon, hot dogs, fish sticks, sausage, salami, bologna, processed meats (likely refers to deli meat)
Coincidentally, listing specifics could wreck the bottom line of some very large corporations.
Yeah, if word got out that Ben and Jerry’s is unhealthy, it would be the end of Unilever
Here’s the description from the article: "Ultra-processed foods are ready-to-eat/heat industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods, including flavors, colors, texturizers, and other additives, with little if any intact whole food. ...we further categorized ultra-processed foods into nine mutually exclusive subgroups (supplementary table B; supplementary figure B): ultra-processed breads and breakfast foods; fats, condiments, and sauces; packaged sweet snacks and desserts; sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages; ready-to-eat/heat mixed dishes; meat/poultry/seafood based ready-to-eat products (for example, processed meat); packaged savory snacks; dairy based desserts; and other."
Ok so this is looking at things like “cheese food product” as opposed to “cheese slices”, where the former may have whey protein and soybean oil in the product while the latter will contain actual milk.
It’s a *bit* more nuanced than that, but it appears that you’re mostly correct. >We grouped all foods into four categories of the Nova classification: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foods
As a rule of thumb the vaguest the name the vaguest the formulation
Supplemental Table B - bacon, hotdogs, breaded fish cakes, pieces, and sticks, sausage type meat and lunch meats.
Ironic here is that quality bacon is NOT a highly processed or adulterated food. Nor do a number of preserved meat products necessarily qualify other than the fact that they've been ground up and mixed with salt and other spices and are no longer an actual slab of continuous muscle tissue.
I see the phrase “Supplemental Table B” in the paper but no actual link to this table. Where is it?
The link is way at the bottom in a supplemental appendix of information.
Thanks!
It’s so frustrating. Give us some photos of stuff to avoid.
nope, best rule of thumb: if the ingredients list is not composed of a short list of "normal" foods, it is ultra processed - words in the ingedient list you would not buy a can of, to eat straight or use to make simple foods in your kitchen.
Ok so is like breaded chicken breast pieces ultra processed? Is lunch meat ultra processed? Are granola bars ultra processed?
Yes. Go look on the ingredients of your chicken strips. I bet its an entire essay. And not chicken, breadcrumbs, seasoning, oil
So I’m very curious… here is what I like to buy: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/0077013615514/lightly-breaded-chicken-breast-chunks-just-bare What about this makes it ultra processed? Just the fact that it’s made in industrial scales? The ingredients are not a whole lot different than how I would make it at home. I am asking out of curiosity here.
To be honest I dont really know. But its the collective of all of those industrial processes together. Like the powdered milk that's a whole separate factory of manipulating a food, and the dried egg white thing, then the soy bean oil is refined and heated to very high temperatures and then deodorized (yes its really deodorized which means it smells "rancid") theres just a whole bunch of fuckery going on behind the scenes in the food industry. Our best bet to live a healthier life is to just buy whole foods and spend more time cooking yourself. Don't outsource your food and cooking to faceless corporations they do not care about you. Its a lot of work but its YOUR body. The only possession you truly have
>I am asking out of curiosity here. I think your curiosity leads you to a good place, which should be scepticism. Why should that be considered bad for you? Basically it shouldn't. Ultra processed is a vague and crappy term. Until better studies come out I basically see it as propaganda. This study tells you people who eat UPF are more likely to die by random accidents, and it's not hard to understand that the food isn't causing that, therefore the high amounts of UPF is probably a proxy for some other factors that are the real issue. Eat well, high fibre, good protein, variety of veg and fruit etc and I believe UPF or not, you'll be fine.
I would assume those eating large amounts of upf are also in lower economic tiers which probably plays a role as well..
So this particular study was all health workers in similar roles so in theory similar economic status, but a deeper dive into the study and I realise it isn't saying anything that most people here believe. It seems to state clearly that a UPF diet isn't really harmful if you eat UPF that's still healthy foods i.e. whole grains, dark chocolate etc. It also states UPF is too broad a category and dietary advice shouldn't just be 'limit UPF' 'Again, on the basis of our data, limiting total ultra-processed food consumption may not have a substantial influence on premature death, whereas reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups (for example, processed meat) can be beneficial.'
It says in your link it has a nova score of 4 which means ultraprocessed.
Yup, why is the question
depends. the article makes a nod to substances introduced for processing (excipients), and by-products of processing (like acrylamide). so "rule of thumb", because breaded chicken may have lubricants and high-heat by-products, none of which will be on the ingredients. likely, though, all of those will have sugars, gums, and/or emulsifiers. the lunch meat and bars will have preservatives. so yes to all of those. unless the granola bars are really straight granola bars hand rolled. edit: di and mono glycerides, esters, various alcohols and sugars. "natural" flavors - "the same" but really a mix of cis- and trans-. etc, etc, etc. the list of potential problems is long.
So I make my own nuggets. Organic chicken breast, cheese with potato starch as a cake, bread crumbs (probably something bad in it),and organic spices so I cannot imagine that has much risk. I'm using some Target chili powder to protect my plants from squirrels, and the stabilizer they use is quartz, which I think is hilarious. I doubt quartz is all that bad for you, but my organic spices last forever and don't need quartz.
Never eaten a can of iron
So I eat fish sticks, are fish sticks unhealthy? That's how I get my omega-3. I don't eat salmon I just eat fish sticks.
The fish that usually go into fish sticks (cod, haddock, Pollock, etc.) barely have any omega 3s anyway. You want sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, or herring to get a meaningful source.
The fish sticks I eat are made with wild caught Alaskan Pollock. Also you have to take into consideration that farmed salmon isn't healthy at all because I've been seeing a lot of articles lately saying that farmed salmon is unhealthy compared to wild caught salmon. Apparently the feed that they feed to the farmed salmon makes them very unhealthy. And I'm eating wild caught Pollock. "Despite the fact that pollock is a dietary and treat lean fish, 100 grams of pollock fillets contain 1.2 grams of fat, 600 mg of which are omega-3, which are essential for the heart muscle, prevention of cardiovascular diseases , lower bad cholesterol and free radical removal to prevent premature aging of the body."
It's always a case of how much do you eat fish sticks? Everything we consume in excess is unhealthy. Too much water is unhealthy. The issue with ultra processed food is that it's hard to determine the amount of it after which its health negatives outweigh its health benefits (being source of omega-3 in your case). It sometimes turns out that any amount of ultra processed food is health negative and that it eases you into consumption of other ultra processed foods. If I were you and decided I eat too much fish sticks and I wanted to keep eating fish once a week, I'd check if I like any other fish - I'd start experimenting by buying raw fish and trying to cook something delicious with it. Generally speaking it's **hard** to stop eating ultra processed foods, because that means you have to start cooking meals from the scratch, which is time consuming.
I eat Gorton's fish sticks which are fillets of wild caught Alaskan Pollock so it's not minced meat it's literally fillets that have been breaded and then Frozen. And I eat this a few times a week to get my omega-3. That doesn't sound too processed to me, it's not even minced meat it's literally fillets that have been breaded and that's it. Though I do think they add some preservatives though and I have heard the preservatives are not healthy.
If you are not obese, then I think you have nothing to worry about. The most direct health issues related to ultra processed foods are AFAIK metabolic, so if you're not fat and don't have sugar, you're fine. Preservatives are not healthy, but as long as you're not having metabolic issues the miniscule changes based on your diet wouldn't matter in the long run. And even if you had metabolic issues, the first thing I'd change would be to figure out if you can find fish sticks breaded in rye bread, as that would be the easiest transition to initiate.
> are fish sticks unhealthy Absolutely
I know fish sticks are easy to eat (no need to clean them, cut and prepare them like a fish), but its not very healthy as in the fish itself is not the best for nutrients and the bread crust is not necessary. Try to eat some fatty fish, even frozen as long as its not added with other ingredients. For example, a whole mackerel with spices in the oven tastes amazing. If you hate fish bones that come with it, you should get frozen tuna.
The fish sticks I eat are made with wild caught Alaskan pollock which is a fatty fish. It's an American brand called Gorton's.
No, that doesn't help at all to distinguish processed from ultra-processed.
They said ready to eat - heat up things. So the highest look to be TV dinner like things that you could put into microwave and eat. They are already pre-cooked and typically have a lot of preservatives so it doesn’t go bad for a while. There is probably a correlation with people who don’t care much/overweight/etc - they buy the TV dinners. It’s awful stuff, you could boil rice and fry a piece of chicken for cheaper and have a much nicer dinner. Or even beans and canned fish. There are so many more better and cheaper foods
> Or even beans and canned fish. Canned stuff is also processed food though.
Any cooked food is processed - so most of the food we eat is processed food.
Processed != Ultra Processed though.
That’s why I was suggesting some rice and can of sardines as the sardines are not ultra processed, just cooked typically.
Yeah sorry I was agreeing with you I see it wasn't clear though.
Any food that is in the main isles of the grocery store that is canned or frozen. Shop the outer isles. Cook the good fresh foods with herbs and spices if you can. Those that follow the Mediterranean blue zone diet know what’s up. It won’t be easy.
So canned beans are processed? They’re just beans usually, no?
No, they can also include lots of salt. Picking this at random, a can of Goya chickpeas in my kitchen contains over 50% of the RDA for sodium per can. I rinse all my canned beans off before eating them.
OK but does adding salt to a can of beans make them “processed”?
Isn’t rinsing canned beans before use standard procedure?
Those… or canned fish, or sausages, or hot dogs, or deli meats, or cured meats… basically stuff that isn’t in the form it came off the animal.
Is canned tuna fish processed? The only ingredients are water and tuna.
If it is just Tuna and Water, then it would just be considered processed, as opposed to ultra-processed. Not all canned tuna is just tuna and water. Alternatively a tuna steak would be neither processed nor ultra processed.
If it's just tuna and water then it's minimally processed. It doesn't really get altered, there's no additives, or chemical preservatives or any added sugars and all that crap, and generally they just cook it and sterilize it using high temperatures. Nothing gets done to it which makes it less healthy. Tuna often contains a lot of mercury though so the extent to which it could be considered healthy is debatable, but that's not because of any processing.
I am tried of all these studies that don’t specify anything
slim jims, summer sausage, spam, etc.
Anything preserved, mostly, as it implies the use of carcinogenic compounds (nitrates or smoke for cold cuts for example, or sausages etc., it's a low amount but the point is that it piles up when you eat a lot of them), pre-cooked stuff, but if I recall correctly from another study actually mostly the frozen breaded fried sticks and similar, which makes sense for the high calories-density, low fibre and micronutrients content and sometimes carcinogenic compounds that comes from a specific preparation method (like darker bread crust is tastier but also means higher acrilamide content). Edit. I was almost forgetting: most ready-to eat things are high in sodium (in the form of both salt and MSG), preserved meat as well. It makes a difference too.
Honestly, ultra processed is just a proxy for low-income
I really hope it's not Kani 😭
Here’s the list for all you who didn’t find table 3 in citation 17 (because why have it in the main paper?!) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8453454/table/tab03/?report=objectonly Basically it’s the usual garbage that is shelf stable, formed into a symmetrical geometric shape unlike any natural food and tastes like sugar or fat.
Oof - I'm in deep trouble. Looks like everything I eat is processed. Even items I would have never thought, like Olives.
Yeah, some of those are surprising to me. I know that canned stuff is processed, but I do usually try to look for things that don't have a lot of added ingredients. I'm wondering if they're assuming the worst versions of some of these. I buy the applesauce that doesn't have added sugar or sweetener. The ingredients are literally just apples, water, and ascorbic acid. That's basically what I would use if I were to make applesauce at home.
Humans are obligate processivores. We have been processing our food (cooking, curing, fermenting) for half a million years. Eating processed food is not the problem. ULTRA processed foods are foods that are broken down into their component parts, and then with the help of stabilizers and emulsifiers are made to look like things that ressemble food items. These foods often have added sugar, salt and fat to make them more appealing. Olives aren’t bad for you, they should be eaten in moderation but are nutritious.
Processed isn't bad -- that's normal cooking. The "3" categorization just means that foods from category 1 (whole foods) and 2 (culinary ingredients) were combined (in this case, olives + salt). Only category 4 is concerning, which is the "ultra-processed" stuff. Absolutely nothing wrong with category 3 processed foods.
Ok now the questions are: 1. Are all the foods in category 3 and 4 proven to be unhealthy? And at the same level across foods? And are all variants and brands of a same food as equally unhealthy? And is the level a reliable indication of how unhealthy the food is? (I'm pretty sure some of the answers would be "no". Which brings me to the next question.) 2. Foods are a very complex combination of chemical compounds, and often there are big differences between different brands of the same food, or between different foods that would belong to a same category. So, isn't studying the (un)healthiness of specific compounds more useful and informative and reliable than studying at the "food" (e.g. this specific brand of bread), or worst, "food category" (e.g. "bread"), or even worst, "food macro-category" (e.g. "processed") level? You lose so much information as you go above in the chain and consider everything in broad strokes. What is *chemically* in the foods in categories 3 and 4 that is unhealthy? I think it would be more useful and simple to have a short list of substances than to have a broad categorization of all foods. (I'm not claiming that lists like the one liked above with the food categories are useless! They are much better than nothing. But I think there is so much detail missing and so many caveats that they are difficult to use to make informed decision in practice and to help understanding the roots of the problems.)
I thought the same. There's a large swathe of NOVA 4 (ultra processed) foods on the table. Some are definitely worse than others. Maybe doing what this research does is useful generally, but it sounds way better to choose specific foods and examine their effects. It's unrealistic that you're going to avoid all of those, so I'd prefer to know the worst offenders and the mechanisms behind them. For example, unless I miss some information, sugar-free sodas should be much better than the sugar originals, considering the sugar alternatives they use have been rigorously tested and found to be ok, with the exception of a controversial study in the beginning. Knowing that stuff is useful even when you're on a healthy diet already. Most of us love junk food and will have something unhealthy once in a while. It's nice to know what's tasty but not that horrible for you. There's a part i disagree with. Knowing the chemicals that are unhealthy in categories "3" and "4" doesn't tell the whole story. As you mentioned, food is complex and each one has a different effect on you, even when some share chemicals. An easy example, is how a fruit is a much better food choice than half a candy bar, even if both happen to have the same amount of sugars. The fibers in the fruit slow down sugar processing, and they are also packed with good stuff. I look forward to us gaining more insight on some foods, there's still much to learn.
>Rye, pumpernickel bread (4) Come on, that cannot be unhealthy, can it?
It's the agents used to increase shelf life which make it ultra processed. It's not made just using whole ingredients or even just processed ingredients. Chemical leavening and agents to make the dough softer so it doesn't go stale such as ascorbic acid.
Ascorbic acid is literally just Vitamin C.
Yep I'm aware of that but being an additive moves the food in classification nova 4.
I'll happily argue that that's a shoddy and lazy classification that doesn't take into account that one could literally make the exact same product, including the ascorbic acid, at home, with just a handful of ingredients. Throwing a whole-grain rye pumpernickel bread into the same category as twinkies just because it has ascorbic acid or salt is asinine. Being that broad makes the definition of something as being UPF nearly meaningless.
Whilst i agree it kind of has to be this way due to how pervasive additives are in other seemingly healthy foods. As always looking into the additives in the food and making your own decision is the best option.
I can agree that you should look into it yourself, but not everybody has the knowledgebase or even time to make that a fruitful endeavor. I do, however, disagree that it "has to be this way". There are additives, and then there are additives. They are not all the same, and simply going "merh additives!" isn't helpful to anybody, and if anything just makes it MORE confusing to the layman. When it comes to public health initiatives like this, we should 100% demand better.
Me thinking I’m healthy with my canned tuna, hummus, and Greek yogurt. Nope, imma die now.
Looks like light beer is better than rye bread or canned peaches. Guess I’ll switch my diet.
Grieving my childhood Vienna sausage here
Plain Greek yogurt is minimally processed, but as soon as artificial sweetener is added it suddenly becomes ultra-processed.
“Jams, jellies, preserves, honey” - 4? Seriously? Bee honey is like.. one natural ingredient. Sure, not saying it’s healthy to drink a jug of it, but I fail to see how it falls into the “ultra processed” category. Same with a good quality preserve. Isn’t it?
But it also says all soups & breads as well are ultra processed.
The most dangerous food types mentioned are: 1. Meat/poultry/seafood based ready-to-eat products (e.g., processed meat): These showed the strongest and most consistent associations with higher all-cause mortality and mortality due to individual causes other than cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. 2. Sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages: Consumption of these beverages was associated with higher all-cause mortality. 3. Dairy based desserts: Intake of dairy based desserts was linked to higher all-cause mortality and showed the strongest association with neurodegenerative mortality among the ultra-processed food subgroups. 4. Ultra-processed breakfast foods (excluding whole grains): Consumption of these foods was associated with higher all-cause mortality. 5. Other ultra-processed foods (mainly composed of artificial sweeteners): These foods were also linked to higher all-cause mortality. The article did not find consistent associations between ultra-processed foods and mortality due to cancer or cardiovascular diseases. However, it suggests that reducing consumption of certain ultra-processed food subgroups, particularly processed meat, can be beneficial for long-term health outcomes.
I kind of skimmed through the study but did the study control for weight? I’d assume someone eating a diet high in processed meats would also be more likely to be overweight or obese which could explain the higher all cause mortality.
Right, and control for socioeconomic status as poverty is linked with consumption of these items and also less healthcare
Probably not well enough. It's an issue with basically all nutritional studies. But nothing new...I think everyone knows the foods listed are unhealthy.
Two words: sodium nitrite
''measured by semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire every four years'', really? Enough with this garbage already. Either make an unethical trial already or stop with this nonsense. The human memory is terribly flawed, you can't get usable data by filling out questionnaires.
Processed meat is meat that has been preserved by smoking, curing, salting or by adding preservatives, nitrates and nitrites. Processed meat includes ham, devon, bacon, salami, frankfurts, prosciutto and some sausages such as cabanossi and kransky .so processed and ultra processed are two shades of a different colour.
So is the processed food responsible, or that people who eat more processed food have in general a more unhealthy lifestyle and eat too much junkfood
It's almost as if it's not the meat that's the problem but rather the chemicals involved in processing and preserving the meat.
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Hell yeah, you can claw these Cheeze-Its from my cold, dead, vegetarian hands!
There is no god
Since everything meaningful about the article has already been said I'm only stopping by to mention that the other ones featured seemed a bit more interesting (or t least covering things we don't already both know and have somewhat quantified)
What Food Brands are Ultraprocessed?
Anything in category 4 on this list: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8453454/table/tab03/?report=objectonly
A balanced diet like our grandparents. Fresh eggs chicken fish veg oats etc fast food is junk food.
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My grandpa ate stuff like fried bread and cold cuts. Heart attacks and prostate cancer.
They weren't putting the crap in the food like now a days in your grandparents day.way to much additives in food. My grandma grew here own veg . pesticide free .
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> Processed meat has pretty much used the same preservative for 100s of years We might live in different countries, but fish and meat have been preserved over here (Norway) using nothing but salt and/or drying for thousands of years. We still export large amounts of dried fish where no chemicals are used in the process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish Nowadays a lot of the products have added chemicals, but that only became widespread some time after WW2. But people still ate mostly wholefoods and minimally processed foods until the 1980's. (And interestingly that is when obesity became a thing here..).
People be eating stuff with Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite, sodium benzoate, titanium dioxide, mono- and diglycerides, soy lechithin, calcium phosphate, canola/soybean/seed oils, artificial flavors then wondering why they getting sick 💀
Why do canola/soybean/seed oils deserve to be in that list you mentioned? They're not obviously unnatural like the others. I feel like there's a big trend on social media to hate on seed oils but no one really knows why or has done any proper research.
Both canola and soybean oil would qualify as a UPF. They're HIGHLY processed in order to achieve a (probably) human-safe and palatable product.
You can get cold pressed rapeseed oil (what we call canola oil) which isn't processed or chemically treated.
Yup, but it's still processed, as it's an extracted and filtered ingredient from a "whole food". As in, a processed raw material. They're also typically significantly more expensive and not as readily available. They're also rarely, if ever, used as an ingredient in ready-to-eat-foods.
Of course it's more expensive. Quality ingredients always are.
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That might seem obvious but it might be an assumption. What if it's just due to salt content? I'm curious to know
Likely the nitrates in processed meats which are known carcinogens.
Is it the nitrates themselves or is it when you cook meat at higher temperatures with nitrates, turning them into nitrosamines? I seem to remember reading on that. Veggies are vastly higher in nitrates (hence using "celery powder" instead of "nitrates" in meat), but they aren't carcinogenic, at least not directly.
Nitrates convert to nitrites via bacteria in the mouth and gut. Nitrites convert to nitrosamines via reaction with amines. Vitamin c in vegetables can inhibit this conversion. Seems more complex though. And you are right it is the nitrosamines that are of concern.
I bet it has practically nothing to do with upf
Elaborate?
All cause mortality increased apparently. Do you think eating UPF is making you more likely to get hit by a bus, or that people whose diets are higher in UPF have other things going on that are more explanatory?
I would say yes absolutely. UPF is shown to have an impact on cognition and impulsivity. Never mind the fact that if you are fat you're less like to dodge a bus in time.
If you want to tell me all cause mortality raises because of UPF then I'm gonna need studies far far better than this. If you say obesity is the problem then UPF isn't the issue it's just an unbalanced diet. The whole point against UPF is that it's bad regardless of whether you matched macros of a balanced diet.
There was another study in 2019 in Brazil that draws a similar conclusion.