I don’t think Americans eat healthy, but “ultra processed” not defined by any metric is in favor of the manufacturer. Something can be unprocessed and unhealthy and vice versa. Better regulation would help.
The article claims instant oatmeal is bad because it’s sugary, salty, and has other additives then goes on to recommend eating oatmeal and adding sugar yourself. I’m not sure I understand why it’s much better for you.
Agreed. Early on, the article points to burgers as a main culprit. I just happened to make myself a burger yesterday. Other than coarsely grinding the cut of beef (chuck), what was so ultra processed here? Was the beef so very different than the steak I could have made instead? I would imagine that the authors had envisioned a more heavily processed, meat from a tube sort of burger than mine, but that’s the problem with communicating information like this. The imprecision of the language is killing the messaging and undermining the research.
Again, though, burgers vary. Yesterday, mine included sliced red onion, arugula, and a slice of swiss. No ketchup, no mustard, etc. I did put dab of olive oil based herb sauce (that I had made prior to this) on it. Yes, I’d say that the bread was by far the most processed part of the meal. I’m just not convinced that this burger was worlds away from a steak and a side salad.
I know not all burgers are the same, but that is the point isn’t it? I found my meal hyperpalatable, but should it be considered ultra processed? If it should, then how should we distinguish it in discussion from even more processed versions? I don’t have an easy answer for this.
I don’t see how we refine the definition when the entire idea of “ultra processed food” is a Catch-all with no precision or nuance. I get that it makes some conversations easier, but I’m not convinced it’s a useful concept overall
I don’t know if you’re intentionally being contrarian or you legit aren’t comprehending the story.
Are you taking offense that your home made meal is being called out in this one line, “The top sources included burgers and sandwiches, sweet baked goods, savory snacks, pizza and sweetened drinks.”?
Are you not comprehending that this is referring specifically to the total calories coming from ultra processed foods and that these foods include burgers? It is not saying that all burgers are ultra processed. It’s saying that the category of highly caloric ultra processed foods includes, among many other things, burgers.
The same could be said for pizza. If I make a pizza at home - flour, yeast, tomatoes, mozz, oil - it’s not going to have any ultra processed ingredients. If I go to Pizza Hut and get a meat lovers pizza with a stuffed crust and ranch dressing, that’s going to be ultra processed.
These are simple words used to broadly define categories of foods with the assumption that people understand they’re not going to list out every fast food and restaurant burger in the United States sorted by calories and ultra processed ingredients.
These are simple words used to broadly define categories of foods with the assumption that people understand they’re not going to list out every fast food and restaurant burger in the United States sorted by calories and ultra processed ingredients.
Yes, and these are the words that most likely appear in the retrospective survey results on which these studies are undoubtedly based. My point was that equating a set of words that describe end products (like ‘burgers’, or ‘chicken soup’) with a set of words that describe preparation (‘ultra processed’, or ‘minimally processed’) is not at all straightforward. Any word (or at least many) in one set could be mapped to almost any in the second set. I just chose ‘burger’ out of convenience. If you told me you had chicken soup for lunch, could I automatically know if it was ultra processed or not? Would a researcher know?
Sure, the person eating it can probably tell. But often that information isn’t collected in the survey being used in a study. Standardized questionnaires don’t necessarily capture this information. Some of these studies are built on old datasets because they are looking for long term affects. Sometimes all you have is ‘burger’, or ‘chicken soup’. Sometimes you have even less than that. Sometimes all you have are the answers to questions like, “In the past six months, how many times per week did you eat red or processed meat?”.
Now, sure, some studies are based on surveys that collect information about the level of processing, but these have issues too, ranging from moving the interpretation of what processed is over to the subjects of the study, to protocols that include verbose food diaries that no participant could be expected to adhere to for long.
Sure but most people aren’t making their own burgers or soups.
Like yeah some of them might own meat grinders and have a butcher down the street, but for the majority you’d be lucky if they even fried up their own (likely ultra processed) bubba burger. They’re going to in and out and McDonald’s.
From my short visit to north America, I was shocked how little people made from ingredients and how much from ready-to-eat instant stuff.
Yup we eat a lot of ultra processed nonsense because we waste hours a day everyday just getting around the country and then even more time listening to pointy headed bosses. Our lives kinda suck it and most of it revolves around our jobs. The US is basically an industry-run dystopia.
My wife and I try to be better and buy real ingredients to make food, but after a long day at a shitty job it’s hard to find the energy to make a real meal instead of throwing some frozen rubbish into the oven for a few minutes.
Other than coarsely grinding the cut of beef (chuck), what was so ultra processed here?
Lol
Are you really this ignorant of meat production in the United States, or are you just playing dumb?
There’s a world of difference between a ground, pre-made frozen burger patty, ground beef, and even a run of the mill steak in the US.
Take a look at the fucking package on the product you’re buying. Frozen burger patties come with ingredient lists a mile fucking long, and ground beef packages usually come with an origin marker saying how the cattle in the package might have originated from three different continents.
At one point, I gave enough of a shit about this stuff to bother going to a butcher and getting them to give me a stink eye while they ground up a low quality steak so I could at least be reasonably assured that it came from one cow. Ultimately, I mostly just gave up on beef burgers.
Nearly every even partially processed product in the United States is like this. For example, pre-cut romaine lettuce is much more likely to make you sick, because it’s like sampling lettuce from twenty area factory farms downstream from the meat factory.
I’m not gonna bother going to a butcher regularly so I can have a slightly less dangerous but still unhealthy meal. I’d rather just (and have) changed my diet.
But yeah, you’re right, the state of the US meat industry is a me problem. 🙄🥱😆
This is the shit that grinds me. You have the world’s information at your finger tips and you’re making a wild claim that there isn’t a definition for something and basing your argument around that. You have gone this far in your life with the belief that there is no definition “but any metric” for Ultra Process foods?
Don’t you think that’s a little absurd to think this? I mean, it’s literally in the word. Not processed – ultra processed; meaning, roughly, that the food or ingredients in that food are processed again after initial processing.
What I will grant you is that this word is sometimes thrown around inappropriately. You (and us all) have every right to be upset by this confusion and misrepresentation.
Category 4: Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made from food components. They include additives that are rare or nonexistent in culinary use, like emulsifiers, hydrogenated oils, synthetic colors, texture improvers or flavor enhancers. Think chips, soda, instant soup, pastries and mass-produced breads.
Ultra-processed foods, such as soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, reconstituted meat products and pre-prepared frozen dishes, are not modified foods but formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods and additives, with little if any intact Group 1 food.
Ingredients of these formulations usually include those also used in processed foods, such as sugars, oils, fats or salt. But ultra-processed products also include other sources of energy and nutrients not normally used in culinary preparations. Some of these are directly extracted from foods, such as casein, lactose, whey and gluten. Many are derived from further processing of food constituents, such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils, hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, maltodextrin, invert sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.
Additives in ultra-processed foods include some also used in processed foods, such as preservatives, antioxidants and stabilizers. Classes of additives found only in ultra-processed products include those used to imitate or enhance the sensory qualities of foods or to disguise unpalatable aspects of the final product. These additives include dyes and other colours, colour stabilizers; flavours, flavour enhancers, non-sugar sweeteners; and processing aids such as carbonating, firming, bulking and anti-bulking, de-foaming, anti-caking and glazing agents, emulsifiers, sequestrants and humectants.
A multitude of sequences of processes is used to combine the usually many ingredients and to create the final product (hence ‘ultra-processed’). The processes include several with no domestic equivalents, such as hydrogenation and hydrolysation, extrusion and moulding, and pre-processing for frying.
The overall purpose of ultra-processing is to create branded, convenient (durable, ready to consume), attractive (hyper-palatable) and highly profitable (low-cost ingredients) food products designed to displace all other food groups. Ultra-processed food products are usually packaged attractively and marketed intensively.
the definition of processed food varies widely depending on the source
The NOVA system is recognized by the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Pan American Health Organization, but not currently in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration or USDA. NOVA has been criticized for being too general in classifying certain foods, causing confusion.
Because of the difficulty of interpretation of the primary definition, the NOVA group and others have set out lists of examples of foods that fall under the category of ultra-processed foods. The present manuscript demonstrates that since the inception of the NOVA classification of foods, these examples of foods to which this category applies have varied considerably. Thus, there is little consistency either in the definition of ultra-processed foods or in examples of foods within this category.
Other scholarly review articles criticize the classification as unclear even among researchers.
There is no consensus on what determines the level of food processing.
Classification systems that categorise foods according to their “level of processing” have been used to predict diet quality and health outcomes and inform dietary guidelines and product development. However, the classification criteria used are ambiguous, inconsistent and often give less weight to existing scientific evidence on nutrition and food processing effects; critical analysis of these criteria creates conflict amongst researchers.
The classification systems embody socio-cultural elements and subjective terms, including home cooking and naturalness. Hence, “processing” is a chaotic conception, not only concerned with technical processes.
The concept of “whole food” and the role of the food matrix in relation to healthy diets needs further clarification; the risk assessment/management of food additives also needs debate.
The present paper explores the definition of ultra-processed foods since its inception and clearly shows that the definition of such foods has varied considerably.
Thus, there is little consistency either in the definition of ultra-processed foods or in examples of foods within this category.
The public health nutrition advice of NOVA is that ultra-processed foods should be avoided to achieve improvements in nutrient intakes with an emphasis on fat, sugar, and salt. The present manuscript demonstrates that the published data for the United States, United Kingdom, France, Brazil, and Canada all show that across quintiles of intake of ultra-processed foods, nutritionally meaningful changes are seen for sugars and fiber but not for total fat, saturated fat, and sodium. Moreover, 2 national surveys in the United Kingdom and France fail to show any link between body mass index and consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Some research articles find the leading definition unreliable: low consistency between nutrition specialists following the same definition.
Although assignments were more consistent for some foods than others, overall consistency among evaluators was low, even when ingredient information was available. These results suggest current NOVA criteria do not allow for robust and functional food assignments.
If experts aren’t able to classify “ultraprocessed” items consistently, then what chance has anyone?
At the moment, “processed food” seems more buzz & connotation than substance.
It might make more sense to classify food by something clearer like nutritional content.
You’re making the same “the science isn’t settled” argument that right wing media relies on to stoke climate change denial.
In reality, science is never settled, and there is a huge amount of rigorous scientific debate around the definition of UPFs that is narrowing in on it; it is just flat out not the case that the term means nothing. That is something that manufacturers of UPFs want you to accept.
Ideally, the food consists exclusively of the ingredients you intend to consume. “Ultra processed” as I understand it means the ingredients list contains many things that “have” to be there due to the intermediate steps to get it into your mouth (including marketing/presentation).
The most obvious ones are things that make it shelf-stable for months or years, but the less obvious ones are additives that mask flavors that were inadvertently added by the machines responsible for cooking, cutting, and packaging the food. Apparently they figured out decades ago that salt is good at hiding the taste of metal…
So if you instead just buy some oats and sugar and put it together yourself, you circumvent all of that tomfoolery.
I don’t think Americans eat healthy, but “ultra processed” not defined by any metric is in favor of the manufacturer. Something can be unprocessed and unhealthy and vice versa. Better regulation would help.
The article claims instant oatmeal is bad because it’s sugary, salty, and has other additives then goes on to recommend eating oatmeal and adding sugar yourself. I’m not sure I understand why it’s much better for you.
Agreed. Early on, the article points to burgers as a main culprit. I just happened to make myself a burger yesterday. Other than coarsely grinding the cut of beef (chuck), what was so ultra processed here? Was the beef so very different than the steak I could have made instead? I would imagine that the authors had envisioned a more heavily processed, meat from a tube sort of burger than mine, but that’s the problem with communicating information like this. The imprecision of the language is killing the messaging and undermining the research.
The bun, any pickle and your sauces and relishes would be the places to look for ultra processed food ingredients.
Pickle: cucumber (or other vegetable), salt, vinegar, seasonings.
“seasonings” has a lot of wiggle room to it.
The cheese and the bread are almost certainly ultra-processed, as would be the condiments.
Again, though, burgers vary. Yesterday, mine included sliced red onion, arugula, and a slice of swiss. No ketchup, no mustard, etc. I did put dab of olive oil based herb sauce (that I had made prior to this) on it. Yes, I’d say that the bread was by far the most processed part of the meal. I’m just not convinced that this burger was worlds away from a steak and a side salad.
I know not all burgers are the same, but that is the point isn’t it? I found my meal hyperpalatable, but should it be considered ultra processed? If it should, then how should we distinguish it in discussion from even more processed versions? I don’t have an easy answer for this.
I don’t see how we refine the definition when the entire idea of “ultra processed food” is a Catch-all with no precision or nuance. I get that it makes some conversations easier, but I’m not convinced it’s a useful concept overall
I don’t know if you’re intentionally being contrarian or you legit aren’t comprehending the story.
Are you taking offense that your home made meal is being called out in this one line, “The top sources included burgers and sandwiches, sweet baked goods, savory snacks, pizza and sweetened drinks.”?
Are you not comprehending that this is referring specifically to the total calories coming from ultra processed foods and that these foods include burgers? It is not saying that all burgers are ultra processed. It’s saying that the category of highly caloric ultra processed foods includes, among many other things, burgers.
The same could be said for pizza. If I make a pizza at home - flour, yeast, tomatoes, mozz, oil - it’s not going to have any ultra processed ingredients. If I go to Pizza Hut and get a meat lovers pizza with a stuffed crust and ranch dressing, that’s going to be ultra processed.
These are simple words used to broadly define categories of foods with the assumption that people understand they’re not going to list out every fast food and restaurant burger in the United States sorted by calories and ultra processed ingredients.
Yes, and these are the words that most likely appear in the retrospective survey results on which these studies are undoubtedly based. My point was that equating a set of words that describe end products (like ‘burgers’, or ‘chicken soup’) with a set of words that describe preparation (‘ultra processed’, or ‘minimally processed’) is not at all straightforward. Any word (or at least many) in one set could be mapped to almost any in the second set. I just chose ‘burger’ out of convenience. If you told me you had chicken soup for lunch, could I automatically know if it was ultra processed or not? Would a researcher know?
I have a feeling people can tell the difference between home made chicken soup and Campbell’s if they really try hard.
Sure, the person eating it can probably tell. But often that information isn’t collected in the survey being used in a study. Standardized questionnaires don’t necessarily capture this information. Some of these studies are built on old datasets because they are looking for long term affects. Sometimes all you have is ‘burger’, or ‘chicken soup’. Sometimes you have even less than that. Sometimes all you have are the answers to questions like, “In the past six months, how many times per week did you eat red or processed meat?”.
Now, sure, some studies are based on surveys that collect information about the level of processing, but these have issues too, ranging from moving the interpretation of what processed is over to the subjects of the study, to protocols that include verbose food diaries that no participant could be expected to adhere to for long.
Sure but most people aren’t making their own burgers or soups.
Like yeah some of them might own meat grinders and have a butcher down the street, but for the majority you’d be lucky if they even fried up their own (likely ultra processed) bubba burger. They’re going to in and out and McDonald’s.
If you buy arugula, that’s an unprocessed ingredient. If you buy ready-made pickles, that’s a processed product.
From my short visit to north America, I was shocked how little people made from ingredients and how much from ready-to-eat instant stuff.
Yup we eat a lot of ultra processed nonsense because we waste hours a day everyday just getting around the country and then even more time listening to pointy headed bosses. Our lives kinda suck it and most of it revolves around our jobs. The US is basically an industry-run dystopia.
My wife and I try to be better and buy real ingredients to make food, but after a long day at a shitty job it’s hard to find the energy to make a real meal instead of throwing some frozen rubbish into the oven for a few minutes.
Eating vegetables raw and plain is an acquired taste in today’s world. I got tired of steaming them a while ago.
Lol
Are you really this ignorant of meat production in the United States, or are you just playing dumb?
There’s a world of difference between a ground, pre-made frozen burger patty, ground beef, and even a run of the mill steak in the US.
Take a look at the fucking package on the product you’re buying. Frozen burger patties come with ingredient lists a mile fucking long, and ground beef packages usually come with an origin marker saying how the cattle in the package might have originated from three different continents.
At one point, I gave enough of a shit about this stuff to bother going to a butcher and getting them to give me a stink eye while they ground up a low quality steak so I could at least be reasonably assured that it came from one cow. Ultimately, I mostly just gave up on beef burgers.
Nearly every even partially processed product in the United States is like this. For example, pre-cut romaine lettuce is much more likely to make you sick, because it’s like sampling lettuce from twenty area factory farms downstream from the meat factory.
Perhaps you should start buying your meat from somewhere else.
I’m not gonna bother going to a butcher regularly so I can have a slightly less dangerous but still unhealthy meal. I’d rather just (and have) changed my diet.
But yeah, you’re right, the state of the US meat industry is a me problem. 🙄🥱😆
This is the shit that grinds me. You have the world’s information at your finger tips and you’re making a wild claim that there isn’t a definition for something and basing your argument around that. You have gone this far in your life with the belief that there is no definition “but any metric” for Ultra Process foods?
Don’t you think that’s a little absurd to think this? I mean, it’s literally in the word. Not processed – ultra processed; meaning, roughly, that the food or ingredients in that food are processed again after initial processing.
What I will grant you is that this word is sometimes thrown around inappropriately. You (and us all) have every right to be upset by this confusion and misrepresentation.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/what-know-about-processed-and-ultra-processed-food
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/un-decade-of-nutrition-the-nova-food-classification-and-the-trouble-with-ultraprocessing/2A9776922A28F8F757BDA32C3266AC2A
Is there much uniform agreement on it? Is the classification objectively precise & reliable?
The Harvard School of Public Health acknowledges problems with definition & attempted standards
Ultra-Processed Foods: Definitions and Policy Issues pointed out that difficulty & inconsistent examples the definers offered to clarify.
Other scholarly review articles criticize the classification as unclear even among researchers.
Processed food classification: Conceptualisation and challenges regarding classifications:
Ultra-Processed Foods: Definitions and Policy Issues regarding a single classification system (NOVA):
Some research articles find the leading definition unreliable: low consistency between nutrition specialists following the same definition.
If experts aren’t able to classify “ultraprocessed” items consistently, then what chance has anyone? At the moment, “processed food” seems more buzz & connotation than substance.
It might make more sense to classify food by something clearer like nutritional content.
Is it wrong for me to want my own extruder to make puffed starchy treats? I have a hankering for chile lime ginger corn puffs but no one makes them.
I also want a solar powered freeze drier/sublimator.
Imagine doing all that and not reading the article.
You’re making the same “the science isn’t settled” argument that right wing media relies on to stoke climate change denial.
In reality, science is never settled, and there is a huge amount of rigorous scientific debate around the definition of UPFs that is narrowing in on it; it is just flat out not the case that the term means nothing. That is something that manufacturers of UPFs want you to accept.
Edit:
deleted by creator
Well said!
Ya, agreed.This is the same thing as “natural” foods. Just doesn’t make much sense in any context that matters from a health perspective.
Ideally, the food consists exclusively of the ingredients you intend to consume. “Ultra processed” as I understand it means the ingredients list contains many things that “have” to be there due to the intermediate steps to get it into your mouth (including marketing/presentation).
The most obvious ones are things that make it shelf-stable for months or years, but the less obvious ones are additives that mask flavors that were inadvertently added by the machines responsible for cooking, cutting, and packaging the food. Apparently they figured out decades ago that salt is good at hiding the taste of metal…
So if you instead just buy some oats and sugar and put it together yourself, you circumvent all of that tomfoolery.