The new science on what ultra-processed food does to the brain(wsj.com)
wsj.com
The new science on what ultra-processed food does to the brain
https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/ultra-processed-food-brain-health-7a3f9827
118 comments
This site makes no sense to me.
I looked up "plain hummus" and it has a score of 70? https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_cedars-mediterranean-fo...
But the ingredient list shows almost zero additives. The same goes for a lot of other hummuses, but then some of them have a score of 1 despite having ingredient lists that are not discernably different. https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_just-hummus-original-hu...
Idk. Maybe I'm missing something here.
The website goes on to say:
> In this example the Organic Plain Yogurt is at the 4th percentile among all yogurts, meaning if we have 100 different yogurts on a shelf then 95 of them are more processed than the Organic Plain Yogurt.
So, the 70 just means only 30% of all hummus are more processed than this one? But, does that really tell me anything about how processed the hummus is objectively? What if all hummus is extremely highly processed, how would this site indicate that? A 1 could still be highly processed in a category that is generally ultra-processed. :/
I looked up "plain hummus" and it has a score of 70? https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_cedars-mediterranean-fo...
But the ingredient list shows almost zero additives. The same goes for a lot of other hummuses, but then some of them have a score of 1 despite having ingredient lists that are not discernably different. https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_just-hummus-original-hu...
Idk. Maybe I'm missing something here.
The website goes on to say:
> In this example the Organic Plain Yogurt is at the 4th percentile among all yogurts, meaning if we have 100 different yogurts on a shelf then 95 of them are more processed than the Organic Plain Yogurt.
So, the 70 just means only 30% of all hummus are more processed than this one? But, does that really tell me anything about how processed the hummus is objectively? What if all hummus is extremely highly processed, how would this site indicate that? A 1 could still be highly processed in a category that is generally ultra-processed. :/
> I looked up "plain hummus" and it has a score of 70? But the ingredient list shows almost zero additives.
Almost zero != zero. Your cited hummus with a score of 70 includes the additive "guar gum". Other hummus vendors with a score of 1 do not include that additive, so the simple numerical score succeeds in flagging the product for manual human review.
Washington Post (2022) article lists guar gum as an ultra-processed additive, https://archive.is/LG1V1
Almost zero != zero. Your cited hummus with a score of 70 includes the additive "guar gum". Other hummus vendors with a score of 1 do not include that additive, so the simple numerical score succeeds in flagging the product for manual human review.
Washington Post (2022) article lists guar gum as an ultra-processed additive, https://archive.is/LG1V1
Many ultra-processed foods are made in industrial machines that subject grains, corn and other raw ingredients to extremely high pressures and temperatures. This can destroy micronutrients and create new compounds that can be harmful, including carcinogens, said Carlos A. Monteiro, an expert on ultra-processed foods and a professor of nutrition and public health at the School of Public Health at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
“These foods contain many chemical compounds that are not nutrients,” he added.
Ultra-processed foods often contain an array of additives whose effects on our health we don’t yet fully understand, said Mozaffarian. “It’s not just the salt and sugar, which are the obvious ones, but the artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, emulsifiers, stabilizers, guar gum and xanthan gum,” he said. “We don’t know that they’re innocuous.”So why should I be so concerned about my hummus having a little bit of guar gum in it?
It's an ultra-processed chemical with little to no nutritional value that's not listed as an ingredient in hummus recipes or included in competing products.
Maybe it's fine! Your personal level of concern may vary, but if it's anything but zero, then surely it's more worthy of concern than hummus without guar gum.
Maybe it's fine! Your personal level of concern may vary, but if it's anything but zero, then surely it's more worthy of concern than hummus without guar gum.
Ultra processed chemical. It's a bean that's roasted, crushed, and sieved. Coffee is also an ultra processed chemical under your definition. Once again really showing this idea that "ultra processed" seems to carry no real meaning, as once again pretty much any cooked food can be called "ultra processed".
Cooking routinely adds things for no nutritional benefit but because it changes the texture or taste to something better. Adding some cinnamon to oatmeal or a red pepper flakes to a pasta sauce isn't going to change the nutritional benefits by any large margin, but I do it because it helps me enjoy the food more. You don't necessarily add egg to cake mix for the nutritional benefit the egg provides you do it so its springier and has a better texture. One might add a little guar gum to hummus to make it thicker and have a slightly different mouth feel which some might prefer.
What exactly about guar gum is bad?
Cooking routinely adds things for no nutritional benefit but because it changes the texture or taste to something better. Adding some cinnamon to oatmeal or a red pepper flakes to a pasta sauce isn't going to change the nutritional benefits by any large margin, but I do it because it helps me enjoy the food more. You don't necessarily add egg to cake mix for the nutritional benefit the egg provides you do it so its springier and has a better texture. One might add a little guar gum to hummus to make it thicker and have a slightly different mouth feel which some might prefer.
What exactly about guar gum is bad?
It's not my definition. I doubt coffee counts though.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/
Also, I never meant to imply there were conclusive negative effects of guar gum. I don't know! I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Glass beads are probably more inert, but I still wouldn't eat them if I had a choice.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28322183/
Also, I never meant to imply there were conclusive negative effects of guar gum. I don't know! I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded? Glass beads are probably more inert, but I still wouldn't eat them if I had a choice.
> I do know it's an entirely unnecessary ingredient in hummus, so why would you want something that unneeded?
Hummus itself is entirely unnecessary for humans to consume. Why would I even consider eating it? Maybe because it tastes good and has a texture people enjoy? Maybe guar gum improves the texture to the food? I don't know, I'm not really a big fan of hummus, so I can't speak to whether or not guar gum makes it better or worse. But I imagine the people selling it determined people tend to enjoy the hummus with the guar gum more. They didn't just include it in there because they're an evil megacorporation out to control the world by adulterating hummus with guar gum, they put it in there because in the end they thought they'd sell more hummus.
If the yardstick of what we should eat is based entirely of if its "necessary", most things people generally consider fine wouldn't make the cut. Once again, its not necessary for me to put cinnamon in my oatmeal, should I stop doing that? Its not necessary for me to put red pepper flakes in my pasta sauce, should I stop doing that?
You can make a cake without egg in it, its not "necessary". It won't be the same as a cake with egg in it, but it can still be something sweet, kind of bready, and edible. But I'll continue to put egg in most of my cakes even though its not strictly "necessary" to make something edible.
From your article trying to define ultra-processed:
> The term “ultra-processed” was coined to refer to industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods or synthesized from other organic sources. They typically contain little or no whole foods, are ready-to-consume or heat up, and are fatty, salty or sugary and depleted in dietary fibre, protein, various micronutrients and other bioactive compounds.
Isn't pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee beans made in a factory "industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods"? They're not whole foods anymore, they're ready to consume or heat up, you're brewing it to get the fats out of it, depleted of the original fiber, doesn't have anywhere near the protein content of the original bean, and roasting destroys a lot of the original micronutrients of the original bean. Sure seems to me roasted ground coffee beans meet the definition of ultra-processed laid out by your source.
Hummus itself is entirely unnecessary for humans to consume. Why would I even consider eating it? Maybe because it tastes good and has a texture people enjoy? Maybe guar gum improves the texture to the food? I don't know, I'm not really a big fan of hummus, so I can't speak to whether or not guar gum makes it better or worse. But I imagine the people selling it determined people tend to enjoy the hummus with the guar gum more. They didn't just include it in there because they're an evil megacorporation out to control the world by adulterating hummus with guar gum, they put it in there because in the end they thought they'd sell more hummus.
If the yardstick of what we should eat is based entirely of if its "necessary", most things people generally consider fine wouldn't make the cut. Once again, its not necessary for me to put cinnamon in my oatmeal, should I stop doing that? Its not necessary for me to put red pepper flakes in my pasta sauce, should I stop doing that?
You can make a cake without egg in it, its not "necessary". It won't be the same as a cake with egg in it, but it can still be something sweet, kind of bready, and edible. But I'll continue to put egg in most of my cakes even though its not strictly "necessary" to make something edible.
From your article trying to define ultra-processed:
> The term “ultra-processed” was coined to refer to industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods or synthesized from other organic sources. They typically contain little or no whole foods, are ready-to-consume or heat up, and are fatty, salty or sugary and depleted in dietary fibre, protein, various micronutrients and other bioactive compounds.
Isn't pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee beans made in a factory "industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods"? They're not whole foods anymore, they're ready to consume or heat up, you're brewing it to get the fats out of it, depleted of the original fiber, doesn't have anywhere near the protein content of the original bean, and roasting destroys a lot of the original micronutrients of the original bean. Sure seems to me roasted ground coffee beans meet the definition of ultra-processed laid out by your source.
Unlike a printed dictionary constrained by physical paper, we now have digital publishing where every product, ingredient, additive and health consequence can have their own digital database definition.
Instead of debating abstract semantic categories like "processed" and using random items to support or negate specific claims, we can now aggregate data directly against digital identifiers for physical items.
GroceryDB is a research baby step that illustrates what can be done to augment consumer decision making. The processed-food industry can create their own ICantBelieveItsNotProcessedDB to annotate products and ingredients with the benefits of industrial processing. Over time, food consumers can make local purchasing choices after human review of available data on food chains and health consequences.
Instead of debating abstract semantic categories like "processed" and using random items to support or negate specific claims, we can now aggregate data directly against digital identifiers for physical items.
GroceryDB is a research baby step that illustrates what can be done to augment consumer decision making. The processed-food industry can create their own ICantBelieveItsNotProcessedDB to annotate products and ingredients with the benefits of industrial processing. Over time, food consumers can make local purchasing choices after human review of available data on food chains and health consequences.
But at least in the case of guar gum in hummus it seems like it's picking and choosing what is a "processed food" rather arbitrarily. Would hummus with cocoa power be rated as high as hummus with guar gum? What makes pure coca powder different from guar gum? What makes pre-packaged hummus different from just always being considered a processed food?? Practically all commercially packaged hummus is created through an "industrial process". Isn't it then all highly processed?
It's applying an index to things without even really explaining why or what that index really means. What are the actual health impacts of hummus with guar gum versus hummus without it? It's ultimately telling us next to nothing other than highlighting some ingredients the maintainers don't like while ignoring ingredients they do like, seemingly very arbitrarily.
Does the index define roasted and ground coffee as a highly processed food? Why or why not?
It's applying an index to things without even really explaining why or what that index really means. What are the actual health impacts of hummus with guar gum versus hummus without it? It's ultimately telling us next to nothing other than highlighting some ingredients the maintainers don't like while ignoring ingredients they do like, seemingly very arbitrarily.
Does the index define roasted and ground coffee as a highly processed food? Why or why not?
> some ingredients the maintainers don't like
From the Washington Post article above, you can add these names:
From the Washington Post article above, you can add these names:
Kevin Hall, Scientist
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Dariush Mozaffarian, Cardiologist
Dean, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Tufts University
Carlos A. Monteiro, Professor of Nutrition and Public health
School of Public Health
University of Sao Paulo, BrazilThis still tells me practically nothing and answers zero of my questions, which really are genuine. I never really get a good rubric for me to determine if a food is highly processed other than "these people decided it, so it is so". Which is what you're doing here. Guar gum is bad because these people said it's bad. Ok, but, like, why? How did they decide that specifically?
On the index, why is garlic powder a 37 while chili powder which contains rice concentrate (what is that?!) is a 1? Is garlic powder, which only lists garlic as an ingredient, 37x worse for me than chili powder? What I information am I actually gaining from this index? How is looking at this index informing me of making a healthy choice at all?
https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_365-by-whole-foods-mark...
https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_simply-organic-organic-...
On the index, why is garlic powder a 37 while chili powder which contains rice concentrate (what is that?!) is a 1? Is garlic powder, which only lists garlic as an ingredient, 37x worse for me than chili powder? What I information am I actually gaining from this index? How is looking at this index informing me of making a healthy choice at all?
https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_365-by-whole-foods-mark...
https://www.truefood.tech/product/wf_simply-organic-organic-...
I think the intent is relevant as well:
Hummus is a dish made from chickpeas, tahini, oil, and garlic. Guar beans aren't a typical ingredient, but they're processed into power and added to give the dish some additional characteristic.
Coffee is a dish made from coffee. Coffee beans are ground up and processed because they're an essential ingredient.
Nobody has a cherished family high-fructose corn syrup cookie recipe, ha!
Neither me nor the article are suggesting that all processed foods are inherently bad and should be avoided at all cost. Guar gum is probably safer than coffee. What we are saying is that diets higher in processed foods tend to correlate with worse health, and the WSJ article goes further to suggest causes. Hummus is a terrible example... better might be McDonalds burgers vs those from a farm stand, or lattes vs black coffee. But hummus made from raw ingredients is also probably better for you than one bought from the store filled with preservatives.
Hummus is a dish made from chickpeas, tahini, oil, and garlic. Guar beans aren't a typical ingredient, but they're processed into power and added to give the dish some additional characteristic.
Coffee is a dish made from coffee. Coffee beans are ground up and processed because they're an essential ingredient.
Nobody has a cherished family high-fructose corn syrup cookie recipe, ha!
Neither me nor the article are suggesting that all processed foods are inherently bad and should be avoided at all cost. Guar gum is probably safer than coffee. What we are saying is that diets higher in processed foods tend to correlate with worse health, and the WSJ article goes further to suggest causes. Hummus is a terrible example... better might be McDonalds burgers vs those from a farm stand, or lattes vs black coffee. But hummus made from raw ingredients is also probably better for you than one bought from the store filled with preservatives.
Your list leaves out chili powder from the original intent of hummus. It's something I'm adding from the base ingredient list to give it an additional charistic. If I add chili powder to the top of my hummus, is that not turning it into an ultra processed dish in the same way as guar gum?
Isn't chili powder highly processed in the same way guar gum powder is?
I'm not arguing guar gum is good in any way. For all I know it is massively worse for me than chili powder. Maybe it causes indigestion or irritates my gut. But why can't we use a label like that instead of just an ultra nebulous term of "ultra processed" where some people get to seemingly arbitrarily define what is and is not highly processed?
Where in any of those definitions listed does it suggest any idea of intent for if something is "highly processed"? If intent is what matters, is adding pineapple to pizza, something that should never be done, be considered the thing that makes it highly processed, or should pizza just always be considered highly processed from the start? After all, it's not whole foods, it's being subjected to high temperatures, contains highly processed foods like cheese, etc. Or is cheese somehow not highly processed either?
Isn't chili powder highly processed in the same way guar gum powder is?
I'm not arguing guar gum is good in any way. For all I know it is massively worse for me than chili powder. Maybe it causes indigestion or irritates my gut. But why can't we use a label like that instead of just an ultra nebulous term of "ultra processed" where some people get to seemingly arbitrarily define what is and is not highly processed?
Where in any of those definitions listed does it suggest any idea of intent for if something is "highly processed"? If intent is what matters, is adding pineapple to pizza, something that should never be done, be considered the thing that makes it highly processed, or should pizza just always be considered highly processed from the start? After all, it's not whole foods, it's being subjected to high temperatures, contains highly processed foods like cheese, etc. Or is cheese somehow not highly processed either?
Hopefully a future LLM can illuminate semantic questions.
Totally not the point here, but after reading this, I'm going to start adding cinnamon to my oatmeal. Thanks
I can't speak for hummus, but I've noticed ice creams with guar gum, xantham gum, locust bean gum, and so on, have an almost foamy texture that is quite unnatural when compared to ice creams with minimally processed ingredients (i.e. cream, milk, eggs, sugar, etc.).
My guess is hummus would suffer similarly, but I'll wait for a connoisseur to confirm.
My guess is hummus would suffer similarly, but I'll wait for a connoisseur to confirm.
The hummus with score of 1 has only 28 calories per 100g vs 214 calories per 100g for the "ultra processed." Almost no fat (0.9g) in a food comprised mostly of chickpeas and tahini, both of which are high fat foods. There has to be an error here.
Guar gum is definitely an ultra-processed ingredient from what I can tell. It goes through multiple stages of industrial processing, and is used in everything from food products to cosmetics to hydraulic fracking.
It is also associated with esophageal and gastro-intestinal swelling, including to the point of causing obstruction. It is high in galactose and mannose, and subtly alters composition of the microbiome. People with GI disorders are very often advised to avoid it (note that although partially hydrolyzed guar gum was previously recommended for IBS to increase motility, in more recent years experts are increasingly saying to avoid it). It is categorized as "generally recognize safe" food additive in the US and EU.
Guar gum is definitely an ultra-processed ingredient from what I can tell. It goes through multiple stages of industrial processing, and is used in everything from food products to cosmetics to hydraulic fracking.
It is also associated with esophageal and gastro-intestinal swelling, including to the point of causing obstruction. It is high in galactose and mannose, and subtly alters composition of the microbiome. People with GI disorders are very often advised to avoid it (note that although partially hydrolyzed guar gum was previously recommended for IBS to increase motility, in more recent years experts are increasingly saying to avoid it). It is categorized as "generally recognize safe" food additive in the US and EU.
Water is also used in fracking and other industrial processes. If that's the yard stick of if something should be avoided I guess we should stop drinking dihydrogen monoxide.
There is one question I have when seeing articles about these types of studies.
I understand that ultra-processed foods often lead to being overweight or obese, and I can see how a whole host of problems can flow from that, from that condition of the body.
My question is: as a normal weight person, would these downsides still apply?
It does seem, skimming these articles, that the answer is 'yes' - ultra processed foods being associated with cancers and with a 22% higher chance of death from any cause, for example.
I'd be interested in more on those points, but this is helpful to know.
I understand that ultra-processed foods often lead to being overweight or obese, and I can see how a whole host of problems can flow from that, from that condition of the body.
My question is: as a normal weight person, would these downsides still apply?
It does seem, skimming these articles, that the answer is 'yes' - ultra processed foods being associated with cancers and with a 22% higher chance of death from any cause, for example.
I'd be interested in more on those points, but this is helpful to know.
The weight is irrelevant, the studies have shown that when comparing an ultra processed diet to a non processed diet, the cohort that ate the ultra processed ended up gaining a statistically significant amount of weight. What's unknown is how UPFs affect metabolic health.
Effectively they're predigested food molecules that are reconstituted. It would seem the very act of digestion has an important role to play in the regulation of hunger, circadian rhythm, and metabolism.
Effectively they're predigested food molecules that are reconstituted. It would seem the very act of digestion has an important role to play in the regulation of hunger, circadian rhythm, and metabolism.
Many of them, like the glycemic load, can damage your body directly without being mediated through the many dangers of excessive fat tissue.
Why wouldn’t it? Weight is a lagging indicator, and it’s only one phenotype out of the countless ways your body is affected by what you eat.
People can (and very readily do) develop metabolic diseases from consuming a poor diet at a normal weight. People develop insulin resistance and become diabetes quite commonly in this circumstance, but they can also develop liver, cardiovascular, and kidney disease. Basically, all of the potentially fatal diseases of excess that you would best avoid.
Whilst the focus is often on "obese" people, it is highly apparent that even "normal weight" people can be abnormally unhealthy internally.
Normal weight people can still get disease, cancers, poor liver function, obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension.
Furthermore, ultra processed foods can contribute to mental illness and generally feeling like crap
Normal weight people can still get disease, cancers, poor liver function, obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension.
Furthermore, ultra processed foods can contribute to mental illness and generally feeling like crap
This really seem like a weird way to look at it. It's pretty clear that it's not good for you, yet it reads as if you're looking for a loop hole. That's like saying you know heroin can cause problems for a specific segment of the population, yet you're wanting to risk it anyways.
Edit: to be less accusational
Edit: to be less accusational
> yet you're looking for a loop hole.
Claiming a poster has a secret intent, is not constructive.
Claiming a poster has a secret intent, is not constructive.
If a study claimed that eating unlimited tacos every day was bad, as it found detrimental effects to 50% of the population, yes, I would be interested in knowing if being in the other 50% meant it wasn't bad you for.
If processed foods(, or alcohol, or meat, or carbs, or whatever) have 25% increased negative outcomes for overweight people, but only 2% increased negative outcomes for non-overweight people, that significantly changes the calculus.
I don't understand how you don't understand why you'd want to know that. It's practically equivalent to avoiding peanuts because other people have peanut allergies.
If processed foods(, or alcohol, or meat, or carbs, or whatever) have 25% increased negative outcomes for overweight people, but only 2% increased negative outcomes for non-overweight people, that significantly changes the calculus.
I don't understand how you don't understand why you'd want to know that. It's practically equivalent to avoiding peanuts because other people have peanut allergies.
They've still never actually defined what an "ultra-processed food" even is.
Is it ketchup? Is it protein powder? Is it infant formula? Is it plant-based meat? Is it banana bread?
Is it based on the number of ingredients? Is it based on a preparation method?
This is the core problem with just about every article or study on UPFs
Is it ketchup? Is it protein powder? Is it infant formula? Is it plant-based meat? Is it banana bread?
Is it based on the number of ingredients? Is it based on a preparation method?
This is the core problem with just about every article or study on UPFs
It has been defined many times and it's not a core problem.
https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
There doesn't need to be one formal globally recognised definition if you understand the intent of the meaning of the word.
Ketchup, protein powder, infant formula, plant-based meat and banana bread are all considered highly processed. Banana Bread less so if you decided to make it at home using raw ingredients.
https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
There doesn't need to be one formal globally recognised definition if you understand the intent of the meaning of the word.
Ketchup, protein powder, infant formula, plant-based meat and banana bread are all considered highly processed. Banana Bread less so if you decided to make it at home using raw ingredients.
There’s always going to be a grey area in the middle, but actual spam in a can, and totally prepared microwave dinners are clearly in that category.
The gray area is the problem. There's tons and tons of food that is likely healthy, but would meet the "ultra-processed" definition due to including certain ingredients. If those get lumped into the pile, then what is the study actually even measuring? Nothing useful in my view. If you want to make a case that a specific ingredient is harmful by itself (e.g., preservative X added to a food, all else equal, is bad) then I think that's a much stronger argument.
Right now all these studies seem to use broad strokes on the definition of ultra processed that make me think that it would be impossible to accurately remove confounding variables from the study.
Right now all these studies seem to use broad strokes on the definition of ultra processed that make me think that it would be impossible to accurately remove confounding variables from the study.
A few years ago I read a blog post about that topic with a lot of refs to scientific papers.
The blogger preferred the term "coffee shop food" over "(highly/ultra) processed food". It includes the packaging in plastic. I don't know if newer research has ruled out the wrappage as a cause, or if the plastic lobby manipulated to focus the ingredients.
The blog pointed to the very high effect size the experiments revealed (mostly mouse/rat model), and the impossibility to track it down to specific (groups of) substances. Unfortunately i cannot find the blog post.
To me it smells like microplastics might play a role.
The blog pointed to the very high effect size the experiments revealed (mostly mouse/rat model), and the impossibility to track it down to specific (groups of) substances. Unfortunately i cannot find the blog post.
To me it smells like microplastics might play a role.
I'd recommend people interested to listen to the Huberman lab podcast on "How Sugar & Processed Foods Impact Your Health". So in with an open mind, it's a good episode.
The podcast mentions of a food classification system in the US called the NOVA system, which classifies foods in supermarkets based on the degree to which they have been processed based on the above scale.
The podcast mentions of a food classification system in the US called the NOVA system, which classifies foods in supermarkets based on the degree to which they have been processed based on the above scale.
The guest is an absolute clown and charlatan.
He is a bit overzealous in certain ways and does dramatise some of the findings
The host is a supplement shill as well. It’s a “discussion” between a snake oil salesman and an algorithmic megaphone.
> algorithmic megaphone
Stealing that one, thanks!
Stealing that one, thanks!
Oh, I was quite taken in by him. Do you have any specific recommendations for detailed critiques/more information? Thank you
Edit: a bit of googling turns up a number of results. E.g https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/18qrjzl/lustig...
Edit: a bit of googling turns up a number of results. E.g https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/18qrjzl/lustig...
Really? On what basis? To be honest, I've been burnt out when it comes to supplements and health max/min type things, so I never dove deep into the Hubermann World.
With that being said, I know he's a (purportedly) prolific Stanford researcher of all healthy living things...nutrition, sleep, supplements and so on. He knows what he is talking about from what I have listened to.
We live in a society...blah blah, make a dollar blah blah. I highly doubt he's going out of his way to get people on things they shouldn't be on or claiming a supp. is something it is not.
But if he is blatantly endorsing garbage/pushing bullocks claims, that'd be beyond highly unethical and astonishing.
With that being said, I know he's a (purportedly) prolific Stanford researcher of all healthy living things...nutrition, sleep, supplements and so on. He knows what he is talking about from what I have listened to.
We live in a society...blah blah, make a dollar blah blah. I highly doubt he's going out of his way to get people on things they shouldn't be on or claiming a supp. is something it is not.
But if he is blatantly endorsing garbage/pushing bullocks claims, that'd be beyond highly unethical and astonishing.
The basis is self evident: he is an affiliate marketer for an overpriced product with astronomical margins (investors piled in at north of a billion) making health claims without scientific basis, 3rd party testing, or transparent labeling.
Good on him for getting his bag, but the incentives are clear: he made his name before sponsorships with quality content, but now the demand for ad impressions has outpaced his supply of meaningful insights. He needs to keep churning out videos to earn sponsorship dollars, so it's a natural symbiotic choice to invite low quality guests.
They bring the content (and controversy / engagement / followers), he supplies the veneer of legitimacy, studio lighting and somber expression in the thumbnail. The advertisers benefit and all get their payday, as long as his adherents keep overpaying for processed powder with multivitamin.
Good on him for getting his bag, but the incentives are clear: he made his name before sponsorships with quality content, but now the demand for ad impressions has outpaced his supply of meaningful insights. He needs to keep churning out videos to earn sponsorship dollars, so it's a natural symbiotic choice to invite low quality guests.
They bring the content (and controversy / engagement / followers), he supplies the veneer of legitimacy, studio lighting and somber expression in the thumbnail. The advertisers benefit and all get their payday, as long as his adherents keep overpaying for processed powder with multivitamin.
> The basis is self evident:
No it's not evidence.
You wrote so many things but you also could not provide any evidence on what you said, product selling is not proof of anything. Please give proper evidence while accusing others of such and writing long comments.
No it's not evidence.
You wrote so many things but you also could not provide any evidence on what you said, product selling is not proof of anything. Please give proper evidence while accusing others of such and writing long comments.
Product selling is proof of product selling. I wrote he is a supplement shill—-shilling for a supplement is proof enough of that.
[deleted]
> he is an affiliate marketer for an overpriced product
Didn't he recently announce that he now even has equity in AG1? So, it even goes beyond "affiliate".
That said, if you listen to the actual wordings of the claims he makes about AG1, he very clearly makes it a subjective statement, as in, he himself is taking it, because it sounds to him like a good idea (and walks through his thinking).
He very clearly distinguishes the modality around that from the modality around the science he reviews and that sort of thing. At least, to a trained ear, the distinction comes across very clearly.
Didn't he recently announce that he now even has equity in AG1? So, it even goes beyond "affiliate".
That said, if you listen to the actual wordings of the claims he makes about AG1, he very clearly makes it a subjective statement, as in, he himself is taking it, because it sounds to him like a good idea (and walks through his thinking).
He very clearly distinguishes the modality around that from the modality around the science he reviews and that sort of thing. At least, to a trained ear, the distinction comes across very clearly.
Otherwise, no one will listen.
I particularly enjoy the irony of this stance being taken by someone with the username "datavirtue".
He's referring to Robert Lustig, in case anyone else was curious.
Is AG1 not ultra processed?
The reason it doesn't fall into this category is not because it's not ultra-processed, but because it's not food, and no one is claiming that it's food either. Presumably the idea here is more about how many calories you ingest, and what proportion of those calories comes from what level of processing. AG1 is not going to be a significant proportion of anyone's caloric intake.
Yet adding xanthum gum or any sort of thickening agents to a food would make it ultra processed. Both of those have no nutritional value. Why does nutritional value have any relation to if something is ultra processed? It certainly doesn’t matter from a classification standpoint.
Medicine is "ultra-processed" as well, and goes in your mouth, but the study is certainly not implying that medicine, on the balance of probabilies, is unhealthy for you. That's where it makes a difference. It's not "don't put anything in your mouth that's ultra-processed", it's "don't rely exclusively/mostly on ultra-processed stuff to replace healthy food intake".
It would be considered ultra processed.
Important to note that whilst the podcast brings different opinions on different matters. It doesn't necessarily mean that Andrew or the podcast endorses those opinions.
Important to note that whilst the podcast brings different opinions on different matters. It doesn't necessarily mean that Andrew or the podcast endorses those opinions.
This is my issue with the term processed foods. If a food is processed because it has artificial sweeteners and food coloring, it's different then food containing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats (which is what the study looked at).
If you are going to condemn processed foods, show me that it's worse to eat Quest Bars than fruit and nuts with honey.
I hold the problem is sugars (and alcohol).
If you are going to condemn processed foods, show me that it's worse to eat Quest Bars than fruit and nuts with honey.
I hold the problem is sugars (and alcohol).
Huberman is sponsored by AG1, thereby he endorses the product.
Huberman lost all credibility with the science and medical community years ago, lol
On the same topic, I have been finding this book an entertaining and informative read - published in 2023.
- https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62586003
The author of the above book has a good talk on the same topic here
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOTBreQaIk
The book itself is well referenced with footnotes and an appendix with extra research papers etc.
- https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62586003
The author of the above book has a good talk on the same topic here
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOTBreQaIk
The book itself is well referenced with footnotes and an appendix with extra research papers etc.
Informative enough that you don't quote a single sentence and just put a link?
I also enjoyed ultra processed people. I found the book waffled a bit and some bits were a bit shoe horned in. There is also a tendency towards exaggeration for dramatic effect.
The strongest arguments I found were that we have evolved with our food over millions of years and eating is such a core role of any biological organism. Introducing all these edible synthetic products would understandably have unintentional consequences.
The other good one is an economic argument: all the food companies want you to consume more, so there is an incentive to make you over eat these products.
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The entire definition of "processed" as some kind of general category seems really dumb. Processed how? Which process? Any trend in the data could be explained by any one of a number of common "processes" but making this a general category is just a way to cast aspersions on all kinds of unrelated things.
Just because the categorization can be ambiguous, doesn't mean it isn't useful. A donut is clearly more processed than juice, while juice is clearly more processed than an apple.
>What are processed and ultra-processed foods?
>Unprocessed or minimally processed foods are whole foods in which the vitamins and nutrients are still intact. The food is in its natural (or nearly natural) state. These foods may be minimally altered by removal of inedible parts, drying, crushing, roasting, boiling, freezing, or pasteurization, to make them suitable to store and safe to consume. Unprocessed or minimally processed foods would include carrots, apples, raw chicken, melon, and raw, unsalted nuts.
>Processing changes a food from its natural state. Processed foods are essentially made by adding salt, oil, sugar, or other substances. Examples include canned fish or canned vegetables, fruits in syrup, and freshly made breads. Most processed foods have two or three ingredients.
>Some foods are highly processed or ultra-processed. They most likely have many added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, and artificial colors or preservatives. Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats. They may also contain additives like artificial colors and flavors or stabilizers. Examples of these foods are frozen meals, soft drinks, hot dogs and cold cuts, fast food, packaged cookies, cakes, and salty snacks.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed...
>Unprocessed or minimally processed foods are whole foods in which the vitamins and nutrients are still intact. The food is in its natural (or nearly natural) state. These foods may be minimally altered by removal of inedible parts, drying, crushing, roasting, boiling, freezing, or pasteurization, to make them suitable to store and safe to consume. Unprocessed or minimally processed foods would include carrots, apples, raw chicken, melon, and raw, unsalted nuts.
>Processing changes a food from its natural state. Processed foods are essentially made by adding salt, oil, sugar, or other substances. Examples include canned fish or canned vegetables, fruits in syrup, and freshly made breads. Most processed foods have two or three ingredients.
>Some foods are highly processed or ultra-processed. They most likely have many added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, and artificial colors or preservatives. Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats. They may also contain additives like artificial colors and flavors or stabilizers. Examples of these foods are frozen meals, soft drinks, hot dogs and cold cuts, fast food, packaged cookies, cakes, and salty snacks.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed...
I'm saying grouping all of those things together is dumb and meaningless. As a taxonomical choice. "this food was processed" is not a useful category for analysis.
I would concur: specifically the taxonomy doesn't offer any indication of mechanism, how is the 'processing' negativily affecting my biology? There's nothing in the naming to create a rule from.
Unlike say glycemic index: high glycemic index > releases glucose fast > body can't compensate fast enough > bad (diabetes, poor satiety, etc.) right now it's just processed > ???? > bad (in unspecifiable ways, by unspecifiable means).
Unlike say glycemic index: high glycemic index > releases glucose fast > body can't compensate fast enough > bad (diabetes, poor satiety, etc.) right now it's just processed > ???? > bad (in unspecifiable ways, by unspecifiable means).
I don't like that your comment and the parent both got negative reviews. It is a valid contrarian question.
However I would suggest researching about cirrhosis and fatty liver in children. It is a new disease that was unknown up until the 90s and is now common in developed countries. And it has to do with the following: your digestive system has the ability to process nutrients at a certain rate, depending on how hard they are to break down. For example sugar. The cells have a certain rate at which they can metabolize nutrients. The temporary excess is stored in the liver.
Then it becomes not a question of quality rather than quantity. The question then is not "how high is the glycemic index of food X" but "at which rate (i.e. mg of sugar per minute) can this food X be processed by our digestive system, and is this rate too fast for our cells to metabolize, which in turn causes our liver to store the temporary excess?"
Then the boolean variable "is this food X highly processed " becomes a plausible proxy variable, IMO, since refined sugar is something else than whole bread, when we talk about the rate at which nutrients enter the blood stream.
Do I make sense?
However I would suggest researching about cirrhosis and fatty liver in children. It is a new disease that was unknown up until the 90s and is now common in developed countries. And it has to do with the following: your digestive system has the ability to process nutrients at a certain rate, depending on how hard they are to break down. For example sugar. The cells have a certain rate at which they can metabolize nutrients. The temporary excess is stored in the liver.
Then it becomes not a question of quality rather than quantity. The question then is not "how high is the glycemic index of food X" but "at which rate (i.e. mg of sugar per minute) can this food X be processed by our digestive system, and is this rate too fast for our cells to metabolize, which in turn causes our liver to store the temporary excess?"
Then the boolean variable "is this food X highly processed " becomes a plausible proxy variable, IMO, since refined sugar is something else than whole bread, when we talk about the rate at which nutrients enter the blood stream.
Do I make sense?
You make sense, but whats needed is a word that isn't 'processed' that means: 'proxy variable for rate at which nutrients enter the bloodstream' and an objective measure for that word[0].
To put up a bit of a strawman: By what empirical measure, is an apple different (healthier) than an apple-equivalent of raw glucose/fructose + multi-vitamin + fiber supplement? The latter is obviously more processed, but I literally lack the means[1] to say how, why, and to what degree, one is 'healthier' than the other.
[0]Regardless of name, afaik there is no meaningful way to say e.g. kraft mac and cheese is '80% processed, where as homemade with box pasta, fresh cheddar and bechamel, is 50%, and homemade w/ hand-pulled noodles is 25%.
[1]e.g. a test of 'rate of which simple sugars leach in a ISO standardized simulated stomach'.
To put up a bit of a strawman: By what empirical measure, is an apple different (healthier) than an apple-equivalent of raw glucose/fructose + multi-vitamin + fiber supplement? The latter is obviously more processed, but I literally lack the means[1] to say how, why, and to what degree, one is 'healthier' than the other.
[0]Regardless of name, afaik there is no meaningful way to say e.g. kraft mac and cheese is '80% processed, where as homemade with box pasta, fresh cheddar and bechamel, is 50%, and homemade w/ hand-pulled noodles is 25%.
[1]e.g. a test of 'rate of which simple sugars leach in a ISO standardized simulated stomach'.
I agree as well.
"Processing" food is literally what people do in their kitchens. But that's presumably not what they mean.
Certain kinds of processing have to be applied to food to make it safe for consumption. But that's presumably not what they mean either.
Certain kinds of processing make the nutritional contents of food more bioavailable. Not what they mean.
Certain kinds of processing are required to preserve food. If humans stopped doing it, their environmental footprint would be orders of magnitude higher than it now is. Presumably, that's not what anyone is suggesting who is opposed to processed foods.
Fermenting is a kind of processing, and fermented foods may be playing a role in a healthy microbiome. ...whoops. Again: Not what they are talking about.
So what exactly are they trying to say? ...surely, picking a word other than "processed" would help in clarifying.
"Processing" food is literally what people do in their kitchens. But that's presumably not what they mean.
Certain kinds of processing have to be applied to food to make it safe for consumption. But that's presumably not what they mean either.
Certain kinds of processing make the nutritional contents of food more bioavailable. Not what they mean.
Certain kinds of processing are required to preserve food. If humans stopped doing it, their environmental footprint would be orders of magnitude higher than it now is. Presumably, that's not what anyone is suggesting who is opposed to processed foods.
Fermenting is a kind of processing, and fermented foods may be playing a role in a healthy microbiome. ...whoops. Again: Not what they are talking about.
So what exactly are they trying to say? ...surely, picking a word other than "processed" would help in clarifying.
I think the category is intended to be useful as a rule of thumb, which people can apply to make snap decisions at the pantry or grocery store. It might make analysis noisier than precisely defined mechanistic categories but if it gets people to act on the research maybe that's worthwhile.
(Of course research into better defined categories and the underlying mechanisms of their health impact is also necessary and extremely valuable.)
(Of course research into better defined categories and the underlying mechanisms of their health impact is also necessary and extremely valuable.)
I believe in most cases processing means (by choice or accidentally) making faster digestible. Most processes kind of destroy the food (blending, crushing, popping, juicing, extruding) and increase it's surface area so in the digestive tract it digests faster. In case of carbohydrates that often causes a bigger insulin spike and since this is a "growth" hormone it makes the body take in all the other stuff faster as well.
However, I'm also wondering if we have any processing that makes food less digestible and that decreases it's surface area. If so, it would probably be interesting to compare this kind of processing with the other.
However, I'm also wondering if we have any processing that makes food less digestible and that decreases it's surface area. If so, it would probably be interesting to compare this kind of processing with the other.
You need to find a middle ground between a high level and easily labeled category and scientific rigor. If the aim is raising awareness in consumers, erring on the side of generality and dumbing down is preferred.
What if my aim is to raise awareness of how harmful dumbing down is?
It may not be harmful overall, that is the point. You can get people to eat less of the stuff that makes them ill without requiring them to have time for or interest in science and details. Anyone with enough energy to care will pick the subset of processed foods that they feel are healthy or harmless.
What you call dumbing down is in line with how science works. Rough and inaccurate models first, refined in time or on demand.
What you call dumbing down is in line with how science works. Rough and inaccurate models first, refined in time or on demand.
Terry Pratchett advocated something called "lies-to-children" to communicate science. I saw that, and was ashamed of him. Richard Dawkins wanted "consciousness raising" about certain issues around atheism (in fact, around lying to children), and this activist attitude made me uneasy, because it seemed manipulative, with its inbuilt assumption of correctness and the expected outcome of changing minds in a specific way. Various politicians endorse "nudge theory" with greater or lesser degrees of openness about it. I can't approve of any of this coercion, or your apologetics on the grounds of "it does them good".
Having said that, I think all communication is inescapably slightly manipulative, starting from the mere fact of grabbing the audience's attention. But that doesn't mean we should double down on it.
Having said that, I think all communication is inescapably slightly manipulative, starting from the mere fact of grabbing the audience's attention. But that doesn't mean we should double down on it.
I don't think this is about principles, manipulation or anything that is usually a subject of heated and never settled debates. Saying processed food causes illness is a generalization which is very largely true, and considering that a large percentage of the population does not even think of food on the healthy/harmful axis, stating this as publicly as possible is actually the opposite of dumbing down. It is raising awareness for many people, or solidifying a message that others have already heard, and it's raising eyebrows in a smaller percentage of the population, who either already know this and are nitpicking about the message detail, or are generally bothered by the state/media/influencers interfering in how one leads their own life, or fear that such generalizations incorrectly put some traditional food in a bad light (see above comment about cured meats).
One problem I see (besides the paternalism, and talking down to people) is that "rigid schemas" of the kind that drives normies insane when nerdy types exhibit them and being smart vs. dumb are actually two very separate things.
So, there are tons of people who have rigid schemas, and are actually quite dumb, and watching health food nuts on YouTube is actually a great way to observe them in the wild. If you tell them "don't eat anything that doesn't look the way it looks in nature", they are going to start eating raw soy beans and poison themselves, because "science said so".
I don't think it's doing anyone any good if otherwise reputable news outlets, and actual scientists, throw even more oil into the fire of inaccurate information about nutrition.
So, there are tons of people who have rigid schemas, and are actually quite dumb, and watching health food nuts on YouTube is actually a great way to observe them in the wild. If you tell them "don't eat anything that doesn't look the way it looks in nature", they are going to start eating raw soy beans and poison themselves, because "science said so".
I don't think it's doing anyone any good if otherwise reputable news outlets, and actual scientists, throw even more oil into the fire of inaccurate information about nutrition.
One example of an ultra-processed food that was a surprise to me is imitation crab [0][1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_stick
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/imitation-crab
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_stick
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/imitation-crab
Another is most soy milk. But not all. Something like fake crab would also depend on what the actual ingredients are rather than the name (although I suspect fake crab lacking all the manufactured ingredients would be called 'fish').
How was it a surprise with such a name?
I have been under the impression since university that sushi is a healthier option for a meal, and the most popular sushi option in North America is the California roll.
> California roll (加州巻き,カリフォルニアロール, kariforunia rōru) or California maki is an uramaki (inside-out makizushi roll) containing imitation crab (or rarely real crab), avocado, and cucumber. Sometimes crab salad is substituted for the crab stick, and often the outer layer of rice is sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or roe (such as tobiko from flying fish).
> As one of the most popular styles of sushi in Canada and the United States, the California roll has been influential in sushi's global popularity, and in inspiring sushi chefs around the world to create non-traditional fusion cuisine.[2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_roll
> California roll (加州巻き,カリフォルニアロール, kariforunia rōru) or California maki is an uramaki (inside-out makizushi roll) containing imitation crab (or rarely real crab), avocado, and cucumber. Sometimes crab salad is substituted for the crab stick, and often the outer layer of rice is sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or roe (such as tobiko from flying fish).
> As one of the most popular styles of sushi in Canada and the United States, the California roll has been influential in sushi's global popularity, and in inspiring sushi chefs around the world to create non-traditional fusion cuisine.[2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_roll
> I have been under the impression since university that sushi is a healthier option for a meal, and the most popular sushi option in North America is the California roll.
That seems misguided. Sushi is just, very loosely, "thing on vinegared rice". If you put unhealthy thing on rice, it's still an unhealthy thing. May as well say "sandwiches are a healthy food" or "salads are healthy food".
That seems misguided. Sushi is just, very loosely, "thing on vinegared rice". If you put unhealthy thing on rice, it's still an unhealthy thing. May as well say "sandwiches are a healthy food" or "salads are healthy food".
He knows what they mean. It's the age old programmer forum response where everyone knows what the OP meant when they were asking but some pedant with a neurological problem hijacks the thread. Ignore him.
Maybe, but the one I generally flag is "cold cuts".
Humans have been curing meat forever. The question is whether "cured meat" is an issue or whether "modern curing of meat" is the problem.
When you ordered a ham from my old local meat market, it was a hunk of freshly butchered pig that was brined, cured and smoked. If it had any sugar, I sure couldn't taste it. You took it home, put it in the oven for a couple hours, and sliced it. It tasted wonderful by itself or with just a bit of fresh horseradish.
That ham is quite a lot different in terms of ingredients from the "sliced ham" you will get from your local grocery deli as a "cold cut".
Humans have been curing meat forever. The question is whether "cured meat" is an issue or whether "modern curing of meat" is the problem.
When you ordered a ham from my old local meat market, it was a hunk of freshly butchered pig that was brined, cured and smoked. If it had any sugar, I sure couldn't taste it. You took it home, put it in the oven for a couple hours, and sliced it. It tasted wonderful by itself or with just a bit of fresh horseradish.
That ham is quite a lot different in terms of ingredients from the "sliced ham" you will get from your local grocery deli as a "cold cut".
What percentage of cured meat and cold cuts consumed worldwide (or in your locale) would you say are modern vs. traditional?
Almost certainly modern industrialized dominates ... by far.
And this has issues in more than just "highly processed". Listeria is also an issue.
Finding a deli that makes their own meat is practically impossible nowadays.
And this has issues in more than just "highly processed". Listeria is also an issue.
Finding a deli that makes their own meat is practically impossible nowadays.
It is now a confirmed fact that bacon causes cancer.
I don't think bacon consumption has gone down since then.
I don't think bacon consumption has gone down since then.
It's nitrites or nitrates, specifically.
So now I have stopped eating pastrami, and my reuben sandwiches are ruined, and I'm unhappy about that. They've evolved into an abomination involving chicken tikka and blue cheese, in an attempt to get some kind of taste out.
So now I have stopped eating pastrami, and my reuben sandwiches are ruined, and I'm unhappy about that. They've evolved into an abomination involving chicken tikka and blue cheese, in an attempt to get some kind of taste out.
If you make your own sausages and deli meats, you can just skip the nitrites; they are not really needed for the taste, just for the red color. So your sausages will come out grey/brown, but will taste just as good.
Nitrites are a bit of an economic factor, due to accelerating the curing process, and also help in mitigating risks around food safety. So they're primarily relevant to entities doing this sort of thing at industrial scale, who are subject to government standards on food safety. Home cooking to the rescue!
...on a related note, I don't really understand why small-scale organic/regional producers of aren't already doing this. At least where I am, in a rural part of Germany, we have farmers markets and other sales outlets that pride themselves on doing pretty much everything in the organic/regional playbook that could possibly set them apart from the mass-market, and who charge very high prices. Surely, they could do me the favour and just skip the nitrites? But, for some reason, they don't.
Nitrites are a bit of an economic factor, due to accelerating the curing process, and also help in mitigating risks around food safety. So they're primarily relevant to entities doing this sort of thing at industrial scale, who are subject to government standards on food safety. Home cooking to the rescue!
...on a related note, I don't really understand why small-scale organic/regional producers of aren't already doing this. At least where I am, in a rural part of Germany, we have farmers markets and other sales outlets that pride themselves on doing pretty much everything in the organic/regional playbook that could possibly set them apart from the mass-market, and who charge very high prices. Surely, they could do me the favour and just skip the nitrites? But, for some reason, they don't.
> If you make your own sausages and deli meats, you can just skip the nitrites; they are not really needed for the taste, just for the red color.
That's not completely correct if you don't cook the meat quickly afterward.
Apparently the safety issue is mostly botulism. Certain meats (especially sausages) create anaerobic conditions while curing that allows botulism to grow. Nitrites prevent that.
It is possible to cure meats without nitrates (see: Prosciutto di Parma), but it's not a straightforward, blanket thing.
That's not completely correct if you don't cook the meat quickly afterward.
Apparently the safety issue is mostly botulism. Certain meats (especially sausages) create anaerobic conditions while curing that allows botulism to grow. Nitrites prevent that.
It is possible to cure meats without nitrates (see: Prosciutto di Parma), but it's not a straightforward, blanket thing.
Botulism is extremely rare, though. According to Wikipedia, it's 145 cases anually in the U.S., and 15% of those are foodborne.
Compare that to millions of cases each year, in the U.S., of foodborne illness, in general.
That's why I'm saying: It's a risk calculation, and government standards on food safety definitely prefer to err on the side of mandating too much processing of food over allowing too much foodborne illness.
Maybe, some of those risk calculations need to be revisited, and there needs to be a societal-level debate about how many cases of tummy-ache we are willing to trade off for how many basis points of cancer risk.
Incidentally, it stands to reason that the same kinds of things we do to kill off pathogens also kill off a lot of the microorganisms that may be useful to the body. To the extent that we're talking about additives, if we ingest them, then it seems likely that they might also kill off (or inhibit the growth of) useful parts of the microbiome already in the body. Of course, all of this I say in a mode of "cocktail party speculation" rather than peer-reviewed science, but there are just tons of unknown unknowns there, when it comes to the microbiome, and it actually offers one possible action mechanism (surely there are more than one), about how exactly it is that relying mostly on highly processed foods would be unhealthy for you.
Compare that to millions of cases each year, in the U.S., of foodborne illness, in general.
That's why I'm saying: It's a risk calculation, and government standards on food safety definitely prefer to err on the side of mandating too much processing of food over allowing too much foodborne illness.
Maybe, some of those risk calculations need to be revisited, and there needs to be a societal-level debate about how many cases of tummy-ache we are willing to trade off for how many basis points of cancer risk.
Incidentally, it stands to reason that the same kinds of things we do to kill off pathogens also kill off a lot of the microorganisms that may be useful to the body. To the extent that we're talking about additives, if we ingest them, then it seems likely that they might also kill off (or inhibit the growth of) useful parts of the microbiome already in the body. Of course, all of this I say in a mode of "cocktail party speculation" rather than peer-reviewed science, but there are just tons of unknown unknowns there, when it comes to the microbiome, and it actually offers one possible action mechanism (surely there are more than one), about how exactly it is that relying mostly on highly processed foods would be unhealthy for you.
> Botulism is extremely rare, though.
Precisely because we have engineered our foods and processes for safety.
None of this is new: "When Every Ketchup But One Went Extinct" https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-heinz-ketch...
"Their earlier ketchups “were medium bodied with average acidity,” Smith writes. In 1906, they replaced this ketchup with a shelf-stable, preservative-free ketchup that had twice as much salt, sugar, and vinegar as other commercial ketchups"
Is a ketchup with extensively boiled tomatoes (which kills quite a bit of their nutritive value), double the salt and double the sugar better than one with small amounts of benzoate?
Precisely because we have engineered our foods and processes for safety.
None of this is new: "When Every Ketchup But One Went Extinct" https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-heinz-ketch...
"Their earlier ketchups “were medium bodied with average acidity,” Smith writes. In 1906, they replaced this ketchup with a shelf-stable, preservative-free ketchup that had twice as much salt, sugar, and vinegar as other commercial ketchups"
Is a ketchup with extensively boiled tomatoes (which kills quite a bit of their nutritive value), double the salt and double the sugar better than one with small amounts of benzoate?
While the definition of different “processed foods” leaves a lot to be desired, there’s always going to be foods that are at the edge of one definition.
Further attempts to refine the definition also bumps up against pendants like yourself regardless of what definition they use.
But just like porn, we all know what definitely falls into one category or the other. With foods that straddle definitions, just apply some common sense and moderation. Go ahead and eat your ham. If you share it with family and friends you’re probably ok. If you ate the whole thing yourself in a couple days, maybe that’s bad. Same for everything else. Eat them in appropriate quantities and you’ll be fine.
Further attempts to refine the definition also bumps up against pendants like yourself regardless of what definition they use.
But just like porn, we all know what definitely falls into one category or the other. With foods that straddle definitions, just apply some common sense and moderation. Go ahead and eat your ham. If you share it with family and friends you’re probably ok. If you ate the whole thing yourself in a couple days, maybe that’s bad. Same for everything else. Eat them in appropriate quantities and you’ll be fine.
You should write a paper. Because apparently classification isn't all that easy:
"Machine Learning Prediction of Food Processing" https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257615v...
"Interestingly, even in presence of detailed ingredient information, the consistency across nutrition specialists in assigning NOVA classes was found to be low [39]"
"Machine Learning Prediction of Food Processing" https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257615v...
"Interestingly, even in presence of detailed ingredient information, the consistency across nutrition specialists in assigning NOVA classes was found to be low [39]"
Hey, no pedant trapping. Anyway wanting a definition of a thing you're told to be scared of, as well as a proposed mechanism of harm, isn't being a pedant.
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I think it helps to look at it from another perspective: We are seeing a trend of certain health problems that are related to what we eat. We notice that a certain type of food is the root cause. Our currenty categorization of foods isn't helpful in finding the issue. The best label we have found for this type of food is "ultra-processed".
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anyone got an unpaywalled link? I put this through the webarchive and was surprised to find it still paywalled.
Pasting the title text into a search engine often leads me to an MSN version of the story… https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/the-new-science-on-wh...
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Though these aren't direct accessible links to the WSJ's report, the following non-paywalled articles provide coverage about the same research paper (which itself can be directly read at https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310 ):
* The Conversation (takes a stronger focus on the paper's methodology): https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-largest-ev...
* Medical News Today (also takes a more technical perspective, though includes more emotionally charged words in the opening): https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ultra-processed-fo...
* The Guardian (general news coverage) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/ultra-proces...
* The Conversation (takes a stronger focus on the paper's methodology): https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-largest-ev...
* Medical News Today (also takes a more technical perspective, though includes more emotionally charged words in the opening): https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ultra-processed-fo...
* The Guardian (general news coverage) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/ultra-proces...
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Yes, I tried archive.is and 12ft, all failed. I have to say, I never success with 12ft even 1 time, what a shit website.
Anyone got a more advanced trick on WSJ link?
Anyone got a more advanced trick on WSJ link?
I will say if you have the disposable income then paying for the Wall St Journal is worth it imo. It's one of the few news sources that I trust for generally reliable information that, as long as you avoid the opinion sections, tends to be uniquely unbiased.
I stopped paying for them years ago when they started publishing kind of nonsense hit pieces on Tesla. Of course since then I ended up losing all respect for Elon Musk, but back in the 2010s there was a massive media war against Tesla and seeing them join it made me cancel my subscription. The resporting was biased and inaccurate to a fairly obvious extent.
The lower the water content, the more dangerous and unhealthy it is. My rule after tracking health studies and fitness information for more than a decade. The old boring advice is golden. Fresh fruits, and more importantly, vegetables. Tapering off rapidly toward complex carbs and grains after a substantial portion of legumes. The more you grind fruit and grains the more they turn into sugar. No one wants to hear the truth: HoHos and pork shoulder will ruin your retirement years.
> No one wants to hear the truth: HoHos and pork shoulder will ruin your retirement years.
I think it is well understood by interested people that indulging in cream-filled chocolate snack cakes will lead to bad outcomes.
But what is your beef with pork shoulders?
I think it is well understood by interested people that indulging in cream-filled chocolate snack cakes will lead to bad outcomes.
But what is your beef with pork shoulders?
I generally agre, but pork shoulder shouldn't be that bad for you. If you're barbecuing it, a lot of the fat should cook out. If you eat an otherwise healthy diet and dont over do this, it should be fine.
An interesting thing that I've noticed, is that pork fats seem to vary in their solidifying temperature. If I get pork from the supermarket, the fat resolidifies at room temperature rather quickly. If I get pork from a local farm, it can take all night to resolidify at room temperature. I'm thinking the quality of the pork feed may be affecting the health properties of the fat (higher saturated fat tends to equal higher solidity). Obviously it's still bad if one overeats it, but maybe we could get some health benefits from looking at the quality of the fats through things like animal feeds and living condidtions.
An interesting thing that I've noticed, is that pork fats seem to vary in their solidifying temperature. If I get pork from the supermarket, the fat resolidifies at room temperature rather quickly. If I get pork from a local farm, it can take all night to resolidify at room temperature. I'm thinking the quality of the pork feed may be affecting the health properties of the fat (higher saturated fat tends to equal higher solidity). Obviously it's still bad if one overeats it, but maybe we could get some health benefits from looking at the quality of the fats through things like animal feeds and living condidtions.
I don't think it's just the water content, it's also the surface area. Most processing we do (crushing, milling, blending, juicing, extruding, popping etc.) increases the surface area of the food and therefore make it faster digestible by our body.
Not sure if we have any processing that makes food less digestible and decreases surface area but it would be interesting to compare this kind of processing with the other.
Not sure if we have any processing that makes food less digestible and decreases surface area but it would be interesting to compare this kind of processing with the other.
> Fresh
No, frozen and dried stuff are fine. I don't get the obsession with freshness when talking about healthy food.
No, frozen and dried stuff are fine. I don't get the obsession with freshness when talking about healthy food.
> we introduce GroceryDB, a database with over 50,000 food items sold by Walmart, Target, and Wholefoods, unveiling the degree of processing characterizing each food. GroceryDB indicates that 73% of the US food supply is ultra-processed, and on average ultra-processed foods are 52% cheaper than minimally-processed alternatives. We find that the nutritional choices of the consumers, translated as the degree of food processing, strongly depend on the food categories and grocery stores. We show that there is no single nutrient or ingredient "bio-marker" for ultra-processed food, allowing us to quantify the individual contribution of over 1,000 ingredients to ultra-processing. GroceryDB and the associated https://www.TrueFood.tech website make this information available, aiming to simultaneously empower consumers to make healthy food choices, and aid policy makers to reform the food supply.
Machine Learning Prediction of Food Processing (2021), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257615
GroceryDB: Prevalence of Processed Food in Grocery Stores (2022), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.23.22274217