Ultra processed foods study

[kikisparks]

I looked but didn’t see any other thread on this https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/13/some-ultra-processed-foods-are-good-for-your-health-who-backed-study-finds

“A major new international study has found that regular consumption of meat products – such as sausages – and sugary drinks” make it more likely that someone will get cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Sauces, spreads and condiments are also bad for human health.

“But bread and cereals actually reduce someone’s risk of them – because they contain fibre – despite also being ultra-processed foods (UPF)” and “sweets and desserts, ready meals, savoury snacks and plant-based alternatives to meat products”
are not associated with increased risk.

So what I takeaway is that whilst eating less processed food on the whole is good, it is the type of foods that matter not just whether they are UPF or not. Bread and cereals are also often fortified with vitamins and minerals so there is that benefit too.

Thank you. I should have said (awful dripf feed) we can't have soya either. Are veggie sausages not upf? They would happily have some of those of they're not! We love violife for things like vegan pizza and Mac cheese but obviously that is upf. I have tried that flaky yeast stuff instead of cheese but it was so similar to vomit I couldn't use it again.

Meat from the butchers is fine. It's meat from the supermarkets that's not.

Do you have any evidence for that? Are you saying that if I buy a whole raw chicken from Sainsbury's it's bad and if I buy one from the butcher's it's fine?

Sounds like horseshit

I presume they included quorn when they looked at meat substitutes. It is not that new, it has been around since 1985. The study was focused on cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Red meat is a probable carcinogen. Whether something is “healthier” than something else is probably not easy to say as there are many variables but at least on the face of it the current research shows there are less health risks associated with quorn than with red meat, and quorn has significantly lower health risks when compared to processed meat.

Yes you are right, veggie sausages are UPF as are, for example, baked beans or shop bought bread. However, the point of the article is that it showed no negative health impact to ultra processed plant based foods, but ultra processed animal based foods were linked to an increased risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

There is no soya in the chickpea pasta so might be one to try, I was skeptical about the taste/ texture but it’s actually fine. You can also buy chickpea flour and make an “omelette” https://thehiddenveggies.com/chickpea-omelette-the-best-vegan-omelette/ (that recipe contains nutritional yeast but you can omit it if you don’t like it 😄)

And lentil soup always a good option if kids will eat it.

What a very refined analysis of the Lancet study.

According to the NHS it's not just 'processed' meat like sausages that can cause cancer. They recommend cutting down on all red meat. this information has been around for many years, but people still seem to think that meat from a butcher or 'local' meat is healthy.

Red meat and bowel cancer risk - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

It's worth pointing out that the headline in the Guardian is - predictably - a terrible summary of the work. Here's the key conclusion from the paper: "A higher consumption of UPFs was associated with a higher risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases. Artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages, animal-based products and sauces, spreads and condiments, but not other items, were associated with increased risk of multimorbidity, suggesting that more nuanced subgroup analyses of UPFs are warranted."
Translation: certain UPF food groups are linked to negative health risks. But several other UPF food groups show no link to negative health risks. So: not all UPF foods are linked to health risks, and we should probably not treat all UPF foods as the same in terms of health risks.

Personally, I stick to my non UPF diet following this shopping list https://www.instagram.com/go.upf.free/ and a brilliant Facebook group called Quitting UPF.