If you are not reducing your intake of UPF…

[maybein2022]

… with all the media attention on UPF at the moment and so much research coming out about it. Interested to know. If you’re NOT reducing your intake of it, is it because you’re not able to (finances/accessibility/time), because you don’t want to or don’t think it’s a problem, you and/or your kids are neurodivergent and a lot of ‘safe’ foods are UPF or other reasons.

YANBU: I am reducing mine/my family’s intake
YABU: I am not for reasons listed above (or other reasons)

No I haven't. Probably should but its so convenient.

You aren’t getting the distinction between a definition and a rule of thumb and consequently have made a straw man here.
The Wikipedia definition describes what they are. It nowhere claims that the fact UPFs are often synthesised from organic compounds is what is bad about them.
The rule of thumb is a quick means to help people identify UPFs in a real life context, not a definition that claims to work for every item.

The claim that because ingredients are synthesised from organic compounds they are UPF and therefore bad is nonsensical.

Undoubtedly some synthetic compounds are “bad”. That’s not necessarily because they are synthetic, and it’s certainly not because they are synthesised from organic compounds.

You posted a Wikipedia link to a definition of an organic compound. I’m saying that there’s nothing inherently bad about organic compounds.

However, I may have misunderstood your initial post. Perhaps your link to the definition was accidental?

I live outside the US and the UK, and while I have read an article or two I literally have not heard one person discuss UPFs or say they are giving up eating them. In fact I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought myself if I hadn't read about it on MN. The supermarkets are full of them so I'm guessing people are eating them.

Ha, ha - and I'm planning on going there for breakfast tomorrow. I don't think this thread is having the desired effect. 😂

I cook everything from scratch where I can

What I buy that is UPF - making a sub for it would be hard work!

I do find these and the "omg naughty machines" responses so cringe and immature.

Nobody is trying to get one over on you or make you feel bad or make you change your habits.

Some people are changing their own eating habits and discussing the reasons behind it, and whether other people feel the same or are not bothered.

I can’t speak for the Maccies lovers. Though since it’s perfectly good food I can’t see why you’d regard it as ‘immature’ to want one.

As for the machines, it’s pretty obvious that some posters, including me, are just pointing out that the UPF avoiders have bought into a lot of pseudoscience and fearmongering. Making that point is not ‘cringe’ or ‘immature’ either.

You don't get to dictate what counts as cringe or immature thanks, it's completely subjective.

Just to add balance to your last point, there are also people - including posters on this thread - who have cut out certain foods, now labelled UPFs, because they are persuaded by the evidence.

That's not 'buying into a lot of pseudoscience' or being victims of 'fearmongering.' It's just arriving at a different POV. The need on these threads to judge, be reductive and take swipes is tedious.

I’m not reducing mine because I don’t eat much of it anyway. Apart from the odd slice of bacon or a couple of sausages on Saturday morning, that is it.

Neither do you - you were the one that threw the comment into the thread in the first place! 🙄

It’s an AIBU. People debate things in AIBU.

There’s nothing tedious about countering arguments of harm from food.

Not reducing mine because I don't want to. I am fit and eat a healthy and varied diet and that includes UPF.

I reckon the fags, booze and drugs might get me first if I'm ranking threats to my health.

Saying that people who choose not to eat 'UPFs' because they believe pseudoscience or have fallen victim to fear mongering isn't debate, nor is it a counter argument. You're using typical MN reductive and infantilizing speak, which is not offering a counter argument at all.

I've been on MN for 17 years, I know how it works. It would just be enjoyable and more enriching to genuinely debate something, without the constant snapbacks and point-scoring. It is tedious.

Squabbling like arsey 14 year olds isn't debate.

I think it would be best if we agree to differ.

Personally, I find pseudoscience tedious. It’s also alarmist. In which case it’s reasonable to debunk it.

You don’t mention any of the argument that went before, about organic chemistry, the detailed explanation of why UPF scare stories are wrong that was linked-to, or the entire muddle-headed concept of food ‘processing’.

I also think that people who post on AIBU threads have no cause to complain of ‘point scoring’.

But let’s just disagree and leave it there.

Agreed. That’s why ‘cringe’ and ‘immature’ were so out of place.

I'm on a couple of upf reduction Facebook groups and the amount of butter and sugar being consumed is quite something.

Plus nobody in the entire western world needs to consume more vitamin C. The NHS says that 40mg per day is enough for an adult (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-c/). You will get that comfortably even if your diet consists literally only of chips, as potatoes have quite a lot of vitamin C in them.

There is also the quackery around massive doses of vitamin C for colds, which was promoted by a Nobel Prize winner (Linus Pauling), so "It must be right" even though he was a theoretical physicist and, like quite a lot of Nobel winners, a bit of a crank.

The portrayal of orange juice as a daily health necessity is a triumph of marketing over science. It's just as bad for your teeth as most soft drinks and it's full of sugar, albeit "natural" sugar, as opposed to the "UPF" sugar that [checks notes] grows as sugar beet.

Am reducing UPFs massively, how did we get duped so easily? I follow this plane talking 66 year old, love him. I send his vids to my dad (same age) who is very lazy at making his own food but has loads of time on his hands yet expects to be healthy? Anyhoooo, here is the link: www.instagram.com/reel/C4OOie0iDuA/?igsh=MWgwcmRqa3pjY2x6Zg==

Yes, absolutely our viewpoints differ. I'm always happy with different views on a subject, and the matter is closed on that aspect.

But this: "people who post on AIBU threads have no cause to complain of ‘point scoring’" is plain wrong, imo.

AIBU is not about point scoring for most posters. People use AIBU for all kinds of reasons. It's never good to read the relative handful of AIBU Gurus who insist on perpetrating the 'Ha! It's AIBU! Get used to it!' lines. It closes down meaningful debate, puts people off posting and reduces countless threads to a stupid scrap.

Hear hear.

The only trouble with this is that the posters who have pointed out the fallacy and baselessness of the anti-UPF fad haven’t ‘scored points’. They’ve shot down the nonsense with proper argument.

Hear, hear, indeed.

The 'UPF fad' and the science behind it need to remain separate really, despite one feeding the other. I know people love to do the "Gotcha! Debunked THAT one!" stuff, but the 'nonsense' is not one homogenous Bible of scientific fact waiting to be 'shot down' by 'proper argument.'