This UPF thing is irritating me

[SnowMoss]

I've never eaten much UPF, but it is getting harder and harder to avoid it. I don't go the whole 9 yards or anything, but try to keep myself informed and do my best to eat a healthy balanced diet.

Made a good effort to keep an eye on upf's, so for the past year have been sourcing good poultry, fish, and eating it with vegetables, etc. But I am bored out of my mind at this point! Just so fucking bored.

Then I hear about seed oils, so now even the small things that I added, such as mayo, gnocchi, the occasional flatbread (contains only sunflower oil, salt, wheat) are seen as a UPF too, due to the inclusion of sunflower or rapeseed oil. I am happy with and have the time to cook from scratch, but avoiding oils has basically taken a good whack at my time.
It's one thing trying to get people to eat a good diet, with veg and fruit and less processed meats, which will benefit their health, weight and wellbeing, but I am honest to god fed up of eating meat and a pile of veg, even if my own sauces and seasonings suffice.
And no, nothing substitutes for mayo! And no, I really don't want to make my own! I will make my own pesto, coleslaw, stuff like that, but I am bone bloody weary of avoidance.

Surely just being mindful is enough? I get that the food industry is an unregulated cesspit right now, but I am beginning to wonder just how awful it is, in moderation, to eat a some.
Sadly if I google any kind of additive or seed oil, I get lists of 'side effects' such as bloating, calcium loss and so on, it is so depressing.

If you are mindful of UPF's have you found a good balance?

Yes, exactly. All UPFs are not damaging and this inflammation obsession is not scientific. Why aren't formula fed babies chronically inflamed from subsisting almost entirely on seed oils and thickeners?

Which ones? Coconut oil and olive oil, yes. But heavily refined seed oils? Genuine question

Sure, but I don’t think it’s helpful, in a thread about UPFs being harmful, to make a specific point about baby formula being UPFs.

Some will read it against the discussion about cancer and heart disease and freak out they’ve harmed their baby.

As far as I can tell, the poster was trying to say that since formula fed babies are ok, UPFs can’t be that bad - which is a false equivalence.

A highly controlled, scientifically developed baby food, fed for 6 months in small quantities is not comparable to running wild on KFC and beige food for 60 years.

So why even bring it up?

That's good to know...... eyeing my beloved pecorino and truffle roasted nut mix with relief.

The inflammation thing is interesting, I know if I eat a lot of shit carbs, and my appetite for them is stupendous, my arthritic fingers swell more and are more painful. If I cut the shit carbs out of my diet, after about a week, my fingers cause me no bother at all. Purely anecdotal I know !

Because formula isn’t mostly thickeners and seed oils.

Also, inflammation isn’t the key issue with UPFs.

Get off TikTok and delve into google scholar.

I'm not on TikTok and I don't believe formula is harmful.

Never known what to make of the inflammation info. I have never had a known physical reaction to foods, although I may just be lucky. Some foods cause me indigestion (very temporary, such as banana and fried food) but nothing more. Even my IBS is largely stress triggered.

I do know that seeking a correlation is tempting though, because we all feel more comfortable with a sense of control. It is far easier to be able to blame UPF than our finances or grief - a lot harder to simply cut those out of your life.
I am not referring to actual allergies here or celiac, etc.

I once blamed bread for a multitude of sins which turned out to be bollocks. I don't eat much of the stuff anyway, but it did make me wonder if we feel a need to find a solution, a scapegoat for issues that we don't understand. And if you think about it, it is very, very fashionable to blame food. Perhaps this is due to worsening conditions of equality/housing/access in general, and so much divisive, unpleasant news? We become more isolated, and spend more time online?

My issues were all related to a bad living environment, yet I spent a good amount of time seeking answers via my diet. Most of the problems vanished after moving house.

I think it's fully legitimate, when someone states something as fact, to ask the source. If it's a summary of the conclusions of an NIH study that provides a different context for evaluation than if it's some paleo advocate on Joe Rogan (which seems to have been the start of the seed oil thing).

Oh, and after a fairly compact search (only using health bodies, etc) I could not find any link between seed oils and cancer.

Who or what started that?

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but Croatia and mollica do some piadina flat breads that are wheat, olive oil and salt, so you avoid the seed oils and they are just processed as opposed to upf.

A little more expensive, but delicious if you warm them up

I would hazard a guess that most Easter European countries used sunflower oil for generations as this is what is grown locally. Not sure when refinement was introduced but I imagine roughly around the same time as refined coconut, palm and olive oil.

A lot of people have a funny relationship with food and get very dogmatic about it.

I think it's also become the new moralism in place of religion.

I've not read the rest of the thread but I use cold pressed rapeseed oil from lidl which i believe is better, I try to avoid all upf foods, esp for the kids but Mayo is also our downfall!!

To my knowledge it was Paul Saladino. A psychiatrist who for some unknown reason thinks he is an expert in human nutrition and nobody ever though to question what his medical speciality is. He later published a book on carnivore diet and made a living out of pedalling shit online. Interestingly, last year he decided that carnivore diet wasn't as healthy as he made everyone to believe and, more amusingly, he knew this fact before the book went into publishing. What a surprise.

Yes, it’s the not-so-healthy stuff (not necessarily UPFs) like a delicious dressing and cheese which mean I’ll happily eat a salad regularly. I think if small amounts of things like mayo bring, as you say OP, boring food to life and make eating a joy - which it bloody should be, as well as to nourish us of course - then it’s absolutely fine to keep eating them.

That’s so concerning about the kids picking up on this obsessive eating, even if it is meant to be healthier. In my DC’s friendship groups, it’s the kids with similar parents who seem to have want to eat the most junk at parties. We gave DC a taste of desserts etc from weaning even and she can take or leave them now.

I once blamed bread for a multitude of sins which turned out to be bollocks. I don't eat much of the stuff anyway, but it did make me wonder if we feel a need to find a solution, a scapegoat for issues that we don't understand. And if you think about it, it is very, very fashionable to blame food. Perhaps this is due to worsening conditions of equality/housing/access in general, and so much divisive, unpleasant news? We become more isolated, and spend more time online?

I think this is a good point and it resonates with me certainly. It's less food related for me (I've always eaten pretty simply and well) but I go in hard on meditation, mindfulness, yoga, productivity techniques and so on when I'm struggling. Basically a load of "solutions". Actually Im sure I really need less stress and responsibility and these things are a bit of a sticking plaster.

My understanding is that temporary inflammation is the same as an immune system response so it's good or at least normal, however sustained inflammation from stress or bad diet is linked to poor health outcomes.

I don’t think there’s much out there, but here’s reference to a very small study linking them to colon cancer.

It’s a pilot study, which is a normal ‘first step’ to try and show it’s an area worth looking into more.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ultraprocessed-foods-high-in-seed-oils-could-be-fueling-colon-cancer-risk/

The link between hydrogenated oils and cancer / heart disease is much more clear.

Processing is not bad. Processing includes cooking, pasteurizing milk, making bread out of wheat and making cheese. Many foods are not safe or digestible or as nutritious without being processed. Processing also preserves some foods so that there's something to eat in the winter. Humans have evolved to eat cooked and moderately processed foods over long periods.

Upf on the other hand is food that has been industrially altered beyond what can be done in the kitchen. It is low in micro nutrients which leads to malnutrition and consequent over eating as the body tries to make up. It is disproportionately high in transfats, refined carbs , sugar and salt. It contains ingredients that are actively harmful, causing inflammation and disease.

I guess upf isn't universally bad because formula milk. Can't think of any other good examples though.

Sure: 'Chronic inflammation is always negative'.

I think it's hard to argue with my overarching point, which is that we cannot now rely on research which was undertaken under a model of 'health' which is now very much in question.

You're right, I'm not a scientist - but I'm used to parsing competing evidentiary claims. And actually, being a scientist is not necessarily, in this instance, the gold standard: plenty of research depts have undertaken research which are designed to produce commercially-driven results, because they need the funds - more below.

On the issue itself:
There was a huge leap forward as a result of Covid research - and in the next decade we will understand more about the connection between gut microbiota and all other systems (shorthand). Some of the standard advice around food will still pertain, but I think it's acknowledged quite widely that that lots will be found to be - not 'wrong', exactly, but 'looking in the wrong direction'.

I think it's also fair to say that it's likely that some of this misdirection has been deliberate, and has come from the food industry, in whose interest it is to ask the wrong questions, and the research they have chosen to fund .

I don't think it's necessary to wait for that full spread of new research to land in a decade's time to start to put gut health much closer to the centre of our model of overall health.

That doesn't mean that we will throw away our thinking about (for eg) saturated fats altogether - but we wouldn't, for example, allow the food industry to suggest that FryLight is better for you than butter. Or that low fat foods which contain chemically processed sugar syrups are better for you than unprocessed higher-fat foods, or that the gums, stabilisers, emulsifiers used in almost all processed foods - and now, many basic ingredients that we use when 'cooking from scratch' - don't have a deleterious impact on the ability of our gut to do what it has always been doing, without us knowing it: keeping us healthy.

From Wikipedia

The trend grew in 2020 after podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan interviewed fad diet proponent Paul Saladino about the carnivore diet. Saladino made several claims about the health effects of vegetable fats.[1]
The theme of the misinformation is that seed oils are the root cause of most diseases of affluence, including heart disease,[2] cancer,[3]diabetes,[4] and liver spots.[5] These claims are not based on evidence,[6] but have nevertheless become popular on the political right.[7] Critics cite a specific "hateful eight" oils that constitute "seed oils": canola, corn, cottonseed, soy, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran.[8]
Consumer vegetable oils are generally recognized as safe for human consumption by the United States FDA.[9]
Origins and scientific evaluation

One thing is for certain, even if health authorities are slow to catch up, I still won't take nnutrition or health advice from a youtuber, no matter how many qualifications or book deals they have.

Honestly try frying your veg in olive oil with salt and garlic - delicious!
Or boiled veg dipped in Olive oil and balsamic vinegar is nice.
Roasted veg with a few spices.
Salad with cheese and homemade dressing (oil and vinegar and salt and pepper)

Meat can be boring, but veg - never