Ultra-Processed People

[Fairislefandango]

Anyone read this? I'm currently listening to it as an audiobook and it's really enlightening, if depressing! After spending years on and off various diets and ending up back where I started, I'm thinking that cutting out UPF is the only sane thing left to try.

If you're worried about cancer risk then it's very easy to find a study linking cancer to pretty much everything we eat.

A slightly tangential point -

My mother and her two sisters brought up in poverty in rural Ireland. Zero convenience food. Just what was available from the farm. All the sisters slim (no effort), attractive and reasonably healthy till old age. There were issues - it wasn’t perfect believe me - but a forum post is not the place to go into stuff in detail in some ways.

However I look at young people, and older people for that matter, pumped with convenience food, and … it’s not a good look. I think they know it on some level maybe, but don’t know what to do about it 😔.

@Fairislefandango that ham looks pretty awful, I’ll bet it tasted pretty awful too. I wonder exactly how it’s been processed and what the list of additives are in it.

This yeast/emulsifier thing - I use 4g instant yeast in my bread maker loaf. I’m assuming that this amount of emulsifier will be significantly lower than a supermarket sliced wholemeal/seeded loaf and it also won’t be full of preservatives and palm oil etc.

I think I’ll do what I can manage to sustain over time.

@Vegetus

If you're worried about cancer risk then it's very easy to find a study linking cancer to pretty much everything we eat

Which is why it's important to assess the quality of the study, rather than just 'relying on the science'.

If you look at this video showing obesity rates in the USA from 1985-2021, it's very clear that there has been a big, big change. It can't just be down to people having less willpower than they did in the past. Human nature doesn't just change like that, and we know that the available food has changed. The rise of ultra-processed food which is designed to be highly palatable, easy to eat and addictive coincides with this time period.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y4logi/oc_obesity_rate_in_the_united_states_19852021/

Omg I used to love those spam fritters.

It's not a systematic review or huge meta analysis which combines the results of multiple studies. You can't form an accurate scientific opinion with just one controlled trial. That forms one aspect of research.
Many East Asian seasonings are UPF MSG is UPF but they have some of the lowest rates of obesity in the world.

People on average have much more disposable income, are way more sedentary and food is easier to buy and store than ever before.

It's why I laugh when people use rat studies or in vitro studies to try and prove a point.

That's basically 'since low fat guidelines were introduced'.

We did what we were told. We ate less fat, and because it's really hard to replace it with protein, we replaced it with carbs. Surely you don't think the change is all to do with UPFs?

Post war Britain (possibly inter war Britain) was full of rubbish food ( as well as food that was ok). Did anyone care about the crap food ? Notsomuch. A bit like now?

As for spam fritters you gotta be kdding right?! they were truly vile. Swimming in grease. One slice of unnoticeable ham encapsulated by a massive turd of batter literally dripping with oil. I didn’t have the words or the intellect at age 14 - but I remember being (literally!) puzzled at the grim, unintelligible greasy concoction on my plate.

14 year old me used to love it - almost as much as I used to like the lasagne in a tin that we used to have at home.

They were the good old bad old days - I'm much fussier now and don't eat batter ever (or lasagne in a tin come to that).

@LexterDay

Post war Britain (possibly inter war Britain) was full of rubbish food ( as well as food that was ok). Did anyone care about the crap food

Yes. There have always been people who care about getting a good balanced diet, and do what they can with the knowledge and limitations they have.

Probably the same as most supermarket ham. I eat it because it's what I can afford
Yes I have eggs or tuna for sandwich fillings and I cook from scratch but sometimes I want ham or pastrami and I can't afford the nice ham so whatever Aldi has is what I eat
Same with bread

You have to have the time and energy (making your own) or additional money to spend to buy the more expensive less processed stuff in order to avoid UPF

Honest @bonfirebash I literally couldn’t eat it - supermarket cheap ham I mean. I have a very limited income but pass on that. I just find it completely unappetising. There are other cheap,options in food, ~ I’d rather have a. Geese sandwich or egg on toast - nobody is forcing one to eat ham, We all have different priorities.

Even nice ham isn't great healthwise!

cheese sandwich!

I'm slim I eat UPFs including ham. I eat small portions of protein rich food that's all.

I meant “did anyone care” that a lot of people ate post war rubbish? Spam fitters and the like.

As Marie antoinette said “let them eat cake”, some people might now say “let them eat Ultra processed food: who gives a monkeys”. That was my point.

Even public schools inter-war period - some of them were renowned for serving up appalling food. It’s partly where the English got their reputation for their terrible cuisine, they’d eat anything. Ian Fleming wrote of his hatred of his boarding school, the horrible food served up, and how all pupils were made to suffer

My problem with the enthusiasm that people express against UPF is (1) all or nothing thinking, and (2) that sugar & salt are perfectly healthy foods (it's alleged by the anti-UPF concerned). Sugar & salt are treated as fine in massive quantities. Something goes wrong with that logic.

About the RCT... It's 10 people in each arm. That is small.
They were recruited to be experimental subjects (presumably paid moderately well). Would you give up 28 days of your life for that? they won't be that ordinary. They may not be balanced for other traits (because small group).

The dietary composition was different: more carbs & less protein in the UPF version.

I think the weight loss on UPF means... they didn't like that food. It wasn't very nice. <shrug> Or/and it wasn't food they were used to, perhaps.

Not completely, but a lot of the low fat products are UPF along with containing added sugar, as well as highly calorific fast food and "home fast food" products containing lots of UPF.

This really resonates with me. Up until my late 30s I was a normal size 10-12. Then I started to eat far more ready meals as I went back to full time work and put on weight at an amazing pace.
Hopefully now I’m eating more home cooked food I will now continue to lose weight.

My problem with the enthusiasm that people express against UPF is (1) all or nothing thinking, and (2) that sugar & salt are perfectly healthy foods (it's alleged by the anti-UPF concerned). Sugar & salt are treated as fine in massive quantities.

I haven't seen any evidence of all or nothing thinking or claims that sugar and salt are perfectly healthy foods in massive quantities.

There's nothing 'all or nothing' about saying that avoiding UPF as much as you can is a good idea. Also, saying that the salt and sugar content of UPF foods per se isn't what makes it drive obesity or health risks isn't the same as saying that eating tons of sugar and salt is healthy.