Ultra-processed foods are not poison
One of embarrassments of our time is the medicalization of food. No, kale isn’t a superfood. No, Froot Loops are not poison. Food isn’t medicine.
As for the risks of ultra-processed foods, any pharmacologist or toxicologist will tell you that the dose makes the poison.
Ultra-processed foods don’t cause obesity. Obesity is caused by consuming more calories than you burn. Your body can’t tell what those calories came from, but if you take in too many calories, the excess from all sources is stored as fat.
In reality, some ultra-processed foods are supplemented with vitamins and minerals. Here’s what’s in Cheerios, an ultra-processed breakfast cereal:
Whole Grain Oats, Corn Starch, Sugar, Salt, Tripotassium Phosphate. Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) Added to Preserve Freshness. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Carbonate, Iron and Zinc (mineral nutrients), Vitamin C (sodium ascorbate), A B Vitamin (niacinamide), Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), Vitamin A (palmitate), Vitamin B1 (thiamin mononitrate), A B Vitamin (folic acid), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3.
Compare that to celery, an unprocessed food. Cheerios have more nutritional value, hands down.
I don’t recommend Cheerios as a sole source of calories, even if you do include a splash of milk. But Cheerios won’t kill you, and if you consume it in moderation as part of a balanced diet, it won’t make you obese.
If you are a grown-up and you get most of your calories from junk food, don’t blame the food industry for your bad choices. Yes, junk food is designed to taste yummy and is heavily marketed. SUVs and pickups are designed to appeal to American drivers and are heavily marketed too, and nobody complains about being compelled to drive an SUV or pickup.
And before anyone attacks me for it, yes, I know there are genetic drivers of obesity and that none of us controls our genetics. But if you don’t have a genetic disorder, stop looking for an external locus of control. Be better.
Vitamins were first added to breakfast cereals a hundred years or so ago to address chronic vitamin deficiencies in the population, especially folic acid. It was one of the great public health success stories back in the day. Like the anti-vaxxers who seem not to realize what happened to polio, scarlet fever, etc., how much we (well, some people) have forgotten.
High-fructose corn syrup isn’t actually high in fructose; it’s just higher in fructose than processed corn syrup, which is low in fructose. Unfortunately, the added stuff contains some glucose monosaccharides, which follow a different metabolic pathway and stimulate an immediate insulin release, unlike fructose. Too much of this can basically overload the pancreas and damage it, causing type II diabetes, increased risk of pancreatic cancer, and other problems. In this case, the body *can* tell where the calories came from!
Still, as you say, it’s your fault if you consume too much of it. Nobody is making you drink four cans of Coke a day, any more than you have to buy an SUV.
@John,
Sucrose is a disaccharide comprised of a 1:1 molar ratio of glucose:fructose, so fructose is baked into table sugar. High fructose corn syrup has a somewhat higher concentration of fructose. The reason for all this is that humans sense the sweetness of fructose more acutely than glucose or sucrose, so less fructose is needed to effect the sweetness experience.
I can’t recall the last time I drank Coke. At least 25 years ago.
I’m not sure the nutters fully have their grubby little fingers wrapped all the way around “processed”. Once Man has entered into the equation, from plant to harvest, it’s processed. Canning peaches and pickling cucumbers is processed; came out of an ‘organic’ garden or a factory farm growing corn for fructose, it’s processed. Lays Potato Chips, the original ‘organic’ snack (potatoes, oil, salt, heat), Boars Head meats or something grown in a lab, if it’s produced in a factory the size of Rhode Island it’s processed
That doesn’t even address growing food at scale …
@Ten,
“a factory the size of Rhode Island”
I see what you did there.
LOL!
Cooking food is a process. Preserving food is a process. Soaking, brining, peeling all are processes. Processing food generally makes it easier to digest. For some foods, it eliminates toxic elements and makes it food rather than poison. Human beings have shorter intestinal tracts because we have been processing food for hundreds of thousands of years.
To the extent that ultra-processing makes food even more digestible, it may make it a lot easier to consume more calories than you need. An equal weight of potato chips vs baked potato – which has more calories?
@Jane,
Yeah, it’s like “organic.” All fruits and vegetables are organic. What is an inorganic tomato?
Also, nearly all fruits and vegetables, as well as livestock, are genetically modified by selective breeding.
That ‘organic’ label has long chapped my hide ~ & I’m Mr Natural
Just because the label says so doesn’t make it so and yeah: what is ‘inorganic’, Star Trek food replicators that use anti-matter? Oil comes out of the ground, that’s organic. Plastics made from oil are organic, food additives made from oil are ‘organic’
Another example of how Americans let themselves be led by the nose
Buy a bag of magic beans …
It is almost literally the definition of ‘Organic Chemistry’, which is essentially ‘The study of hydrocarbon chemistry’
The potato chips, because of the absorbed oil from the frying process.
But this is irrelevant to the argument, because potato chips are no more ‘ultraproccessed’ than a baked potato. They’re literally just washed, peeled (sometimes!) and fried.
The panic about ‘ultraprocessed’ is yet another in a long line of food panics inflicted on the US consumer for decades.
@Bruce,
D’accord.
bruce:
I don’t peel my baked potato nor do I slice it into chips. I may add some butter or margarine and not over due it. Or I may use bit of Olive Oil. I eat my baked potato unpeeled. I have not seen an ultra-processed regular potato yet.
“This comparison reveals why baked potatoes deliver superior nutritional value despite similar calorie counts. The fiber content alone makes baked potatoes significantly more beneficial for digestive health and blood sugar management. The potassium difference is particularly noteworthy—baked potatoes contain nearly three times more of this essential electrolyte that supports heart health and muscle function.”
Baked Potato vs Potato Chips: Nutritional Comparison Guide How many ounces of potato chips equals one potato?
Some comment on the butter: Adding butter to a baked potato boosts calories and fat, especially saturated fat, but also enhances flavor and helps absorb fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) from the potato, turning a nutrient-rich base (potassium, Vitamin C, fiber) into a richer, more calorie-dense meal, with one tablespoon adding around 100 calories and 11g fat.
“San Francisco City Attorney Chiu sues largest manufacturers of ultra-processed foods – City Attorney of San Francisco
The Mounting Evidence Against Ultra-Processed Foods – Consumer Reports
@John,
Click the link. Always click the link.
“Now, two new studies published in the British Medical Journal find a link between high consumption of these foods and risk of both cardiovascular disease and early death.”
Note the phrase “high consumption.” Not just consumption, but high consumption. There’s arsenic in most American rice, but moderate consumption isn’t harmful. There’s methyl mercury in most seafood, but moderate consumption isn’t harmful. There’s acrylamide in baked goods, but moderate consumption isn’t harmful.
“Both studies are observational, which means they can’t directly prove a cause and effect.”
Correlation isn’t causation.
@John,
Bill and I will continue to spam your ad hominem attacks on us. We don’t feed trolls here at Angry Bear. If you have an argument from evidence, make it. If all you have is personal attacks, go post on your own blog.
Yes
There were some big changes in food processing starting in the 1970s. Before then, snack and convenience food were more or less prepared the same way a home or restaurant cook would have. There was a matter of scale and equipment but it was basically the same processing and ingredients. The main differences might be the use of a dehydrated or concentrated ingredient or the addition of some preservatives for longer shelf life.
In the 1970s, there was a lot more chemistry with restructured fats, artificial flavorings and textural modifiers. It made the food taste and “feel” better, but it also had an effect on satiety. The body has a complex system for processing food and managing the demand for food. For example, you will feel the effects of certain sugars and fats, once tasted, before they have made it down to your stomach. A lot of the new food processing triggers the proper sensations but then fails to deliver the associated effects downstream. It’s tricking the body. Hunger would return soon after because the stimulating food would not deliver the anticipated effects. From the food company’s point of view, this was a plus.
You can chalk up a lot of modern obesity to suburban life styles which dramatically decrease how much walking one does. You can chalk it up to increased food availability. You can chalk it up to the rise of white collar labor. You can chalk it up to self medication in the face of anomie. You can also chalk it up to the modern post-industrial approach to processed food which has lately come to be described as “ultra-processed”.
It’s not a great term, but it does describe a problematic class of food, and it’s problematic because it might be pleasant enough to eat but is not likely to induce satiety given its caloric content. It’s less expensive food, so those tight on time or money eat more of it, and they are the ones most likely to become obese. People with more time or money can eat less processed food and are less likely to become obese.
@Kaleberg,
Obesity didn’t begin in the 1970s (see, e.g., William Howard Taft, Hermann Goering). In the gilded age, obesity was a mark of prosperity.
You highlight several likely reasons for abuse of ultra-processed foods, but the fact remains that these are abuses of what otherwise would be harmless foods. Yes, they are vigorously marketed, but nobody has a gun to their heads forcing them to eat massive quantities of junk food and drink cases of beer. Grownups make choices and live with the consequences. Blaming manufacturers for consumer choices is infantilization, the soft bigotry of low expectations.
I agree that obesity didn’t start in the 1970s, but that’s when there were big changes in the food processing industry. A lot of food science professionals remarked on the changes at the time, and not all of them felt the changes were for the better. One of the big changes led to breaking the sensation / satiety link, and that may or may not have been intentional. The increased medicalization of food in that era led to changes to reduce fats, change the fats used, increase salt and sugar intensities and manipulate textures.
People are not forced to eat this kind of food, but the alternative is to prepare everything from scratch oneself. It’s not as if you can still find processed foods made with traditional formulations in supermarkets, and, if you can, they are more costly. The pastries at the supermarket bakery cost more than the packaged goods, and the baked goods at a traditional bakery cost even more. Wages may have kept up with the cost of food, but the old food basket has become unaffordable.
@Kaleberg,
” . . .the alternative is to prepare everything from scratch oneself.”
Nonsense. The grocery stores I’ve gone to for the past couple of decades, both in St. Louis (Schnucks and Straubs) and East Providence (Shaws and Stop and Shop), have prepared foods that are every bit as healthy as you can prepare yourself. For example, just a couple days ago, I purchased sushi, tabouli and caprese salad from Whole Foods (in Providence, ten minutes away). I could list dozens of other examples, and those are just the foods I purchased, not all the foods on offer.
Are they more costly? In the case of caprese salad, which I regularly make for myself, the answer is no. I’ve made tabouli myself and while it may or may not have been cheaper, the cost difference wasn’t significant, especially if you consider my time. I’ve never made my own sushi, so there’s that. I don’t know if you consider sushi to be “processed food.”
I agree that the old food basket has gotten more expensive (what hasn’t?), but not more than the prepared foods (at least where I’ve lived), which are often salvaged from bruised and damaged produce that nobody would have bought intact. I’m sure the sushi is made from tail pieces and fragments that wouldn’t retail on their own.
Another anecdote: about 20 years ago, Schucks opened a grocery store in a poorer neighborhood near our house in University City MO. We shopped there a couple of times but the “fresh” produce was so bad, we went back the Clayton store. I don’t know why, but I suspect that there just wasn’t the turnover in the U City store. Crappy produce can’t compete with high quality processed foods.
I blame the Hippies and that whole rejection of the “established”
It took a time to long to undo what I learned from Hippies and Hell’s Angels when I was young. I still avoid the w’s: white sugar, salt, flour, and rice, but not for any reason other than it just doesn’t fit into the home-prepared meals I prepare. Which are generally about half “fresh” and half pre-prepped. I don’t like health-food stores, I think they’re a rip-off and truth be told you can get the same thing at WalMart cheaper. I don’t take vitamins and I don’t look for externals to blame for my own failures. Americans are fat because the only exercise they get is eating too much (well, and flying off the handle, jumping to conclusions …)
It all boils down to they a magic pill without the pill …