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Some of the conclusions seem a little quacky here to me - like "avoid ingredients you can't pronounce" and a lot of "avoid processed anything".

While I'm sure there's some arguable benefits to these things, I think it's paranoid or stupid to dismiss something just for being "processed". What the heck does that mean anyway? All our food is processed in one form or another and nothing about something being more processed necessitates any loss.

Maybe I just have no sense for quality, but I've tried paying double for "organic" products and similar - only to be repeatedly disappointed with products that taste worse or equal and spoil quicker - I'll never buy them again, it just doesn't make sense to pay more for it.

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>While I'm sure there's some arguable benefits to these things, I think it's paranoid or stupid to dismiss something just for being "processed". What the heck does that mean anyway?

It mostly means, "a whole industry of greedy scum that added all kinds of useless and often harmful crap to the food it sells to make it last longer -- and increase their margins--, be more addictive --and increase their margins--, be prettier looking --and increase it's margins--, be more sugary and/or salty --and increase their margins. People that will outright lie about what they sell you all the time [1]. People that would add melamine to infant milk if it made a profit and they could get away with it [2]. People that would sponsor fake science [3].

Unfortunately a lot of people are so naive as to think that corporations are basically ethical and would never do those things, or that if something involves technology (e.g. food chemistry) it is necessarily good, even if said technology is used against them to pad profits.

[1] https://priceonomics.com/the-truffle-oil-shuffle/ ("Despite the name, most truffle oil does not contain even trace amounts of truffle; it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane").

[2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/why-is-melami...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/the-food-industry-is...

>Unfortunately a lot of people are so naive as to think that corporations are basically ethical and would never do those things, or that if something involves technology (e.g. food chemistry) it is necessarily good, even if said technology is used against them to pad profits.

I've never actually seen people like this, in fact I've only seen people who are the exact opposite - and you seem to give off such vibe - where something is "evil by default" because it's not "natural/organic/whatever buzzword here".

You can get crap from your "organic local natural farmer", just from the top of my head a few years back here in EU people were dying from ecoli caused kidney failure because the organic farm manure contained the bacteria.

Corporations will do unethical things for money but individuals will not ? Who do you think spends more on quality control - people who shipping millions of units of something and have billions invested in capital to produce said thing or some random farm ? Who do you think gets more regulatory oversight ?

And about the biased sponsored science - so we just discard science and go for something because of how it feels ?

I mean I'm all for eating quality and fresh stuff if you can get it but the arguments like this are just nonsense paranoia.

>in fact I've only seen people who are the exact opposite - and you seem to give off such vibe - where something is "evil by default" because it's not "natural/organic/whatever buzzword here".

I don't speak for organic, Whole Foods etc BS. That's another racket. You can buy perfectly fine non-organic vegetables, meat, cheese in Walmart if you go and look for it.

But american popular mass produced food is of the worst standards compared to what people eat in Western Europe (and I presume Japan). And the food industry there is crappier than average. That said, it's pretty bad in Europe too: a packet of chips or some mass market ice-cream is the same shit everywhere.

>I mean I'm all for eating quality and fresh stuff if you can get it but the arguments like this are just nonsense paranoia.

What part of what I wrote looks like "paranoia" to you? That big manufactures like Nestle, etc. are greedy and would sell any kind of crap?

>Corporations will do unethical things for money but individuals will not ?

Individuals will too. But people don't buy much food from individuals, they buy it (most of it) from corporations. Plus individuals don't do mass production and the kind of food people buy from them (from some farmer's market for example) is not that amenable to adding all kinds of food chemistry crap.

So the distinction I made between individuals and corporations is not that individuals can't also be greedy, but that individuals don't manufacture mass produced food -- corporations do.

A piece of meat is a piece of meat (at worse it will be fed crap, given hormones). Vegetables the same. A bread bought on the supermarket on the other hand, can have all kinds of BS in, excessive sodium, tons of sugar, BS preservatives, etc. And there's all kinds of "microwave dishes" etc with the lowest quality of materials and tons of added flavorings, preservatives, things to give them specific texture, and other crap that doesn't occur or belong to a "Salisbury steak" for example.

>You can get crap from your "organic local natural farmer", just from the top of my head a few years back here in EU people were dying from ecoli caused kidney failure because the organic farm manure contained the bacteria.

Those things are orthogonal. You can also die from ecoli in food sold by large corporations, e.g:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/14nestle.html

>What part of what I wrote looks like "paranoia" to you? That big manufactures like Nestle, etc. are greedy and would sell any kind of crap?

Citing isolated instances in an industry that provides services to billions and saying you should be scared because of that is paranoia - on such a large scale you are guaranteed to have bad outcomes. Meanwhile most people eat processed food and are still walking around.

>excessive sodium, tons of sugar, BS preservatives

Preservatives have legally regulated ranges and there's nothing wrong with high sugar/salt if you're healthy and are within your calorie limit.

>Those things are orthogonal

Of course they are - that's kind of my point.

>Citing isolated instances in an industry that provides services to billions and saying you should be scared because of that is paranoia - on such a large scale you are guaranteed to have bad outcomes. Meanwhile most people eat processed food and are still walking around.

That would be relevant if I had said that they wouldn't be walking around (that they'd die immediately, etc.).

But what I said is that they are sold unhealthy crap to eat, not just openly but also misleadingly and covertly, because it makes production cheaper (not necessarily price, the margins are more often than not pocketed) and the product more addictive to consumers (more sugars, artificial coloring to entice the eye, etc).

Whether the industry "provides services to billions" is also irrelevant, as it is possible to sell crap to billions, or at least, millions. Billions consume corn syrup in all kinds of food stuff because it's cheaper than sugar and has all the subsidies, for example. It's still crap.

>there's nothing wrong with high sugar/salt if you're healthy and are within your calorie limit.

There's nothing wrong with anything if you don't eat it too. And yet a whole country, or half of it, is less than healthy, to the point of talking about an "obesity epidemic".

I just think the tone of your overall argument is too alarmist. I eat processed foods from time to time - cookies, potato chips, hot dogs, ice cream, McDonald's etc. They aren't in my regular diet but if the situation is right I'll eat it, I don't think they are unhealthy because my body can probably cope with whatever is unhealthy in them, just like I drink alcohol from time to time but I don't do it on a daily basis.

I don't think anyone is advertising cookies, potato chips or ice cream as healthy diet choices. McDonald's has some actually balanced things on their menus (from macro nutrient perspective) like their breakfast egg burger was ~25g of protein/carb/fat - but if you order 3 + 1/2 liter of cola and fries along with that then yeah it's not going to be good for you.

With regards to your first link, note that the resulting "truffle oil" is now dirt cheap. Those profits are not just taken by the producer but passed along to the consumer. And according to most of the article you linked, the taste works.

If so I see nothing wrong with it as long as it's listed on the ingredients. A lot of things aren't made exactly the way their name may make you think.

There's definitely some scummy stuff going on in the food industry, but I don't think a little fakery that saves the consumer money and creates a good flavor is that bad of a sin.

> There's definitely some scummy stuff going on in the food industry, but I don't think a little fakery that saves the consumer money and creates a good flavor is that bad of a sin.

I disagree. I think a label should accurately describe it's contents, plain and simple. I much prefer to decide for myself what is in my own best interest thank you very much.

The label does that though - the ingredients list. The title just doesn't.

The title on many foods isn't an accurate description of their contents though - wasabi is dyed horse raddish, crab meat is often mashed up and cleverly rebuilt pollock, most fruit juices aren't what they list, but still get to use the name juice because they're mostly apple or pear juice, most bacon bits aren't bacon at all - they're vegan even.

If you want to get an accurate picture of what's in a product, you always have to read the ingredients. The title is mostly just a vague description of its taste.

>The label does that though - the ingredients list. The title just doesn't.

The ingredients list is like the small print in contracts.

The title should also describe accurately what's inside, including any pictures on the packaging showing actual truffles etc.

And of course restaurants use the same "truffle oil" to serve $30 and $50 dishes with no "ingredients list" to tell you it's not actual truffle oil.

That is like saying "I'm going to lie to your face, but the government has forced me to admit the truth if you dig into it a little bit (Oh! and by the way, when I say a little bit, I mean "a lot")".

Just saying "That's the way it is", is not a good argument against "This is how it should be".

Couldn't have said better!

The idea here is following:

- Processing food, even in chemical ways does not necessarily mean it will be bad for your health.

- However, a lot of examples have shown that food that has been processed by the current realities of the food industry is often very bad for your health. Many times it's shown to be bad, many times they don't even check it.

- Basically if you process the food, the chances are very good that it is going to be bad. You have to be very careful when you do that (and back it with a lot of research) in order to do it safely.

- Food industry do not have a direct interest of doing it safely in the long run. They have an interest to make money and not get caught by existing regulations.

And finally: - For you as a consumer it's very hard to know whether specific processing is safe or not.

- Many times it's hard for the producer to even know. But they don't really care, as long as regulations are followed (sometimes not even that).

- This leads to you knowing that if the food has been processed, the chance is very good that it's bad for you. Not because "processing" is some weird satanic black magical non-christian sinful process. But because it's currently implemented in such a way that it lets through a lot of bad.

- There is no reliable way for you to distinguish between good processed and bad processed.

-> If you wanna eat healthy, in 2017 you should stay away from processed.

That's exactly it. His suggestion is a heuristic that is good 80% of the time. But if you can't check for the other 20% that the processing is bad, why not avoid?

Even if we follow his guidelines most of the time, fewer exceptions means fewer dietary risks.

People tend to conflate a lot of different things when they say food is "bad for you." Processed food of all varieties is definitely bad for your stomach. It usually has high sugar, high fat, and will generally contribute to heart issues if you aren't exercising enough. (Here there's a question of whether the food is bad for you, or it's not exercising that's bad for you. I'd lean on the latter rather than the former.)

Preservatives, etc. also may be bad for you, depending. But processed foods are just plain bad for your stomach. Your stomach is better off eating things that need some digesting. (Veggies, fruits, etc.)

> What the heck does that mean anyway? All our food is processed in one form or another and nothing about something being more processed necessitates any loss.

I hope it means something like:

Take a chicken and roast it, with potatoes and vegetables. Add some gravy.

Now take the same chicken. Remove most of the meat and sell it. Mechanically recover the rest of the meat, and form it into small popcorn size bites. Bread those, deep fry them, serve them with a sugar sauce.

The roast chicken is a good meal. It's healthy, it's slow to prepare and slow to eat.

The popcorn chicken? It's hyper-palatable. It's been engineered to be cheap to make, and to hit all the points of salt, fat, and sugar that humans seek out in food. It's not a satisfying meal because it lacks the fibre from the vegetables. And it's very easy to eat. It's a much worse choice, but it's a much easier, and more tempting, choice.

> products that taste worse or equal and spoil quicker

We see that (in the UK) with ketchup. People used to keep it, opened, in a cupboard and it would last for months. But now you're supposed to keep it in a fridge and use it within 8 weeks after you've opened it. The modern version has much less salt, and doesn't have sodium benzoate.

Huh. Ketchup bottles have always told you to keep them refrigerated as far back as I can remember (across decades, in the US and the UK) and I have always disobeyed. I have never, ever known ketchup to spoil. I just checked and none of the ketchup in the house now (several brands) have any "chemical" preservatives. But they do contain lots of vinegar. I am sure that the delivery mechanism of squeezy bottles helps prevent infection as well.

It's a shortcut driven by paranoid defense against the food industry habits to tweak or replace nutrients for economic reasons.

I had to cut anything but veggies for a while, and I have to say the lack of sugar and fat was pretty obvious. Processed food are like starring at the sun, it feels good because it's all bright, but you're blind to the world. Eating raw veggies makes you see all the subtleties of tastes and retriggers brain threshold you forgot long ago (sugar, salt, sauce they all make cover the nutrients, your brain just keep wanting to eat more, try eating 3 carrots in a row, you'll probably feel sick of it)

What you refer to aren't conclusions, they are heuristics. An awful lot of processing reduces the value of food, avoiding it in general is an easy heuristic that can help you eat better. Is it the only way? No, of course not - but it's easy.

Here is another one: If you are buying from a supermarket and it was shipped a significant distance, the quality is probably mediocre regardless of organic labeling etc.

This one is hard to do much about for most people. If food is out of season and/or shipped significant distances the quality almost always suffers quite a bit. We have made significant technological and breeding advances on the shelf life, ship-ability, consistency and color of a lot of fresh foods, but most of those advances have had costs as well - typically in flavor and/or nutritional value.

"Organic" labeling isn't very helpful for food quality or taste these days. It can tell you something about pesticides etc. that you might care about (e.g. what might be in the lemon skins you are zesting into your cookies). It's largely a marketing exercise.

Which isn't to say this is right or wrong, exactly, after all people vote with their dollars. However you have to be aware: you can have fresh tomatoes all year long but the reality is that you can probably only have really good tomatoes for a few weeks.

Somewhat depressingly because of wholesale distribution contracts etc., you may not even be able to get those really good tomatoes at your usual store when they are available. Nothing sadder than a bunch of bright red watery tasteless tomatoes being all that is on offer in the middle of your local tomato season.

Although I totally agree, per the op article

> but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.

It might be an ok rule of thumb.

Highly processed food can of course be good for you, but mostly isn't.

It's bad science but a working stereotype.

Organic is of course a marketing gimmick and as per the article

> you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

To me, the most plausible reason for no processed food advice, is that it's all new. Processed food hasn't been consumed for that long, and they keep changing the techniques, so individually, each technique didn't exist for that long. That means that you don't know if it's good, bad or neutral to your health.

Given that you don't need to eat processed and can easily feed yourself on unprocessed foods, a lot of people prefer the if its not broken don't fix it approach.

Now, in theory, nothing prevents a processed food from ending up being healthier then non processed, it's just people tend to believe that's the less likely gamble.

Yes I am inclined to agree. There are a few lines in what I read that shoot up red flags (I only read the first 25% and last 10%). However I agree with the overall advice.

I read somewhere that its best to avoid any food that is sold in packaging. I try to stick to that within reason.

Pollen gave a fascinating interview on Democracy Now! talking about how food companies began cleverly gaming the metrics, marketing smaller numbers of ingredients and real sugar (yes, sugar!) as though they were health claims. His new advice?

"Don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised."

https://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/14/omnivores_dilemma_aut...

Well, real sugar at least is better than the HFCS crap.

My personal rule of thumb with "processed" food is: Would I be happy to do the same process in my own kitchen if I had the time and equipment?

What's an example of a process done by the food industry that you would not be happy to do yourself if you could do it for free?

Not parent commenter but these are things I wouldn't want to do to my own food, even if I could.

- peroxide bleaching of flour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_bleaching_agent

- acid-enzype process for HFCS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup#Proce...

- de-oxygenation of orange juice for long term storage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice#Not_from_concentr...

(I'm sure these are nominally safe and possibly beneficial but I'd just rather not eat them)

I actually really like the deoxygenation of orange juice thing. The result tastes better than fresh squeezed, more of a sour taste that I prefer. Maybe it just amounts to dumping more citric acid in it or something, but it's delicious in any case.

Store bought orange juice does not taste better because of the deoxygenation. In fact, quite the opposite.

"Once the juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats, they start removing oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. Yeah, it's all backwards. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these "flavor packs" to make juice taste like, well, juice again."[1]

[1] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/100-percent-orange-...

Well... taste is subjective, so yes, yes it does.

Basically, their flavor packs taste better to me than actual orange juice, something about the acidity I think is quite appealing to me.

My point was that it's the flavor packs that make it taste better, not the deoxygenation.

Deoxygenation alone, without the flavor packs, make it taste worse.

Anything done purely as a cost cutting measure would be a good start for a list of processes to avoid.

>Some of the conclusions seem a little quacky here to me - like "avoid ingredients you can't pronounce"

Indeed, quinoa and acai - two super foods before they became Whole Foods staples would have met this criteria.

I really hate the pronunciation test because it seems anti-intellectual. By all means, read the labels on your food and if something is unfamiliar, find out what it is and why it was added.

This usually results with going to wikipedia and then going "man, these preservatives are pretty cool shit" while I eat them.

"avoid ingredients you can't pronounce"

I would definitely avoid dihydrogen monoxide.

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