U.S. Kids Are Getting Nearly 70% of Their Calories from 'Ultra-Processed' Foods
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
Pharmaceuticals are ultra-processed and completely unnatural, yet many of them are life-saving. Clearly then, mere act of processing something doesn't make the thing bad for you.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that constantly horking down Mountain Dew, Little Debbie snack cakes, and Doritos isn't good for you. We all know this, we don't need a headline for it.
Give me some useful information. What are reasonable thresholds for these junk foods? How about for specific ingredients?
Ranting and raving out of the way, do yourself a favor and skip to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization classification document [1] linked in the article. It actually answers some of the questions I posed.
I have to admit though, I'm not aware of any food that would be considered "ultra-processed" yet known to be good for people.
What does "ultra processed" mean? Cheese, bread, olive oil and most vegetables require processing to be made or nutritionally useful. Freeze-dried vegetables are quite processed and quite good for you.
I don't have a scientific definition for you. Just use your common sense to figure out what average people would intuitively call ultra-processed, whatever it means to them. I'm pretty darn sure you would not arrive at the conclusion that ordinary people consider bread and most vegetables "ultra-processed foods".
I am trying to use my common sense here. To create it, you must apply mechanical processing to grind wheat. Chemical processing for the yeast to reacting to the sugars. thermal processing to cook the bread. There is evaporation of the liquid in the bread.
This seems like a lot of processes required to create this.
Ultra-processed bread would probably be made to have a longer shelf life and likely have more additives and preservatives.
If you buy bread made from bleached white flour, sugar (in pretty much any white bread you buy from the supermarket), bread conditioners, preservatives, etc, it's probably considered ultraprocessed. It can also sit in your pantry for weeks.
Even traditional bread is certainly highly processed, undergoing mechanical (milling), biochemical (fermentation), and thermal (baking) processing. It doesn't quite meet the definition of ultra-processed though as all these technologies are readily available to unsophisticated producers.
I think ultra-processed is some sort of proxy for hyperpalatable here.
What gave you that idea?
Bleached flour and various additives (such as ascorbic acid) are routinely used in home kitchens:
https://thebreadguide.com/using-ascorbic-acid-when-baking/
What, exactly, do you think goes into making a loaf of mass-produced bread?
Otherwise the raw materials are the same:
> Flour, water, yeast, salt, fat, and, where used, minor ingredients common to many bread-making techniques such as Vitamin C, emulsifiers and enzymes are mechanically mixed for about three minutes.
In what way does this represent "processed" food in any material sense?
If anything, this sounds like a perfect example of the kind of fear mongering associated with the "processed food" label...
Edit: I misread, sorry
You've misread the Wikipedia page.
What you're describing is Dauglish's process that preceded CBP. Here's the key bit from the introduction:
> In 1862 a radically new and much cheaper industrial-scale process was developed by John Dauglish, using water with dissolved carbon dioxide instead of yeast, with no need for an eight-hour fermentation. Dauglish's method, used by the Aerated Bread Company that he set up, dominated commercial bread baking for a century until the Chorleywood process was developed.
Notice that last part of the sentence.
CBP, as described in the Wikipedia article, "is achieved through the addition of Vitamin C, fat, yeast, and intense mechanical working by high-speed mixers".
In particular, no CO2 is used with CBP. Bread is proofed by "[placing the dough] in a baking tin and [moving it] to the humidity- and temperature-controlled proofing chamber, where it sits for about 45–50 minutes", with the process aided through the use of dough conditioners like ascorbic acid.
How do I do that? Are we averaging the opinions of other people, or taking the opinion of the average person? By what metric?
That depends on what you mean by bread. The sourdough loaf that I make out of flour straight from the grinder is a far cry from cheap white bread.
Again, there's no unambiguous definition here. The UN has drawn one line out of many potentially valid ones. My point here isn't to argue word semantics. I'm just saying look at what the average person would consider "ultra-processed", whatever their definition (or lack thereof) might be.
P.S. I'm not even sure what you consider "ultra-processed bread" is good for people in any case.
This is a very important distinction as it changes the glycemic index and will cause blood sugars to rise much faster on consumption than an unground food with its entire fiber content.
The fiber commonly becomes animal feed.
That's overly simple though, the definition is here: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova (this seems to be a summary of the definition in FAO document linked above).
The other misnomer is labeling chips as "not nutritious." They're loaded in macronutrients. They often don't have many micro nutrients, but most people aren't actually short on those.
The main problem with some of these foods is they're calorically dense, but not filling.
So if you make falafel for example, it's only two steps removed from chickpeas, as it's just mildly grinded and fried. That being said it's an exercise to the reader in determining if each "step" is equally bad. In general steps involving the destruction or heating of the food are worse than the "separation" (e.g. peeling or cutting vs frying or blending).
> Formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, made by a series of industrial processes, many requiring sophisticated equipment and technology (hence ‘ultra-processed’). Processes used to make ultra-processed foods include the fractioning of whole foods into substances, chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of unmodified and modified food substances using industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; use of additives at various stages of manufacture whose functions include making the final product palatable or hyper-palatable; and sophisticated packaging, usually with plastic and other synthetic materials.
Source: http://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf
I believe this is the widest standard used to define "ultra-processed", though there are more sentences and paragraphs in that doc explaining the definition more thoroughly.
The second prong seems ambiguous to the point of uselessness. "Industrial techniques" are covered by (1); "additives" seemingly impossible to define within this context.
(a) food additive means any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself and not normally used as a typical ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results, or may be reasonably expected to result, (directly or indirectly) in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such foods. The term does not include contaminants, or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities, or sodium chloride;
http://www.fao.org/3/Y2770E/y2770e03.htm
The FAO has a standards body that will give you tons of detail to back up their papers.
Maybe it's not helpful to paint things with such a broad brush, and we should instead focus on specific substances or practices which might be causing problems?
Plastics commonly leach hormone disruptors to food.
That's a heck of a broad definition!
I'm sure all brands differ, but the box in my fridge says "Ingredients: Water, Organic Soybeans".
You know cows didn’t change, we just started separating the milk and reconstructing milk-like products. The classic Simpsons ”Malk” gag is not far off.
- Cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil is considered to be the healthiest due to its fat and polyphenol content.
- Traditional cheeses are more nutritious than Kraft singles.
- Whole grain is more nutritious than Wonderbread.
- Freezing, cooking, and the passage of time all destroy vitamins and other micronutrients.
Ensure / Boost? (important for people who can't chew food)
Canned or similarly preserved foods? (important for people without access to reliable refrigeration)
Even staple grains (wheat, rice, corn) are pretty highly processed. One can't exactly eat these raw, they need some machinery and sometimes chemistry to really get at the nutrients.
I guess this all depends on your definition of "ultra-processed" and "good for people." But the processing of food is a discovery that allowed for the civilizations to appear. Feeding people on fresh meat and veg doesn't scale.
So, no meat substitutes for you, then? Because if Beyond Meat burgers aren't "ultra-processed", I don't know what is.
Is there something on my profile that indicates I only eat things that are good for me?
Let me try that again:
I'd say a lot of people view meat substitutes as a healthier choice. But the Beyond Meat burger is, to me, the very definition of an "ultra-processed" food.
And I'm pretty sure people who believe Beyond is healthier are wrong regardless of how we classify Beyond Meat. (Though I'm not even sure the majority of Beyond Meat eaters believe it's healthier in the first place.)
I disagree. I suspect a lot of people believe Beyond's products are healthier simply by virtue of not being meat.
Heck, they might be right, though I tend to agree with you and suspect it's at best a wash.
Also, thanks for the refresher on modus ponens and the fallacy of the inverse. ;) It's been a long time since formal logic... not that I miss it...
Vinegar is ultra-processed and is believed to have some health benefits. [1]
Coffee, same deal. Ultra-processed, believed to have health benefits. [2]
[1]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/vinegar-good-for-you#1
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/well/eat/coffee-health-be...
It bothers me too, but I think the problem right now is they don't exactly know what part of the "ultra processed" foods is harmful yet.
i think this argument about processed foods tries to simplify it too much when there’s really a lot of different factors. high in calories? no vitamins? known carcinogens? individual allergies or trouble digesting? this one size fits all approach to labeling food good and bad ignores the details.
and the real issue is education: do you know what you’re eating? and how much? and what your body needs? i’d rather see answers there than “big soda bad” and “chips bad”
> Unprocessed foods altered by industrial processes such as removal of inedible or unwanted parts, drying, powdering, squeezing, crushing, grinding, fractioning, steaming, poaching, boiling, roasting, and pasteurization, chilling, freezing, placing in containers, vacuum packaging, non-alcoholic fermentation, and other methods that do not add salt, sugar, oils or fats or other food substances to the original food.
Is someone suggesting to get 70% of calorie intake from pharmaceuticals though ?
Will someone please let me try a minimally-processed doughnut?
I've never tried making them because I think muffins or cookies are just as good without the hassle of frying.
I wonder whether kids are really getting fat off of even hot dogs, mac and cheese, steak and cheese subs, and corn. Or if it’s the added sugar and refined carbs - candy, soda, white bread, “snacks”. People say that kids’ diet in the 60s was the former, and they were fine.
Honestly “ultra-processed” can be misleading because it isn’t the processing which is bad, it’s the amount of fat and carbs vs. protein, fiber, water, and other nutrients. Maybe we could call it “junk” food but that’s even more ambiguous.
So then we should just call it what it is: junk food.
"ultra-processed" is no better than "gmo", i.e. a completely meaningless label designed to scare people because of spooky "technology", as opposed to actual information people can use to make informed decisions.
> Maybe we could call it “junk” food but that’s even more ambiguous.
LOL... damn, okay, I admit it, I didn't read all the way to the end before commenting. I'm leaving this here as it's a good reminder for myself to slow down...
> We all know this, we don't need a headline for it.
The headline doesn't communicate that. It communicates that U.S. kids are consuming an abundance of calories from those foods.
> mere act of processing something doesn't make the thing bad for you.
It doesn't communicate that either. That is prior knowledge on your part.
Except that it's actually really not. If we take my 5 year old son as a normal kid, a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then whatever random food they feed him for school lunch and we're already 2/3rds of the way to the goal. He snacks on fruit and stuff, but also on pretzel sticks and honey roasted peanuts and all sorts of other kind of junky things.
I make dinner from scratch very nearly every night, and my kid still falls into this 70% bucket! And so I really don't have a good idea about how to change that. Maybe make our own bread and have them have toast for breakfast every day? That's going to get old quick.
So if you ate one of each youd have 80% of calories from ultraprocessed food.
Saying this as someone who's curing his first ham in the fridge rn :-)
Using your cereal example: I grew up eating grape nuts[1], which are probably in the ultraprocessed category. But it’s just barley flour and I ate it like most people eat muesli (with fresh fruit) — what should that count as?
Grape Nuts might could as processed, and Frosted Flakes as ultra-processed.
I think the only ways out of this are as you said fixing everything yourself. Most things you can eat raw that isn't packaged would probably be safe. Then cooking your own meats.
But pasta is considered Ultra-Processed, packaged bread is ultra-processed. I thought those were some of the most basic foods with the smallest number of ingredients. Maybe home made versions as you suggested are not considered Ultra-Processed.
The bread is full of refined sugar.
You need to look at the ingredients recursively. If you eat wholegrain everything you're half way there.
Same applies to rice etc.
The reason they remove the good stuff is so it doesn't spoil, if you remove the nutrients it's less appetising to microbes and pests.
Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultra-processed. Plain steel-cut oats, plain corn flakes and shredded wheat are minimally processed foods, while the same foods are processed when they also contain sugar, and ultra-processed if they also contain flavours or colours.
At the supermarkets 99% of the US uses, even the high end bread is 15-25 ingredients at eyeball. The ingredient list for one of the most expensive packaged whole wheat bread that would show up at a regular non-Whole Foods-style place: Whole Wheat Flour , Water , Sugar , Wheat Gluten , Yeast , Wheat Bran , Salt , Soybean Oil , Raisin Juice Concentrate , Enrichment ( Calcium Sulfate , Vitamin E Acetate , Vitamin A Palmitate , Vitamin D3 ) , Calcium Propionate ( Preservative ) , Datem , Grain Vinegar , Monoglycerides , Soy Lecithin , Citric Acid , Potassium Iodate .
Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Brown Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Salt, Monoglycerides, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid, Soybean Oil, Vinegar, Cultured Wheat Flour, Monocalcium Phosphate, Soy Lecithin
But Kroger's own bargain brand does indeed contain more ingredients: https://www.kroger.com/p/kroger-wheat-bread/0001111008450
I'm not saying that's a ton of time, but seconds?
Quick oat packets (awful stuff, full of sugar unless you get really expensive ones, cutting it 50/50 with rolled or plain quick oats helps a little and also makes up for the fact that one packet isn't, realistically, an entire serving) aren't even seconds. Talking maybe 2-3 minutes hands-on to lay out a bowl for each kid, rip and pour the packets, set the electric kettle going, then pour some on each when it boils (microwaving it with cool water is even slower once you're past a single serving—kettle saves time)
This sounds like it's conflating porridge with overnight oats. All you have to do to prep overnight oats is soak them in liquid (and maybe rinse off excess starch). I throw the lot in the fridge at night with chia seeds, consume it in the morning with berries and yogurt.
1. Put about 1-2dL of finely rolled oats into a fairly wide bowl
2. Dribble over "enough" cold water
3. Add yoghurt, berries, chopped fruit, coconut flakes or whatever
Coarse/thick-rolled oats should be fine soaked overnight, or fine/thin-rolled oats for the soak-in-one-minute-in-the-morning way. Both grades are easily available in the UK. I would tend to use the thin ones for breakfast, and the coarse ones for making things like flapjack (similar to a granola bar).
1. Put oats and water in rice cooker shortly before going to bed. Turn on rice cooker. 2. Remove perfectly cooked oats in the morning and add desired seasonings.
Since I don't have a dishwasher, washing the bowl I ate out of is the most time-consuming step other than actually eating, and when I need to eat breakfast immediately in the morning to leave ASAP I can be sitting down eating under 5 minutes after my alarm goes off.
My understanding of ultra-processed would be things more like candy, cheetos, pringles, oreos, soda, etc.
It's hard to find a simple rule that isn't subverted. Though simpler more primitive diets (mostly low carb vegetables and high protein foods) seem best all around.
It's sad to see folks think they've leveled up enough to 'cheat' after loading up on yams ("veg!"), carrots ("veg"), and beans ("protein!").
All that said you can live without carbs and just digest fats instead. Hence the whole ketosis and low-sugar diets.
Probably Wonder Bread would look similar, but homemade bread quite different. All are processed foods of some level due to flour.
Cheerios seem surprisingly healthy (the first ingredient is whole grain oats and only 1g of added sugar). Even special K has 4g of added sugar per serving. I would consider sugar-coated cereal like raisin bran or special K with yogurt chunks ultra-processed.
Commercial breakfast cereals vary, though the least-healthy are probably the most tuned to appeal to kids. Home-cooked cereal can be far better. And easy to mix nuts, frozen berries, etc. into.
If a bit of dressing up (squirt of mustard, bit of mayo, etc.) makes hard-boiled eggs acceptable to him, those can be made once a week and kept in the fridge.
An old friend perfected a fairly-healthy, filling stew recipe (some meat, mostly veggies, etc.) that he could make up in large batches and keep in the fridge. As a teenager, his son consumed an enormous quantity of that over time.
To be honest I'm kinda surprised that it's only 70% of calories coming from refined foods.
Part of the reason is that it's really hard—way more work, way more time—to get a fluffy sandwich loaf out of just whole wheat flour. Or anything that's not kinda dense and focaccia-looking, really.
Also carrots and hummus, dry roasted nuts, cheese and wheat thins, PB and apple slices, are all good snacks for a kid.
Gotta be careful and stick with the frozen vegetables which have nothing added.
As a kid we ate mostly natural food, as my parents had a decent sized farm. We always had salt on the table, and went through a lot of it.
As an adult without a farm, I cannot remember the last time I even touched the salt shaker. I've actually made spaghetti once that was near inedible because the sodium in the sauce, cheeses, and meat made it incredibly salty tasting.
Have literally never experienced this except if it's something that's meant to be ready to eat or is a base mix with its own seasoning. Is it a US thing?
You need to get pre-seasoned/ready-to-eat "20 minute dinner" trash to find added salt and sugar.
Previously, people have said canned tomatoes have added salt in the US [2], which they don't tend to have in Europe [3] (choosing the basic, cheap brand in both cases).
[1] https://www.walmart.com/browse/food/frozen-vegetables/976759...
[2] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Petite-Diced-Tomatoes...
[3] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/299768716
How about fresh vegetables?
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/DBrief/11...
Overall, 13% of the U.S. population aged 2 years and over, consumed pizza on any given day. The percentage consuming pizza ranged from approximately 22% among older children (6-11 years) and adolescents (12-19 years) to less than 6% among older adults, 60 years and over
Most pizza in America has sugar in the sauce and dough. The sauce, moreover, tends to be fatty. And the toppings are processed meats, et cetera. If the pizza is prepared in anything but a pizza oven, it's likely also pan fried.
It does. We are not fruit bats. Eating a diet of just fruit is not healthy. But the fructose in fruits is digested and absorbed differently from the free sugar in processed foods.
And the usual advice of "everything in moderation" applies to fruit as well. You can certainly eat unhealthy amount of sugar via fruit, but it is much more difficult than via junk food.
100 grams of donuts contains 50 grams of refined sugar. That's close to half a kg of apples (nearly a pound in freedom units). You could certainly eat that many apples, but then you are also eating a lot of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber. And once you ate half a kg of apples, you are literally stuffed.
Add in some processed meat, and that's literally the entire ingredient list of a pepperoni pizza.
Because the dough is high hydration and proofs gently overnight, it comes out super relaxed and stretchy, so no roller is needed.
My process is basically as follows: The night before, prepare dough, divide into portions, place in individual ziploc bags with a bit of oil, and place in the fridge to proof overnight.
Next day, a couple of hours prior to baking, remove the dough from the fridge and allow to warm to room temperature.
Place a pizza stone in the oven and crank the thing to 550F to start heating.
When making a pizza, remove the ball of dough from the bag, dust liberally with flour, then place on parchment, stretch to desired size, and top the pizza however you like.
To load the oven, grab the parchment and slide the pizza onto the back of a sheet pan and deliver onto the stone. Bake for 5-7 minutes. At the 2-3 minute mark, open the oven and slide the parchment out from underneath the pizza.
When it's done, I pull the pizza out onto the sheet pan and place on a cooling rack before serving (thereby preventing the bottom from getting soggy).
Done right I get beautiful thin crust pizza with a nice, crisp, spotty brown bottom.
I see two nutritional concerns with "clean pizza". How healthy is finely-milled flour? More importantly, how many vegetables/protein sources can I put on pizza or have alongside pizza? There's no way to get around the opportunity cost of not having more proteins and fibrous vegetables in your diet.
While that's necessary for some pizzas, there's plenty you can make with an oven at 500-550F + a pizza stone/steel. And then there's deep dish/sicilian/etc. at 425-450F.
Top 3 European countries with the most household purchases of ultra-processed food:
1. UK 50.7%
2. Germany 46.9%
3. Ireland 45.9
Top 3 European countries with least household purchases of ultra-processed food:
1. Portugal 10.2%
2. Italy 13.4%
3. Greece 13.7%
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ultra-proces...
In the UK, convenience foods and ready-made ingredients (like sauces and condiments) are common and popular in supermarkets. It will be interesting to see if people's eating and cooking habits have changed during the pandemic and lockdown (i.e. more home cooking).
Anecdotal: 5 years ago I went on the Dr. Fuhrman diet (no processed foods). Within 6 weeks I felt better than I had in a decade: everything was better: clearer thinking, inflammation and bodily discomfort gone, longer hikes without getting tired, and better sleep.
I hate to think of the costs to society and personal costs of people not getting healthy food to eat.
Won’t most things consumed in excess cause these problems? Is the issue is that it is easier to consume them in excess.
One of the odd things among my son’s kids is that a lot of the kids who seemingly eat the worst seem the most fit and those who eat healthiest seem less fit (skinny unfit not obese unfit).
As to the not-yet-overweight kids, give it time. Genes are a lottery and the carbs get everyone eventually.
Maybe we can also tax "ultra-processed" food at a higher rate.
I just think it is naive to believe that people will make the right decisions for themselves or their loved ones without any "incentives"
The solution is to tax added sugar (including for sub-ingredients) per gram, and a flat tax for any food containing artificial sweeteners. 1c per gram of sugar, or 20% for anything containing artificial sweeteners seems reasonable.
To me, the solution has to be trying to get people to eat healthier things via education. I mean, the "incentive" is feeling good, looking good, being fitter and more capable.
One thing I've found particularly motivating as a parent is that a good diet is a huge competitive advantage for my children. We live on a farm, so we've always got great, healthful things to eat, and since we harvest ingredients and not factory-processed stuff, they're always cooking--it's not just their health now, but their ability to be healthy adults.
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/146/9/1722/4630474
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5855172/
I wish there were more giant community kitchens in the West, as are commonly seen across Asia. This is one extreme example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT-N5wl0l-s
And at a smaller scale in Melbourne, Australia: https://youtu.be/dG8hH8zE7ZI?t=169
A sugar tax would mostly impact the people who have the least choice in what they buy, due to poverty and/or the availability of healthier foods. (See: food deserts)
Better to work on the affordability and availability of healthy food than try to penalize people for buying stuff that's cheap and ubiquitous. If you want to apply sticks, apply them to large retailers like Wal-mart and Target instead of to individuals.
If 1kg of Oreos (41% sugar) costs $3.60 instead of $3.19, people will spend the same but just consume 11% less, or manufacturers will recreate the recipe to have less sugar. Both of those outcomes are good.
The money collected can be used to subsidise community kitchens, or raw fruit and vegetables.
Sugar and salt as primary flavoring is not the greatest, to be sure, but ultra-processing foods doesn't seem too bad considering that all the human body does is masticate food a bit to mix in some enzymes and dump it in a vat of acid and bacteria, pour in some more enzymes, and then stir it up for a day or so to get the nutrients out. It's not a boutique experience going on down there. The entire point is to reduce complex foods to simple component molecules that can be absorbed.
EDIT: and of course there's complex interactions between some vitamins and minerals that influence absorption that calls for variety in diet throughout the day/week.