"Deny, denounce, delay": The battle over the risk of ultra-processed foods | Hacker News Reader

"Deny, denounce, delay": The battle over the risk of ultra-processed foods

arstechnica.com

52 pointspseudolus34 comments

"in which countries switch away from simple, whole-food diets as they become wealthier"

Is this actually the case? I see the switch away happening when whole-food diets become more expensive. The whole point of processed foods is that they can be made, delivered and served at industrial scale, cheaply. Cooking at home isn't even cheaper to many people because the required time shopping and preparing is expensive. This isn't because the countries are wealthier, but due to income disparity. The wealthy can afford the expensive, healthier choices.

Interesting where Australia sits. Maybe the tyranny of distance? Without the population to sustain too much of a local manufacturing industry, most of the ULP food is imported, raising the costs.

Seeing Italy so far down the list of eating UPF makes a lot of sense. They center food as an integral part of their culture where everyone sits down for long periods of time cooking, talking, thinking about food.

Contrast this in America where food is a chore and something to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible usually while doing something else (watching tv).

In the chart you're referring to, Italy only has two data points. And one of them involved just 110 people.

I wouldn't be attributing any magic to Italian food culture based on that chart.

Besides, then you'd be in the awkward position of trying to claim that French UPF is so high because of their food culture.....

I am privileged to cook most of my family's food. Yes it takes a lot of time. Almost like a part-time job. But it's worth it. Usually the last thing I do at night is load the dishwasher.

I just read Michael Pollen's "In Defence of Food" and it is so simple:

1) Avoid high fructose corn syrup, and items with non-basic ingredients.

2) Take Omega-3 if you don't regularly eat fish (and B12 if entirely vegetarian)

3) If a boxed product features a prominent health claim, it's probably bullshit.

In the past month of "eating" healthier, I have noticed more stability in my energy levels.

About three months ago I stopped combusting/smoking (plant vape only) entirely, and my blood pressure dropped -20/-15 , leaving me almost "back to normal" range.

Not smoking has so far been a more-immediate health increase, but I'm sure the food intake changes will amount to something.

Good for you to stop smoking :)

I love Michael Pollan.

Despite a healthy diet, I still take beta blockers. BP just won't cooperate. It would help if I used less salt, as it does appear to affect me.

>I love Michael Pollan.

The footnotes in his "Entangled" are [even] better than the main body =P

>use less salt

I purchased exactly one can of unsalted black beans — they are inedible.

>it does appear to affect me

Unfortunately I think salt intake is Top3 contributing factors to high BP (smoking and being obese also). I'm working on my chunk, and stopped smoking because I couldn't shake the salt...

I also love salt. Fuck I love it.

How should we handle supplement like whey protein powders? It would be a hell lot of egg whites or chickens breast to eat to get 175g of protein intake a day.

Seafood works well; tilapia is relatively cheap, can be frozen, and offers 28g of protein in 128 calories per 100g of meat. Shrimp has an even better protein/calorie ratio, but tends to be more expensive.

Would seafood like shrimp have too much cholesterols?

why would you need 175g of protein a day? stimulating mTOR?

For 2000 kcal of net calories, it is recommended that up to 35% of the calories come from protein, which translates to about 175g of protein. That's the upper bound, but the theory is that one maintains this level of protein while keeping a 1500 kcal of intake with weight training, so weight loss won't be lean muscles.

I remember 2 different studies thar popped on HN saying that:

1. Eating over 65g of proteins is bad (I can't remember what, but it was very bad for health) 2. If you eat the protein after a workout there is no upper bound to how much the body can assimilate and so it's all good

No idea how to proceed, but I can't help that if proteins are these hard to go by, there is a high chance we were not made to have that level of proteins (and possibly being that muscular), so while ok, it might be unhealthy over the long term. This is all speculation. Science says one thing, but then something new is discovered and it says the opposite.

What the article does not mention: plastic packages. Microplastics transport themselves and a lot of potentially harmful substances directly into the tissue.

And apart from food processing, a few years ago a study found that e.g. some modern carot varieties have only one third of the (Pro-)Vitamin A content of older varieties. I didn't see a big cross-sectional study to evaluate the overall impact, yet.

> a few years ago a study found that e.g. some modern carot varieties have only one third of the (Pro-)Vitamin A content of older varieties. I didn't see a big cross-sectional study to evaluate the overall impact, yet.

The vitamins and minerals are dropping across the board, with the most industrial (greenhouse) vegetables having the least of them. Unfortunately hardly any studies are keeping track of that, let alone trying to evaluate the overall impact.

But luckily, some associations and small seed sellers are trying to buck the trend. Of course, even being allowed to sell (or exchange!) their seeds is a continuous administrative struggle, with everything done to try to shut them down.

Are we going to find the same firms involved who helped the tobacco and fossil fuel industries?

Scary part is the cost. I doubt many households can manage a balanced diet cooked from scratch.

Many are struggling on cost of living even while eating all this industrial shit.

So I often read on here that tech is just making things better and cheaper. We’re surrounded by praises for progress. It might be true that tech is important to making things accessible for all however, we seem to have more tech than ever yet the prices of everything are skyrocketing.

So what’s the cause? Corruption ? Climate change ?

Is it a misapplication of technology at a scale where we’ve damaged soil and the climate so food is just too hard to produce ? A combination of everything perhaps ?

Last night I turned the A/C and I felt bad for two reasons, the climate and then mostly, the cost, why is it more expensive to run my heater now than ten years ago? What went wrong ?

Re costs rising: it's called inflation. It is mostly dependent on government decisions, and is not directly affected by the technology and progress.

For your specific home heating/cooling example: in general, if you adjust for inflation, the electricity is cheaper than 10 years ago [0]. Gas is much more variable, but right now it's slightly cheaper than 10 years ago [1]. That's national averages. Your particular case might be more complex - your state might have added new taxes, that'd increase price. Or your home might be more efficiently insulated and your A/C system could be more efficient too - this will decrease price.

[0] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/electricity-...

[1] https://www.aga.org/research-policy/resource-library/energy-...

Capitalism captures savings from automation as fast as it is enacted, for the most part (jevons paradox also applies). Funny enough, shortages are priced in before they occur, due to traditional financial planning.

Inflation is a separate pressure, which rises more-or-less evenly, regardless of automation savings.

To be clear, the time cost not the financial cost. Beans, rice, vegetables, and fruit can usually be found for dirt cheap but it requires significant time to prep and make.

It'll only get worse as people become more addicted to/distracted by screens and entertainment.

I actually find vegetables to be a little expensive now. Particularly leafy greens can be expensive if you want to consume or cook a volume that’s actually satisfying and significant. A curry spinach can run you 4-6$ for just the spinach.

Definitely depends on your location and which vegetables but you can often find root veggies for cheap (carrots, potatoes, celery, etc).

I agree root veggies are cheap, but root veggies aren’t necessarily healthy! They’re obviously healthier than straight white bread but if your diet is primarily root vegetables you run into high carbs and the like still. Roasted carrots and onions can be very sugary.

Edited to add I don’t find fruits particularly cheap either. For example I love white peaches, but dear god are white peaches expensive even in peak season.

Farmer's markets tend to have very cheap vegetables. Factory second stores like Grocery Outlet often have great deals on vegetables. As well Food Banks generally do not means test if you need to get something _very_ cheap or free.

There are several farms not far from my cabin, some have started selling directly.

One has some of the tastiest cauliflower I've ever had, lightly steamed they're a gourmet meal in itself. Lots of other good stuff too. While not cheap-cheap, they're less expensive than the grocery store, and much better. And farmer gets a fairer share.

Yup. If you go to the wrong store, and you're not paying attention or take the per weight unit price as the single item price, you can end up at the checkout learning that the cabbage head you wanted to buy is almost $9 nowadays.

May not be a one for one substitute, but collards can be pretty cheap.

Shop at Aldi. Rice.

If you can get discounted [about to spoil] vegetables/fruits "chopped" and then immediately frozen, they will last for months. I have a perpetual "bell pepper bag" in my freezer which gets topped off weekly with a new discount pepper.

Making "from scratch" cookies and mashed taters and just add more butter has been a lot of fun, and seems much more filling than prepackaged junk.

On a budget, the point of leafy greens should strictly to get an appropriate amount of micronutrients and fibre. In terms of calories/$ they're godawful unless you douse them in oil.

You can limit prep time to almost nothing with canned, frozen, or dehydrated produce and still come out ahead of the heavily processed stuff. If you are cooking with whole grains it can take a while, although buckwheat, (proso) millet (and other tiny grains), wild rice, and many lentils are fairly quick and more aren't too bad in a pressure cooker, although it still takes an hour until it is ready to eat. With electric pressure cookers you can just push a button and wait until it is done, although you should stay in ear shot for those rare cases where it doesn't seal fully correctly or the contents bubble out. Spending more time at the computer makes this easier, not harder, although of course the variety is limited vs stuff that takes more effort (however many people can enjoy various entertainment while cooking).

I'm suspicious that a big part of the issue is that advertising has convinced many people that cooking is necessarily more difficult than it actually can be. Particularly cooking for one person can be quite easy, although it gets harder with multiple people with different tastes.

Fruit is usually somewhat expensive in the US, although still quite a good deal compared to even poverty line income. Unfortunately, it seems like there has been a division where only membership-oriented or online stores have decent bulk while everywhere else tries to sell tiny quantities of grains, lentils, beans, and various other stuff.

Well aware of the whole beans & rice routine, but that isn't going to leave you with a balanced healthy diet either. Covering all bases tends to involve either meat or very elaborate & diverse vegetarian diets...which also tend to be expensive.

> To be clear, the time cost not the financial cost.

Or one could spend a little less time looking at a screen, and a little more time actively improving one's health by cooking..

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