Comment by blablabla123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blablabla123 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> This to me is the most damning evidence against the current classification of 'ultra-processed foods' being absolutely, totally worthless.

It's quite funny that even 15 years after labeling UPF as such there's still a struggle to "officially" mark it as unhealthy and I don't understand why it should be challenged. I would think that most children growing up are being told that candy, fries and Gatorade aren't healthy foods. Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients.

As mentioned in the article there are statistics that under the UPF classifications people are way more unhealthy both physically and even mentally. Shouldn't that be enough? Now a new study is needed to benchmark UPF that is low in fat, sugar and salt. Basically against a product class that hardly exists. I mean nobody eats like that. Most people put extra salt on their food, the Mediterranean diet somewhat the gold standard in good yet healthy food contains tons of fat and various cuisines from the region have rather sugary desserts.

I'd be fine classifying UPF as unhealthy and calling it a day. If food businesses want to explore "healthy" UPFs they should probably do so and take the burden to re-classify it as healthy. This seems like a quite Kafka-esque endeavor.

> Most people I know consider E-numbers as dodgy ingredients.

(From a quick 30 second search) E300 is Vitamin C, E101 is Vitamin B2

And yes - I'm aware that vitamins that are naturally present are probably better than "fortifying" food - but still.

I've never seen Vitamin C listed as E300 on a label. So while you are correct, the heuristic (avoid E-numbers) works in practice.

Yeah, anything good wont be listed as an E number, you use the name people recognize.

OK but then why would a manufacturer ever use a E number - considering the stigma attached? Only when the other name "sounds worse"?

Is there a legal threshold where you have to use the E number?

Limited space on the label maybe :D Some of the real names of the E's are very long.

Indeed, they’ll use E numbers to shorten the chemistry catalogue part of the list. Note the law requires sorting ingredients by weight, so these additives end up clumped together. You’ll end up with half a line instead of half a page.

The best exception is high quality protein powder. Additional protein consumption is extremely healthy for you, short and long term. But it's technically an ultra-processed food.

It's probably better to each 4-5 chicken breasts per day instead of protein powder. But as far as I know there hasn't been a measured difference.

That's not a clear exception at all.

Within some mental model, isolated protein powder is healthy because we generally treat high protein consumption as low-risk for most people and recognize that protein isolates can be very effective for professional and amateur athletes to consume a lot of while building muscle.

In no way does that imply that these protein isolates are "extremely healthy" for the general public or even for anyone in the long term. There's just not any data to say that specifically (it's too niche to perform those kinds of studies), and far too little reason to make that assumption with confidence.

(And it's almost certainly a terrible idea for most people to eat 4-5 chicken breasts per day -- or a comparable amount of protein isolate powder. Please remember that most people are not living a gym bro lifestyle and shouldn't be following gym bro nutritional advice in the first place.)

Protein isn't bad for you and 4-5 chicken breasts is around 120g a day, a healthy amount for an adult. By way of comparison, indigenous people where I live ate hundreds of grams a day in their traditional diets. I've run into this whole "don't eat too much protein, oh man you will die!" nonsense meme before and I wonder where it came from.

> 4-5 chicken breasts is around 120g a day

Bad math? Per USDA standards, a single boneless skinless chicken breast has ~54 grams of protein; so 4-5 would be ~200-250g of protein.

Because that's grossly outside the norm for the general public, you're not going to find any evidence to support the idea it's a healthy amount for a typical person to consume for a long period of time. And likewise, you'll find little evidence saying what negative consequences it might have, if any.

You're welcome to make whatever assumptions you want to in that case, but there's not a lot of ground for anyone to convince skeptics who disagree with them. It's tenuous assumptions all the way down.

Regardless, in the real world, that also represents 1200-1500 calories of absurdly (mind-numbingly) high-satiety food and quite a lot of slow digestive bulk. Most people simply wouldn't be able to consume that while also eating a varied diet that provides them with adequate long-term nutrition. So it's probably a pretty bad idea for them to dedicate themselves to it, unless -- like some athletes and gym bros -- they have the further discipline to also stuff themselves of all the other stuff they need to eat while also not eating so much that they become overweight. Do you know many people like that? I'm not sure I've met more than a handful in my lifetime.

Whatever the impact of the very high protein consumption itself in some abstract theoretical kind of way, which we're far from having evidence into understanding, it's just terrible advice for the general public because of the secondary effects we might reasonably expect in practice.

It's possible to die of "protein poisoning" but you really have to be in a survival situation with no sources of fat. Hunters and trappers are known to have died this way when only lean meat was available in far northern winters. Maybe this is where the idea came from.

Consuming high amount of animal protein was pointed out by the urologist as one of the things I should evade. Apparently that contributes to development of kidney stones. So there’s at least one way in which it’s bad for you.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...

> Moreover, epidemiological studies show that a high intake of animal protein, particularly red meat, which contains high levels of methionine and BCAAs, may be related to the promotion of age-related diseases. Therefore, a low animal protein diet, particularly a diet low in red meat, may provide health benefits.

A high-protein diet can increase calcium and uric acid levels in the urine, raising the risk of urinary stones. I have experienced this, and got the cystoscopy to prove it. It sucked

A fries ultra processed? Potatoes cut into strips, cooked in oil, and salted. Is the deep frying what makes it ultra? Or is a pan fried chicken breast ultra processed since it is cooked in the same oil?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com