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Comment by toasty228 | Hacker News Reader

> Ultra-processed is a meaningless word used to get media attention.

Yes, and cigarettes cure cancer amirite ?

We all know what they mean by ultra processed food, it's 75% of your supermarkets. 45% of the US is obese, the rest is overweight, food is one of the main factor in the top 2 leading causes of death in the US, if you can't see the problem you're blind

There is a very good definition on wikipedia btw, and yes not all ultra processed things are bad, but the vast majority of them are

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Weight gain has basically happened across the whole developed world because cost per calorie has gotten so low that people just eat more calories on average. This is why semi-glutides are the first thing ever to reduce weight gain and actually make people lose weight because they encourage reduced consumption.

Don't need ultra-processed food to be unhealthy. Rich guys in the 1800s would get fat and get gout and all these issues from overconsumption. It's just they were the only ones who could back then.

Yeah right... so obesity, diabetes, etc. skyrocketed in the US from the mid 80s because before the 80s americans were calorie constrained ? Really ?

We're talking 1980s, not 1880s by the way

Yes not gonna pull it but there's data that shows calories got meaningfully cheaper and easier to access in the United States and more plentiful from the 1980s to the 2020s.

Oh yeah, the same exact period during which ultra processed food was introduced to the mass... interesting...

That shift might have been plausible if it happened in the 40s or 50s when the economy switched from war to consumption - but in the 80s? What kind of massive breakthrough in food production happened there that we mysteriously never heard of?

Aspartame

Food as a % of income declined dramatically. This chart has it at 18% in 1960 declining to ~10% today.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2020/november/average-s...

There were a ton of programs after WWII to improve the nutrition of the country. This largely meant raising calories to prevent malnutrition. And the 80s are as good a point as any other to where that succeeded.

> Weight gain has basically happened across the whole developed world

Could it be that maybe, maybe, there is a link to this and the subject of the paper being discussed?

People are pissed because they don't want to accept that a) most of supermarkets food is bad and b) you need to cook yourself in order to eat properly.

We call it shopping around the outside of the supermarket, and it's how you find the food that won't kill you I'm 46. I'm obese, but in otherwise perfect health by every biological marker and test that they can run. Blood pressure is normal. Cholesterol is great. Glucose is great. A1c test is fine. Liver and kidney functions are fine. Everything's fine.

The key is, eat things from the outside ring of the store, not the middle cookie sections.

I haven't gotten that "not too much" part down yet.

That's an interesting POV. I'd have to check if my local supermarkets also have an inner circle.

For me it's mostly avoiding supermarkets alltogether except for specific (fresh) things and buy everything else online, from the producer or farmer whenever I can.

The scientifically measurable problem is the amount of calories people are eating, with low exercise, not that there are toxic ingredients or “bad foods”.

This is primarily a marketing distinction which appeals to natural sensibilities.

>We all know what they mean by ultra processed food

Very scientific!

Open wikipedia, or literally any study on the topic... we're on a tech related shit posting forum, not in a peer reviewed paper lmao

This may shock you, but Hacker News isn't a scientific journal. The focus is on communicating useful information and being understood, not necessarily scientific rigorous terminology.

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