Comment by wackget | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wackget | Hacker News Reader

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Most of the time when people try to define healthy food vs. junk food in a fair and unbiased way, the line gets drawn at "whole foods" vs "processed foods".

A typical burger meal is definitely processed food because the meat is processed mechanically and mixed from different sources (usually with added fat); the bun is made from refined flour and refined oils; and the fries are thinly-cut potatoes blanched and fried in more refined oils. (Not to mention a whole bunch of chemical additives which are the norm rather than the exception; and "hyperpalatability" tweaks which means the food is formulated to taste unnaturally good.)

You could perhaps argue that a home-made burger meal made using whole cuts of meat, a lean wholemeal bread dough, and potatoes roasted in animal fat could count as a healthy/whole food meal, but it would taste different to the typical hamburger meal we all associate with fast food.

Fast food also has an enormous marketing industry behind it which pushes it in unhealthy volume, with maximum convenience, and at (until recently, at least) affordable prices.

Why does grinding the meat at home make a huge difference vs grinding it in a factory? Depending on the cut you choose, the condiments you add, and the portion size, a hamburger at home could be Lot less healthy than a McDonald’s burger. McDonald’s patties don’t have any fillers afaict.

The point is that “junk food” is a pretty amorphous and vague category. If you want to enforce portion or calorie restrictions you can do that, but it would have to be way more encompassing of a regulation than targeting “junk food”

The additives to the meat. Has to retain its color, be preserved, and they also add pink slime to it. McDonald’s adds soy, I believe, and there are all kinds of other things that go into it. If you grind your meat at home you’re going to get some delicious burger.

Heh, grind your meat

As of the last 10 years none of this is true for McDonalds. Their published ingredients say 100% beef with no additives, and they stopped using pink slime 10 years ago.

But we’d still designate McDonald’s as junk food, so it can’t be the additives that make the category

I don't think there's a neat categorisation. If I cook at home, starting with just vegetables and cuts of meat, at some point the food I'm making stops being "whole foods" and starts being "processed foods". But when is that?

If I cook bread at home, is that a processed food? How about if I make a steak sandwich with that bread? How about if I first pass the steak through a mincing machine? Still whole? Or processed now?

What if I add an egg, some crumbs from the bread I made earlier, and some salt and pepper. Still whole? And then I formed it into a patty and cooked it on a pan. Is it now processed?

When does it become processed and how does that look different to my stomach when I chew it?

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