Americans get 55% of their calories from ultra-processed foods, CDC report says
More than half of Americans' calorie intake is from ultra-processed foods, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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As usual when you see a crazy high percent it’s because they used a very loose definition of “ultra processed”
“Some of the top sources of calories from ultra-processed foods among youth and adults included:
Sandwiches, including burgers Sweet bakery products Savory snacks Sweetened beverages “
After digging into it even deeper and reading the nova classification they used it gets even more arbitrary where they clump a bunch of things into the scary “ultra processed” label for example mechanically separated meat, whey protein, and fruit juice concentrate. But the real kicker and why the number is so high is any food with fructose added to it (not just hfcs) is considered ultra processed
which by lumping so many things into the one category any person who is able to eat a diet free of ultra processed food is going to have a much higher likelihood of having a higher income, living a lower stress life, and regularly exercising
It's not arbitrary. The definition is very clear. Group 4, classified as ultraprocessed. I've broken it up to make it easier to read:
Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation.
Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials.
Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals.
Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates', invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients.
Their definition is clear but is still arbitrary. Fruit juice concentrate can be made by just reducing down juice yet fruit juice concentrate is considered ultra processed.
Mechanically separating meat has no effect on its nutrition so why is it a reason to call something “ultra-processed”
Warming sugar, water, and vanilla beans on the stove is technically considered ultraprocessed by nova
Using that from a manufacturing standpoint is at least somewhat acceptable but even then foods with much more complex manufacturing are considered processed vs ultraprocessed. However their method of clumping some bad food with such a wide range of products causes foods that are not heavily processed and are benign for your health to be labeled as unhealthy.
They then never controlled for confounding variables in the meta review study that linked the nova classification of ultraprocessed food to various health conditions.
This is like saying people sleeping outside 10 nights a year is linked to elevated levels of schizophrenia and never controlling for the difference in people sleeping outside due to homelessness and people sleeping outside for camping. Then the known link between people with schizophrenia being homeless drives the correlation and is strong enough to show elevated levels of schizophrenia amongst everyone who spends at least 10 nights outside
It’s just bad science and the fact it wasn’t picked up in peer review is just more evidence of how atrocious the whole field of nutrition is. My personal advice is any study that considers the effects of health outcomes without accounting for socioeconomic status or even relative fitness levels is just trash pop science
You may misinterpreting the terms used. The "foods" within quotation marks are a specific industrially processed product:
From Taraz Foods:
After extraction, the juice is taken through an evaporation process where much of the water is extracted. Most times, this is performed under low heat to make sure the flavor and all other nutritious components within are preserved. What results from the process is a thick, concentrated liquid, usually then pasteurized to eliminate unwanted bacteria. Finally, it’s packaged and shipped off to be used in various products.
This isn't fruit juice that has been reduced using kitchenware.
Mechanically separated meat (MSM), mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat (MRM), or mechanically deboned meat (MDM) is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing pureed or ground beef, pork, mutton, turkey or chicken under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. When poultry is used, it is sometimes called white slime as an analog to meat-additive pink slime and to meat extracted by advanced meat recovery systems, both of which are different processes. The process entails pureeing or grinding the carcass left after the manual removal of meat from the bones and then forcing the slurry through a sieve under pressure.
The resulting product is a blend primarily consisting of tissues not generally considered meat, along with a much smaller amount of actual meat (muscle tissue). In some countries such as the United States, these non-meat materials are processed separately for human and non-human uses and consumption.[1] The process is controversial; Forbes, for example, called it a "not-so-appetizing meat production process".[2]
Mechanically separated meat has been used in certain meat and meat products, such as hot dogs and bologna sausage,[2] since the late 1960s. However, not all such meat products are manufactured using an MSM process.
This isn't meat that has been cut up or even ground up using tools in the kitchen.
foods that are not heavily processed and are benign for your health to be labeled as unhealthy
With respect, which foods, according to whom, on the basis of what?
more evidence of how atrocious the whole field of nutrition is
I agree. Even studies that account for socioeconomic status and relative fitness levels are still not science, but that's epidemiological studies for you. To quote @jet@hackertalks.com, "Epidemiology is not science, it's the start of science, but it cannot establish causation." And yes, they are epidemiological studies, but Nova class 4 is is the class associated with all the chronic metabolic diseases, and yet not Nova class 1 through 3.
The Nova classification is far better than any current mainstream "dietary recommendation" or guidelines. It's a large step in the right direction, so I wouldn't brush it off as "arbitrary" just because it's not perfect. At the very least, it's useful as a tool to flag a class of products that are designed and marketed to promote overconsumption and that displace whole foods, and it needn't be the only tool we use.
With both mechanically separated meat and the fruit juice concentrate using a vacuum evaporator there should be no difference in nutrition.
The link to metabolic syndromes and novas class 4 is what I was complaining about because they made the classification overly broad the only people who can fully avoid it are people with extra means or people who but a much more concerted effort into their health and neither of which was controlled. We already know that rich people are generally healthier than poor people so showing that foods that are in general more expensive are “healthier” is just repeating our known values and muddying the waters where it says that simple syrup is a level 2-3 (I don’t remember which and am on mobile) yet throw some ginger into that syrup and now it’s a level 4
I think you're kind of missing the point of the classification. It's not supposed to be a perfect identifier of unhealthy foods, its supposed be more useful than stuff like "red meat consumption linked to colon cancer" (when actually the steak is broadly okay, but the stuff that's been ripped apart and reformed together with a bunch of additives and eaten multiple times per week is not).
The UPF classification is an attempt to group together all the different kinds of foods that are formulated by food scientists using ingredients you wouldn't have at home, often waste or byproducts chosen for their low cost, that's been iterated over to produce the most shelf stable product which their testing shows people eat the most of while keeping profit margins high. It is almost always very easy to eat quickly and therefore overeat, while being devoid of fibre and high in sugar/salt/fat.
On the topic of fruit juice, even when the ingredients list sounds fairly innocuous, fruit juice extracts are a great way to cram sugar into a product, so you can e.g. consume an entire apples worth of sugar in one bite with none of the fibre. Thats why they count as UPF.
I am seeing that point and that’s what I am disagreeing with. How is it more useful to have a list of a bunch of things, that some of which are bad rather than just talk about the parts that are bad? A lot of items are flagged as UPF with a negative connotation that are no worse or sometimes even better for you than the level 2-3 items but because of the overly broad classification they are flagged as bad.
Sure fruit juice is a way to cram a bunch of sugar into a product but so is refined white sugar and yet that’s only a level 2 along with lard.
Because it's too complicated. It would be too long of a list for people to remember and its too difficult to prove the harm of individual ingredients and they're probably almost all fine in moderation.
Look at where we are now with saturated fats: Every major health organisation in the world says they're linked to cardiovascular disease and should be limited in diets, and meanwhile hordes of people who've read a pop science book or watched a YouTube video think they know better and can eat all the fat they want.
We've tried going against fat, we've tried putting the sugar, fat and calories and packaging, people know about calories in, calories out, and yet obesity never stops growing.
UPF is about the manufacturing process. The idea is that it isn't going to include the things that you make in your kitchen from whole and processed ingredients, but it does include the cheap easy to overeat stuff cooked up by food manufacturers.
Also I'm not aware of anyone who says you should eat no UPF whatsoever. It just shouldn't be a huge part of your diet.
Because it’s too complicated we should put out bad information instead?
We should flag known problems, a common thing you see in other countries is foods labeled with excess calories, excess sodium, and/or excess added sugar. Those would be a much better use of our time then an arbitrary overly broad system that falsely flags some food as unhealthy and unhealthy food as healthy
So the UK has exactly the kind of labelling you're talking about and they're one of the fattest countries in Europe. Guess what, they also eat one of the highest proportions of UPF.
What food are you actually talking about that gets falsely flagged as unhealthy?
I have been listing things for a while but anything with whey protein or any form of flavor extract. But as a whole there is no knowledge on which upfs are bad as they lump everything together
400 calories of cup noodles is counted as equal as a 400 calories of a protein shake
Every major health organisation in the world says they're linked to cardiovascular disease and should be limited in diets
The reasons for this make for interesting reading, when you have the time.
Also I'm not aware of anyone who says you should eat no UPF whatsoever. It just shouldn't be a huge part of your diet.
Hello.
Look at where we are now with saturated fats: Every major health organisation in the world says they're linked to cardiovascular disease and should be limited in diets, and meanwhile hordes of people who've read a pop science book or watched a YouTube video think they know better and can eat all the fat they want.
This is actually incorrect, and I'm happy to make a new post about it if you want to have a discussion. Saturated fat, or animal fats, are very healthy and not causal with cardiovascular risk. What fats exist that aren't saturated? Industrial oils! The highly processed foods we have been discussing are exactly what's being pushed by the crusade against saturated fat
I'll add my voice to this too. You should eat no UPF whatsoever.
You do you, but I'm happy to enjoy an ice cream once in a while.
