[wombatmobile]

TFA curiously asks questions about what the body really needs, in order to investigate a processed food category from an industry that spends billions on advertising and technology designed to make people eat more than they need for only one reason - to generate profits for manufacturers.

What the body really needs is not processed foods, which are loaded with salt, sugar, and fat [0, 1]. Processed foods are what the world's largest food corporations need you to buy in order to generate profits that feed their businesses.

What the body needs is fresh foods - fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts and meat.

[0] https://www.penguin.com.au/books/salt-sugar-fat-978144813387...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk

[rtpg]

What is the magical problem with processed foods? It’s not like the body can tell if something was smooshed by a machine or by my mouth.

I kinda believe it but it’s real “chemicals!!” sort of generality. I can imagine a granola bar being less bad than like… my grandma’s paté

[a3n]

One thing about processed foods is that they're usually based on refined grains, i.e. preprocessed carbs. Your body sucks up these carbs too quickly, resulting in insulin resistance and pancreatic failure.

Look down the aisles of a store. If it's in a box, or a bag, it's probably based on processed carbs.

Disclosure: Biased diabetic who has struggled with management, and now "strictly" (with the best of intentions) limits processed carbs. Bread of any kind, especially. Toss the hamburger bun, for example. And it's worked, with help from meds.

[tovej]

Processed foods are chemically altered for longer shelf-life. Heavily processed foods have a very homogeneous substance, which means they have fewer nutrients that the body needs. To top it off, the substances they _do_ contain are unhealthy, and are processed faster, because the body has to do less work to separate the nutrients (because the nutrients are already... processed). Because the body does less work, we also burn less energy digesting the food. => Calorie intake is higher & calorie consumption is lower

https://www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/may-2019/the-many...

[wombatmobile]

> What is the magical problem with processed foods?

It's not that it's "processed" necessarily. Your grandmother processes fresh pumpkin to turn it into pumpkin soup, and that's still healthy, nutritious, and delicious.

The problem with food from Cargill. Nestle, Pepsico, Kraft, Unilever, Kellog, General Mills and the like is the added sugar, added fat, and added salt in every can, box, jar, bottle and packet they sell in supermarkets.

Read the labels. They'll tell you how much sugar, fat and salt is in every 100g of product.

If its more than 2g of sugar per 100g, you're being manipulated to crave and buy more.

Check the ketchup and the breakfast cereal labels. Compare the sugar in those to the sugar in Coke. What do you find?

How much sugar is listed in the label for your granola bar?

[slothtrop]

Between stripping away all fiber and phytonutrients/prebiotics (which aren't returned in "enriched" products), and the added fat that tends to throw off the omega 3/6 balance, and the sugar, and the salt, there are negative outcomes. Typically are high calorie with low satiety, and yields a high insulin response to boot. Processed meats also bad owing to nitrates but also salt and very high saturated fat typically paired with refined carbohydrates. Saturated fat in itself appears to only raise total cholesterol levels (considered a risk by health authorities but some disagree), but when paired with sugar and carbs the ldl/hdl profile worsens and CVD risk heightens.

[bingohbangoh]

One wonders where the line is drawn with processed foods as well.

Take sausages. These have been around for ages but are, technically, processed. Are these now bad? They seem to pass the lindy test.

[mikea1]

> Take sausages

Not a great example to make your point because processed meats (specifically, cured meats) are carcinogenic. [0]

> Are these now bad?

Colorectal cancer has always been bad. The difference is that we have more data now.

If you don’t change your assumptions and biases with new data, you will be stuck in the past. Blood letting would have passed the lindy test throughout the 18th century.

[0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/repo...

[ac29]

> Colorectal cancer has always been bad. The difference is that we have more data now.

Your linked source claims processed meats can cause a 18% increased incidence of colorectal cancer. The CDC [0] says rates of those cancers are 36.5 per 100,000, or 0.03%. Since some of those people undoubtedly eat processed meat, lets assume the cancer rate is 0.025% for people who don't eat processed meats.

For me, those numbers really dont move the needle - its highly unlikely to get colorectal cancer and abstaining from processed meats doesnt really change the rate much at all. There are probably other good arguments in favor of not eating these foods, but cancer doesnt appear to be one of them.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/index.htm

[Zababa]

If you like eating processed meat, your energy is probably better spent having good prevention around colorectal cancer than eating less processed meat.

[chii]

> where the line is

high salt and/or sugar content foods, whether processed or not, is probably not great for you.

It's just that "processed foods" usually have extra flavourings added (such as salt) to enhance it, for sale purposes.

So instead of targeting processed foods, the targeting for healthy eating should be portion size and amount, followed by freshness.

[dragontamer]

Canned or frozen can contain more nutrients because of the preservation process though. Fresh foods lose nutrients as they are shipped around.

The vitamins may have leached into the water, but toss that water into a soup and you're good.

I don't think freshness matters much at all. Flour certainly doesn't need to be fresh to make good bread.

[bobobob420]

Fresh pasta vs store bought? Worlds of difference. When I lived in Europe the quality of produce and dairy blew me away compared to what we were eating in America. Tons of flavor in fresh natural produce.

[orwin]

There is a difference between fresh in producer market and fresh in a supermarket. Supermarket canned tomatoes (with no added salt, i got surprised once) are better, more ripe than supermarket fresh tomatoes. This extend to a lot of canned food (as long as the process is just food+water in bain-marie or similar).

[dragontamer]

What is "fresh pasta"? That flour's been sitting in my pantry for months!

Yes, fresh eggs taste better. But fresh flour? Not really. grains, beans, flour, rice... these "preserved" foods can last months or even well into a year or longer.

[ubercow13]

If by store bought you mean dry, dry pasta is not ‘worse’ than fresh pasta, it is just suited to different dishes

[slightwinder]

> It’s not like the body can tell if something was smooshed by a machine or by my mouth.

One obvious difference is time and fineness. The machine will grind it significant smaller than your teethes. And processed meat from machines has far longer time to sit and change.

Some other reasons are that processed food is usually not just the meat itself. but a mass that is mixed and enriched with several other elements. And in the money-driven food-industry they are usually not the most healthy things.

[hannob]

I think the "processed food" guidance is widely misunderstood.

From what I gather you shouldn't consider that as a strict rule. It's more a rule of tendencies. Less processed food tends to have more fiber, less sugar, less calorie density. There are exceptions, and obviously it's sometimes debatable what counts as "more processed".

But despite these inaccuracies, it's probably a good simple guidance in a field where there's a lot of uncertainty.

[saurik]

FWIW, I am pretty sure "[your] grandma's pâté" is also a "processed food".

[tovej]

There's one unmentioned aspect of this that's especially sinister. Salt, sugar, and fat are addictive.

[open-source-ux]

Sugar remains a villain, but the issue of fat is more complex.

Not all fats are equal. For example, high-fat foods like nuts, butter, avocados, cold-pressed olive oil etc do not occupy the same space as highly processed fats (e.g. trans fat/hydrogenated fat).

Salt remains divisive among health researchers after many years of public campaigns warning the public to limit salt intake. But is it less harfmul than previously thought?

The Guardian: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study (2018):

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/09/salt-not-as-...

[tudorw]

https://youtu.be/nOub_6Ph5S0

[tudorw]

[Intro] How not to die By the weapon Formerly known as food

[Verse 1] Sugar, sugar, who you talkin' to? Dirty water who be lovin' you? Stroke, no joke, musta hit that salt Don't look at me, 'cause it ain't my fault I know you want it, say you need it And you eat it, 'cause you want it Sugar, sugar, you don't love me Sugar, sugar, you don't need me Now, it be eating me (Eat, eat it up) Got us fightin' diabetes Stress level, sleepless, emotional, mental Drugs in the food I love screwin' up my physical I'll never fall in love again With this hate on my plate and Food and drug administration Is my my hallucination?

[Verse 2] Sugar, sugar, I know you move me I know you wanna drink me You in everything, not just candy Worse than a pow pow, shoot 'em up, kill 'em up movie A riot goin' on in that corner About a word on a bird in that corner Toxic, yeah, they just box it Hard to tell the paranoid "Avoid it like a opioid" How sweet it is They just line up these kids How happy is a meal when dancin' with cancer? With that God bless America FDA romancing A new old kinda ganster get down Pesticide chemical get around Fast food industrial sit down EPA's a gang, throw it up now

[Rompect]

No. I've been eating beef meat, chicken and a suet that is 99.8% fat for more than a month now and it's great. Nobody needs vegetables or nuts.

[Pyramus]

I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not.

In any case, while human bodies are amazing in the way they can strive on different diets, we know that the traditional Intuit diet (~50% fat, 30% protein, 20% carbs) leads to significantly increased cardiovascular risk:

"However, actual evidence has shown that Inuit have a similar prevalence of coronary artery disease as non-Inuit populations and they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, with twice the risk to that of the North American population.[27][28] Indeed, the cardiovascular risk of this diet is so severe that the addition of a more standard American diet has reduced the incidence of mortality in the Inuit population.[29]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine#Nutrition

[bobobob420]

I really hope no one on this board follows this and starts eating only meat. Fruit and vegetables are extremely healthy for your body. Tons of fiber, nutrients, and keeps your immune system strong. This will be a decisive comment but if you think no one needs vegetables and should be eating only meat you have reached maximum levels of retardation and I recommend you not to poison the brains of other people. Sometimes it’s best to keep things to yourself

[slothtrop]

"Needs" is ambiguous. You can survive on garbage. Optimal health is probably the metric focused on here. Meat-only is an elimination diet that, if followed properly, avoids refined products (or allergens) that yield adverse effects. That doesn't mean that including vegetables doesn't yield better results. The long, thorough body of research suggests it does.

[mypastself]

Do you think your self-reported experience of “greatness” of a particular diet over one month is sufficient evidence to make such a conclusion?

[mft_]

Can I ask what you’re optimising for with that diet? e.g. energy, or weight loss, or cardiac health, or longevity?

[BoHerfIIIJrEsq]

Not joking -- I think it may be all of those. See e.g. the work of Ivor Cummins, books like "Eat Rich, Live Long".