[neilfrndes]

The book Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken really opened my eyes about UPF. I highly recommend it. Here is a video of him delivering a lecture at the royal institution about the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oOoYnCfJs

I don't think adding kombu to dashi would count as UPF according to the book's definition.

[tptacek]

I don't know that it does, but I do know that carrageenan does, and they're both just seaweed extracts.

Later

This video is really frustrating. The first half of it is making relatively banal arguments about the importance of food to health. He's setting up an argument that I think basically everybody agrees with (hyperpalatable packaged food are a major driver of illness). But then he gets to UPFs, says the definition is totally agreed on, and then says they're all made by investor-driven large corporations.

That's just straightforwardly false. I made a mac & cheese out of some stored roasted cauliflower (never put a raw cauliflower in your fridge). To melt the aged cheddar I used, I added a half teaspoon of sodium citrate (a miracle ingredient). My cauli-mac is now a UPF. No giant corporation made it.

My argument isn't that packaged food isn't exactly as much of a problem as the UPF people say it is. My argument is that "UPF" is not the right axis on which to determine which foods are and aren't healthy.

[Amezarak]

I think it’s misleading to suggest a substance is okay because it’s “just” an extract. Normal foods contain lots of substances that when extracted, are obviously bad if concentrated and consumed in larger quantities than would be had during normal consumption of whatever the source is.

Additionally, even if that substance is perfectly safe, the extraction process may effectively increase (as a %) the amount of byproducts. For example - and this is totally made up - suppose ice cream normally contained 1ppm microplastics, but adding carrageenan increased that to 10ppm because of the microplastics in seawater and the failure of the extraction process to remove them. Or even things that are “good” in their normal dosages might be “bad” at higher doses found in extracts.

In general, I would suggest it’s a good heuristic to avoid foods containing ingredients added for stability, preservation, or color. Maybe it’s fine but the benefit vs just eating fresh food that doesn’t need it is basically nil even in that case. Carrageenan would fall into this category. (It seems like there is some research suggesting carrageenan is not great for you but I’m not an expert: I’d not heard that and avoid it simply because it’s not anything I would add to a food I made.)

[tptacek]

At some point with this line of reasoning you fall into the precautionary principle and the naturalist fallacy. I'm fine with people being squicked out by food additives that are products of petroleum chemistry, like benzaldehyde. You can get carrageenan simply by rehydrating and simmering seaweed and then filtering it through cheesecloth.

Whatever else is going on with carrageenan-stabilized yogurt, the carrageenan itself isn't doing anything to drive the health problems this speaker is talking about.

This is actually I think a really good illustration of the problem. There is absolutely a (primarily message-board-driven) literature of concerns about specific variants of carrageenan. But those concerns --- which I don't think are well-founded --- have nothing to do with the wave of concern about "UPFs" generally. The UPF thing isn't about IBD (some think kappa carrageenan exacerbates intestinal inflammation with susceptible people) --- it's about people eating hyperpalatable low-satiety packaged food, which are obesogenic. Getting rid of carrageenan does precisely nothing to address that problem; getting rid of cane sugar, which is not a UPF ingredient, absolutely does.

[Amezarak]

> At some point with this line of reasoning you fall into the precautionary principle

Is there something wrong with the precautionary principle? It would be one thing if the supposed benefit was something really incredible, like extending lifespan or curing cancer. Then maybe we should be less cautious. But we're talking about adding something to your ice cream to make it look nice for longer.

> it's about people eating hyperpalatable low-satiety packaged food, which are obesogenic. Getting rid of carrageenan does precisely nothing to address that problem; getting rid of cane sugar, which is not a UPF ingredient, absolutely does.

I'm not advocating anyone eat tons of sugar, but sugar consumption and the obesity epidemic are not very well correlated. I would agree that we should eliminate "hyperpalatable low-satiety packaged food", but if you were to hypothetically ban basically all non-salt/sugar preservatives, stability agents, flavor enhancers, colors etc. then you almost eliminate this entire product category, because it's no longer practical to produce and sell, easy to consume, or as marketable. Even banning corn syrup in packaged food (as a UPF ingredient) would be a positive move because forcing its replacement by cane sugar (regardless of whatever alleged health problem HFCS s may or may not have) would mean that such products become less economically viable, because its more expensive and less stable.

> the naturalist fallacy.

The naturalistic "fallacy" is approximately true for diets. We are animals that evolved in a way that optimized for the consumption of various foods in our environments. We're some of the most wildly complex chemical systems in the world, and we have remarkably broadly adapted digestive systems with a pretty good tolerance, so you can get away with throwing a lot of stuff down the pipe without anything bad happening. But that's exactly why "eat the same foods people always have and not bizarre lab concoctions" is a useful heuristic for health. It's entirely possible that various additives are perfectly fine or even pro-health, but it's not the way to bet as a general principle, and it's impractical to conduct meaningful long-term nutritional studies to find out with any real assurance.

[tptacek]

If you believe that about the naturalistic fallacy, you should be fine with carrageenan-stabilized yogurt; the carrageenan is arguably more "natural" than the yogurt.

But all this just shows to go you: this whole "UPF" thing is a sort of motte and bailey deal. We all broadly agree that packaged hyperpalatable low-satiety foods (along with liquid calories) are a danger to human health; that's the motte. The bailey is all this stuff about how we need to rid the food chain of stabilizers and glutamates and nitrates and preservatives because "bizarre lab concoctions" endanger people.

The right food classification scheme wouldn't have this problem, and wouldn't be a way for people to smuggle in proscriptions against sodium citrate or transglutaminase while coming up with "UPF-free" logos for cane-sugar-sweetened beverages.

[Amezarak]

> The bailey is all this stuff about how we need to rid the food chain of stabilizers and glutamates and nitrates and preservatives because "bizarre lab concoctions" endanger people.

In my case, I'm arguing that doing away with these things, regardless of any health effects they may have, has the effect of eliminating the entire class of foods you have a problem with.

> "UPF-free" logos for cane-sugar-sweetened beverages.

I'm not arguing that people should drink coke (which is full of all kinds of stuff besides HFCS I doubt people should be consuming), but the obesity epidemic is not well-correlated to soft drink consumption. The latter has been in decline since around the mid-90s.

[uxamanda]

> never put a raw cauliflower in your fridge

Why?

[tptacek]

Because roasted cauliflower is so much better and more versatile and it keeps. Roast the cauliflower off on your toaster oven, stick it in a ziploc, and then put it in your fridge.

[uxamanda]

Ah I see, I thought there was a health concern :-). Roasting it is a good idea, but FWIW raw cauliflower also keeps for a long time in a fridge.

[tptacek]

It is a health concern! You'll eat a lot more cauliflower if you roast it all and cauliflower is good for you.