[Hnrobert42]

I've heard this objection a lot, even from folks I respect. Its ubiquity makes me wonder it is astroturfed.

The definition I have heard is "food made with ingredients or processes not commonly used in ghome Unfortunately, when I looked to leading scientific orgs, they are dithering on releasing formal definitions, but all say something like what I'd heard.

Conflicting information doesn't mean an abysmal situation. I'd argue the opposite. Everyone "knew" the sun orbited Earth.

[oytis]

How should using processes not used at home make something harmful? If we make the same processes commonly available to use at home, will these foods become less harmful?

I know there is science around it, but the very concept looks very unscientific, it's almost like talking about "unnatural food"

[svpk]

The idea is that you could ban any set of "unhealthy" inputs and give the big food companies some time and they'll come out with something just as unhealthy that complies with your rules.

The underlying issue is some mix of what industrial processes make possible combined with food scientist working with taste test panels to hyper optimize food. When you spend all this time and effort trying to create a snack where people are always left craving just a bit more you end up with the kinds of junk food that we have.

We want there to be some simple answer of "it's these ingredients, or this specific combination" but the actual answer seems to be that when you use industrial processes and science to min-max cost and palatabillity you always end up with junk. Whereas when you cook food with typical home methods and ingredients you don't.

Food health science has always had difficulties with just how complicated the actual processing of food in our bodies is and the more we look the more complex it gets. But the "ultra-processed foods" test seems to be working out as a successful heuristic to identify especially unhealthy foods. Given the issues health science has had with coming up with exact answers a heuristic that's pretty reliable (even if imperfect) is a pretty big win!

[enragedcacti]

If the goal is to regulate unhealthy foods then it does kind of have to be perfect (very low false-positives). UPFs as they are defined include baby formula, many frozen meals regardless of macros, soy/almond milk, instant oatmeal, pasta sauce, flavored yogurt, etc.

Invariably when someone says something like "UPF is a pretty reliable heuristic" its because they are massively underestimating what counts as UPF and using a "I know it when I see it" approach, which, yeah of course it seems reliable if you start with the precondition that UPFs are unhealthy.

If it's just guidance and not for regulation, well, you have similar problems in the opposite direction. prepackaged whole grain bread is UPF the same as Wonder Bread w/ 2.5g added sugar per slice. It's easy to say "just buy fresh bread" but when that collides with the reality of a busy schedule then UPF designations become next to useless. The undeniable value that preservatives have for healthy and unhealthy products alike mean that anyone using actual UPF as their heuristic will be completely rudderless.

[breezybottom]

>the actual answer seems to be that when you use industrial processes and science to min-max cost and palatabillity you always end up with junk. Whereas when you cook food with typical home methods and ingredients you don't.

That's not an answer at all. You need to explain why an industrial mixer would create less healthy food than a kitchen mixer. The scale shouldn't matter.

[sithadmin]

>How should using processes not used at home make something harmful?

Well, for starters - the refined sugars, carbohydrates and oils that seem to be the main culprits behind the obesity epidemic are mostly things that wouldn't be efficient (or in some cases, even possible) to create in a home cooking environment.

Sure, you could order some grain milling or oil extraction equipment on Alibaba and DIY it, but 99.999% of households aren't going to do that.

[erispoe]

So the actual content of the food then? Why not say that?

[breezybottom]

Yes, you got me, I get paid $50 Soros bucks for every snarky post. It couldn't possibly be that "not commonly used in the home" is a vague and unhelpful definition, which varies across time and cultures. Or that these researchers still haven't explained the theoretical basis linking all these wildly different "UPF"s to the negative health consequences they're supposed to explain.

[Hnrobert42]

No. I didn't think you were an astroturfer. I wonder where you derived this objection.

Also, good luck with your bottom. Perhaps look into your consumption of UPFs. ;-)

[margalabargala]

Soros bucks? You're spouting a right wing position, not a progressive one.

[breezybottom]

I didn't know right-wing means rejecting bad science and progressive means accepting it.

[margalabargala]

It doesn't, so there's something you're correct about!

But certainly pro-processed-foods stuff gets pushed by the right, and Soros is on the left, so there's the contradiction.

[breezybottom]

Huh? You're on the side of RFK Jr and the MAHA nutjobs. This is the kind of "science" they believe in.

[margalabargala]

Sometimes among large groups of people there are varying opinions, you'll see this more as you grow up. The american right wing is one such group.