Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.
UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.
UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits.
There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers’ efforts to optimise the “doses” of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University.
One of the authors, Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”
I dont want fast foods, I want a cantina that deals with cooking for me
Taco trucks exist.
Fast food
There’s still the huge problem that nobody knows what an UPF actually is. Name a definition, somebody’s traditional home-cooked cuisine does it. Unless home-cooked is your definition, in which case you ascribe too much navigational prowess to food - it has no idea where it’s being cooked.
Yeah a food scientist remarked that technically you could call tofu an “ultra processed food”
Exactly. It’s one of those “I know it when I see it” type of things rather than a solid definition. Like Froot Loops definitely are UPF, but what about a salad in a plastic box? Sure, it’s been through a factory where it got chopped, mixed and packaged. That’s industrial scale food processing too, right?
Well I guess soda is safe to classify then.
Don’t know why traditional home cooked sodas.
Guess Spam too. You can’t really really get that text or taste by making it at home.
Hmmm definitely a lot of candies too.
Traditional home cooked soda? You mean like the Native Americans did with pine needles before the settlers showed up?
Spam is just jellied mince, which is also something people have been making at home for centuries. If you look at the ingredients list, it’s actually quite short and nothing unusual. I even have sodium nitrate in my spice cabinet at home for food preservation use.
Candy is mostly just cooked sugar, it goes through different textures at different temperatures. Arguments could be made for the flavor extracts, but I’ve made my own flavor extracts before with regular ol’ everclear.
Traditional home cooked soda? You mean like the Native Americans did with pine needles before the settlers showed up?
No, because that was entirely different. You might as well say beer and everclear are the same thing. Or tea and coffee.
Spam is just jellied mince,
It’s not. That’s why the knock offs and alternatives tend to taste off as well - that’s what they make. Because jellied mince is easier to make.
Candy is mostly just cooked sugar
I didn’t say all candies. Obviously a honey ball isn’t the same as bubblegum.
Don’t know why traditional home cooked sodas.
Concoctions involving naturally occurring carbonated spring water were/are definitely a thing. That’s actually where the commercial idea came from in the first place.
Hmmm definitely a lot of candies too.
Have been around as long as sugar, which is longer than industrialisation.
Not sure about spam, but isn’t that just canned ham? People definitely do home canning. And, it sounds like Spam is considered a central part of traditional Hawaiian food at this point. Why do you hate Native Hawaiians??? /s
Concoctions involving naturally occurring carbonated spring water were/are definitely a thing.
And none of them were really what we would call “soda”. Heck the closest to that would be modern root beer. But considering the lack of other “medicinal” herbs, they definitely don’t count.
Have been around as long as sugar, which is longer than industrialisation.
A lot of candies, not all of them. Certain candies have emulsifiers and other ingredients that didn’t exist historically, so you couldn’t get that texture or such. And a lot of modern chewing gum is plastic, so I think I don’t have to explain why that’s not possible in the kitchen.
Not sure about spam, but isn’t that just canned ham?
I actually read a book all about Spam once that they had in my school library, because I thought it was funny they had such a book. The name purportedly comes from the parts used: shoulder of pork and ham. It was therefore considered fancier than just ham.
But to make it, you’re not just canning the meats. You also need those preservatives for one thing - they’re part of the taste. I’m not sure celery powder would work as a substitute like it does for ham and bacon though.
How the fuck do you expect to get kids to eat salad when the salad dressing is locked behind a counter with the cigarettes?
The problem is that “ultra-processed foods” is too broad to be meaningful. Also the fact that, you know, some amount of personal choice is essential to a free society.
When I was an italian kid, I have never had problems eating salads with no ultra-processed dressing.
I’m sure that’s because of choices that your parents made and nothing to do with living in an area with high population density and easy access to fresh food.
I don’t understand. I’m pretty sure raising a child depends on the choices of the parents. What do you mean, that in areas with higher population density it is easier to get fresh food? And that thus the parent’s choices are not influential or only possible because of the environment? In my experience fresh food is more accessible in low population density areas, thus I don’t really follow.
Mmm olive oil
it is not ultra-processed, it is just processed.
Eh. That’s the thing with UPF, it doesn’t really have a definition. There’s a whole lot of transformation that’s happened to make olive oil - quite possibly more than whatever American-style dressing.
Umh, it quite depends on what you classify as olive oil. In Italy etra vergin olive oil is the same recipe as it was centuries ago, just automatized. That by definition can’t be classified as ultra-processed since you could recreate that kind of olive oil by hand in your own kitchen.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand neuroscience.
Please, explain to me how Cheerios are addictive and need to be banned.
That’s kind of loaded. Banned is a strong word but, Cheetos specifically were not only engineered to be addictive, but Frito-Lay isn’t even shy about admitting that.most of the snacks you find in the middle aisles are. Soda included.
They said Cheerios, not Cheetos. Tbf tho some of the flavored Cheerios are kind of addictive.
No, Cheerios. The heart-healthy cereal that people give to infants. That’s an “ultra-processed food”, because the phrase is bullshit.
Learn about how the human body processes carbohydrates. Then learn about what a truly “normal” amount of carbohydrates for a human to consume on a daily, weekly, annual basis is. Finally, compare that amount of “normal” carbs to the amount in a single bowl of Cheerios. Subtract the dietary fiber involved if you need precision. But the basic comparison is so obviously skewed that the dietary fiber part of the calculation is barely more than a rounding error.
Cheerios don’t need “banning” for any of the reasons we prohibit or control the sale of truly hazardous or life-threatening materials. Nobody said that is what is needed. Overconsumption of carb-heavy foods like Cheerios are bad for our health on a time scale measured in years or decades. Drinking drano is bad for your health on a time scale measured in seconds. Don’t get it twisted. Nobody’s treating eating cheerios like drinking drano. Insinuating such a thing is happening is simply incorrect and not a valid argument.
Humans need to eat more green things and eat less carbs. We need companies that serve human needs to truly serve the real human needs, not lie about the exploitable bugs in human cognition, pretend they’re “needs”, and try to say there’s nothing wrong with encouraging people to over-consume to the point of morbid obesity just to pump the shareholders’ stocks a few cents higher.
That’s the basic message. Humanity is more important than profit margins.
and try to say there’s nothing wrong with encouraging people to over-consume to the point of morbid obesity just to pump the shareholders’ stocks a few cents higher.
Yeah, and no one is saying that either.
We all agree people need to eat healthier. Targeting “ultra-processed foods” is a stupid way to accomplish that. It would backfire completely, and cause more problems than it would solve.
Targeting “ultra-processed foods” is a stupid way to accomplish that.
Then let’s hear your genius, sure-fire, guaranteed-to-work idea that’s been built on high-quality research and rigorous data collection methodology.
You clearly don’t know how ridiculously stupid the entire food labeling regulations process is. All because CEOs refuse to do reasonable, rational things that are better for human beings than their stock price.
The problem here isn’t the regulations. The problem is the failure to recognize that every regulation is written in somebody’s blood. So, how many people is the “right” number of people who need to die of preventable causes before we conclusively say “maximizing addictive properties in food” is no longer a business practice we’re willing to accept as a nation? Do 100 people need to die? Thousands? Do you need to see millions of dead bodies piled up end-over-end like cord wood before you recognize that, gosh golly gee, maybe we should listen to scientific opinions over corporatist scumbag opinions?
There are places that don’t have easy access to fresh food. You want people to die of preventable causes? Let’s ban the bread they make their fucking sandwiches with, because other people are shortsighted and privileged enough to think that the only reason anyone doesn’t choose whole-grain, small-batch, artisinal bread is because white bread is “ultra-processed”, so it must be addictive.
By the same token, banning Cheerios would be a great way to make sure a bunch of kids are malnourished.
Apply a little reading comprehension to this extremely scientific article and see how they’re dancing around the fact that “ultra-processed” isn’t synonymous with “unhealthy”. Phrases like “includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits” are clearly manipulative language meant to gloss over the fact that the category includes those things but is not limited to them.
Anyway, here are some better ideas: a four day work week and expanding work-from-home so that people actually have time to make healthy choices. Or how about better funding for school lunches, with an emphasis on variety so that kids can be exposed to more foods, giving them the tools to make healthier choices later in life.
There are so many ways we could try to improve this situation, and blanket bans is by a wide margin the most idiotic.
Why do they need to eat salad? Or do you think that’s the only healthy food?
If you want to follow a Mediterranean diet, yes, salad is a very healthy food that you should eat weekly
It was an example of how fucking stupid this idea is.
Why would you even buy a readymade dressing? Salad dressing is dead simple to make.
Sure if you’re just making Italian or Russian dressing. If you want thousand island or caesar, you need more than a basic pantry. Also the time and energy/motivation, which a lot of people don’t have.
That’s why I have my own olive trees, chicken farm, lemon orchard, anchovy fishery, and a dairy farm in Parma
I don’t know why anyone would buy readymade olive oil, eggs, lemon juice, anchovies, or Parmesan, they’re dead simple to make
Friendly reminder that Parmesan generally refers to an American counterfeit product. Please refer to the cheese as Parmigiano.
I Say this because the US seems very proud of producing counterfeit products and wants to maintain a monopoly on such goods https://en.edairynews.com/us-blasts-eu-for-monopoly-on-south-america-dairy-meat/
The first two dressings you listed are much healthier than the latter two. If I’m eating a salad, I don’t need to put a caloric dressing on it.
If you have a healthy life style and eat well, it does not matter what you place into your salad. Not that I ever did put anything too caloric in a salad, I guess there was a period in which I added yogurt, but I wouldn’t feel bad if I wanted something caloric in there. Hell, I’d like to be rich and afford various types of nuts to throw into a salad.
No, you don’t need to. But it makes it a lot more palatable.
Edit: also, there’s very little caloric or nutritional difference between russian and thousand island
Only to people who eat way too much sugar.
True, my addiction to Protein shakes will give me lung cancer soon.
Can we use a different label like “addictive foods”? UPF is so incredibly broad and undefined I’d argue bread is an UPF.
Bread literally is a UPF most of the time. Not necessarily the fresh baked bread that you get from a bakery, but the manufactured bread that’s slightly less healthy but is much cheaper and more accessible to people in remote or impoverished places.
A lot of ultra-processed foods exist because they’re solving specific problems, and you can’t just ban them without providing a better solution to those problems.
In my part of the world, there’s been alarms raised about growing obesity because of increasingly sedate lifestyles brought upon a lot of entertainment options, but then in poor neighborhoods I often pass by I see a lot of thin kids as malnutrition remains prevalent.
Maybe not but they are contributing to the calculus (tartar) build up on your teeth unless you’re brushing and flossing after each drink. That build up will cause bone loss, teeth to fall out, it’s also linked to heart disease cause it’s the same kind of plague.
Brush and floss frequently, and get a professional cleaning at least twice a year. 🦷🪥
The best example I can think of to represent what the article is taking about is Doritos. I like to think of myself as someone with a decent amount of self-control. But if I ever see a bag of Doritos I can crush a whole value pack in two sittings. That stuff is engineered to be as addictive as possible and it shows. The only reason why I’m not a walking blimp is that I dont buy any because I know what happens when that stuff is in my house.
If only they engineered something that was both addictive and healthy for a change. But I guess there isn’t much incentive to sacrifice maximum addictiveness for health.
if I ever see a bag of Doritos I can crush a whole value pack in two sittings
This confirms your decent amount of self-control.
The comedian Louis CK once said: “I don’t stop eating when I feel full. I stop eating when I start hating myself.”
It could just be a lower threshold for self-hatred.
I once killed an entire party size bag of Doritos by myself.
To be fair I was really baked at the time.
There is a certain ratio of carbohydrates to fat that stops us from being able to control how much we eat. (50:35 carbohydrates to fat) plus salt, flavour enhancers and whatever sells the product…
its .0001% Meth.
A little hint of love :)
I’m that way with Pringles. I look at it and it looks like a giant tube of chips that should ideally last many days, but I can easily eat over half the tube in one sitting if I’m not being conscious of how many I’m eating at a time.
It’s that satisfying crunch. Consider almonds or mixed nuts instead, they’re healthier. You should also eat them slower. (I should know, I can also eat an entire thing of nuts if I’m not controlling it. But at least they’re nuts and not pringles.)
Or maybe pistachios since you have to open them
Bonus 3d print for pistachio lovers: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5172117
Funny you say that, I mostly swapped to eating cocktail peanuts as my salty snack of choice. They are more filling, so I don’t overeat and are definitely healthier than chips.
I’m the sane way but vanilla oreos. I buy a thing once or twice a year
MSG?
It’s certainly a factor, but not the whole picture. MSG is naturally occurring in a lot of whole foods as well. You don’t often hear of people with a crippling addiction to kelp or tomatoes.
I had to stop: it was becoming an expensive vice. In the end cocaine is much cheaper than eating high quality tomatoes every day.
Also if you do home cooking with msg (I used to, but stopped out of not bothering with msg) it really isn’t that addictive. It enhances umami flavor, which is excellent for when you really want a dish to pop, but it’s not like you’re gonna down an entire casserole because you put msg in it. Though you might eat more of your pan fried broccoli because the msg really kicks it up a notch.
Seriously, msg does more to improve the flavor of roasted and pan fried veggies than anything else, if you struggle with eating such things it may help
Absolutely! The combo of MSG with salt is like a cheat code for accessing higher realms of flavor. It can also help reduce salt intake if that’s of concern.
Very true for specific foods, but I will say that back when I ate meat it was negligible on meat. I really recommend tasting it plain to really understand how it works flavor wise.
Danny and the gang are cutting class to meet behind the bleachers; says he’s got a family pack of Twinkies and a 3-liter bottle of knock-off Mountain Dew. You in?
Hell yeah. Sounds like a party. Is there an after lan party?
Yeah we’re all planning to fall asleep on the couch watching Netflix. Just like they did in the before times when they still sold this stuff in stores!
I have a coworker (44) M who is insanely overweight. He is like 250+ and 5ft5 he only eats junk food both him and his wife and kids are fat as hell. He is currently going to have surgery to remove his lower intestines and have a permanent colostomy bag inserted into him. He proudly says he isn’t going to listen to the doctors about eating better after surgery. He is instead already buying smaller shirts because he thinks he is gonna lose weight and get abs from this.
Not the cyberpunk body mods I was hoping for but okay
One of the authors, Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”
Sometimes I wish there was a devastating famine, and 100 of millions of us would starve to death so we’d have to start using the old definition of “kill” again, and appreciate the futuristic utopian we once had. We need to stop scrutinizing the actuary tables for hidden horrors, look up, look around, eat a cheeseburger, have an after meal cigarette and relish the wonderous paradise in which we all live.
Ahh we’re back to trying to ban and tax sugary food path. Worked great the first time guys, amirite?
Stop subsidies and let people kill themselves. This is something we really should blow political capital on 🙄.
I used to think this until I thought about the amount of money we use every year treating obesity and the related health issues. From the UK this is more obvious as more and more of our tax is used to treat increased rates of cancer and mobility issues. But also in the US I guess everyone’s insurance has to go to up to cover those that require more treatment.
For me education is #1 but we also can’t allow unhealthy foods to be so much cheaper than the healthy alternatives.
Don’t have the votes. Annoying people into fascism. You might get away with ending corporate subsidies.
