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.’”
Mmm olive oil
it is not ultra-processed, it is just processed.
The real stuff is just pressed adn expensive, but most olive oil is counterfeit shit.
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.
Ah, but what’s in my kitchen?
I don’t think I have any MSG right now, but it’s super common in the homes of some ethic groups, and I do have some interesting microbial-derived ingredients. I could make potato chips/crisps the same way as they do industrially, and I wouldn’t need any of that.
A really simple cream-based dressing could be bits of plants and raw milk that has settled out and been skimmed. Vinegar is often involved, though, and it looks like for a proper American-style ranch dressing there’s still oil that goes into the mayo.
But, it’s not the only example. You also like espresso in Italy, yes? How many steps does that take, and have you ever seen a raw coffee bean in person? As much as we love making fun of Americans, the only people who can really do it on these grounds are like, tribes in the rainforest. And if it becomes the old thing where we all assume our own culture is “correct”, than that’s not good.
Whatever man, I think Usa-made dressing you buy bottled is not genuily made unlike olive oil. If you still want to discuss I am not interested. Besides I live both in europe and asia and have no problem finding whole foods to eat. To me the basic definition of UPF makes sense. Hope you will understand too amd push goverment to regulate food industries more.