Read [this article](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/01/health/worst-ultraprocessed-food-early-death-wellness) and though I’m scientifically literate and understand how scientific research can be overdramatized by the media, I’m worried. How I avoid ultra processed food, it is apparently everything. Ugh
In: Biology
Ultra pocessed food is not a scientific term so everyone can call whatever they want “processes food”.
In general, all ready to eat food is ultra processed, including those you cook yourself then freeze. “Processed food” itself isn’t unhealthy, those that is high in salty, sugar, and fat are.
“Ultraprocessed” is kind of like “obscenity”: You can’t really define it, but you know it when you see it. A Twinkie is ultraprocessed. A cut up apple is minimally processed. Exactly how much processing do you need to do to a food before it crosses the line into ultraprocessed? Who can say?
It’s also beside the point, because it’s not really a binary thing. It’s not like you process food up to a point and it’s healthy, but one more step and it’ll kill you. It’s a continuum.
Processing food is really the process of making it easier to eat. Cooking a chicken breast makes it easier to eat than a raw chicken. Ground cooked chicken is even easier to eat. Grinding it really fine, forming it into a nugget, adding a bunch of salt and flavorings and deep frying it makes it super easy to eat — a bit too easy to put down a bunch of calories without even realizing it.
And that’s the issue. It’s the same advice as always: don’t eat too much. Ultraprocessed food just makes “too much” a lot easier to eat.
All of these answers are inaccurate guesses and speaking with authority on something they just have a vague feeling about when the answer is an easy Wikipedia search away:
> Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials. Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals. Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, ‘fruit juice concentrates’, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and ‘mechanically separated meat’) or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients.
> The Nova definition of ultra-processed food does not comment on the nutritional content of food and is not intended to be used for nutrient profiling.
The Nova classification isn’t intended to be a commentary on the nutritional value of any particular food. Banza pasta is technically extruded and no longer resembles fresh chickpeas but you’d be daft to call it unhealthy.
There is no universally accepted definition of ultra processed foods. This means you have to be really careful when reviewing any study regarding to see how that particular study defined the term. In general this means, in my opinion, I am going into any study regarding them with a pretty high degree of skepticism as they started with a term that is really nebulous (hopefully they define it fully so it is a useful study but not always).
It makes it really hard for anyone to do a metastudy.
The only useful definition is the definition used by the specific study in question. You have to understand *their* definition to contextualize their results. It’s like asking what “hot weather” is. To someone from Alaska 80F is going to feel pretty darn hot because they are not used to it, their bodies aren’t acclimated. Whereas someone from Phoenix Arizona might say that hot weather is only when it’s over a hundred. That’s what “processed” or “ultra-processed” is like. At its most basic level *any* alteration of a food substance other than whole and raw is “processing” it. Pasteurized milk is “processed”, steamed veggies are “processed” even *chopped* veggies have been “processed”. Ultra processed may mean something like flour or applesauce, or it may mean “modified food starch” or kraft American cheese. So you must understand what definition the author of the study is using, because someone claiming that applesauce is poison against the natural order and you can only truly be healthy if you eat nothing but raw meat is a whackjob. But someone claiming that eating nothing but easy squeeze “cheese” and slim Jim’s contributes to unhealthy levels of cholesterol is probably reasonable.
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