> “About 60% of the calories in Americans’ diets are from ultra-processed foods,” says Schmidt, who spoke at a UC Berkeley event in May. “In the mid-’80s, when we see ultra-processed foods starting to scale up in the American food supply, we also see obesity starting to really rise. That is the moment when some of the largest food companies are owned by tobacco companies.”<p>A reminder here that while there's an important directional claim behind stuff like this, "ultra-processed food" is an extremely silly category that does violence to the argument.<p>UPFs include:<p>* Whole wheat bread (most supermarket bread is stabilized, which you might not like aesthetically, but it isn't doing anything to your health)<p>* Almost all yogurt products, flavored or otherwise<p>* Literally all baby formula<p>* Any kind of plant-based meat replacement<p>* Many supermarket hummus brands (again: stabilizers and emulsifiers)<p>You get to "ultra-processed" simply by making things shelf-stable, and shelf-stability isn't an actual health problem (kind of the opposite).<p>You get to problematic through <i>hyperpalatability</i>, which is another, different target of modern food engineering. Hyperpalatable foods are almost always UPFs, but the other direction doesn't hold at all.
> most supermarket bread is stabilized, which you might not like aesthetically, but it isn't doing anything to your health<p>That's a large assertion to make without evidence. Personally, I'm suspicious of all antimicrobial agents' effects on gut microbiota and the knock-on effects on health.
Shelf-stable hummus and Doritos can both be "ultra-processed", but that doesn't tell you much about why one might encourage overconsumption. Hyperpalatability seems much closer to the actual claim the article is trying to make.
With the exception, maybe, of whole wheat bread (it seems they sometimes add extra wheat gluten, technically an additive but yes, silly), these all seem right to me? Especially meat replacements, they're often incredibly highly processed.<p>Yoghurt is one you seem to be mistaken on. Yoghurt can be considered group 1, it just often contains thickeners, sweeteners, flavourings, etc. Especially if low-fat.<p>You're right of course that hyperpalatability is a bigger problem. And you don't have to agree that UPFs are something you need to avoid. But I don't think that makes it a silly category.
I think someone has really mislead you on yoghurt. If you get plain, natural yoghurt it’s not ultra processed.
> You get to "ultra-processed" simply by making things shelf-stable, and shelf-stability isn't an actual health problem (kind of the opposite).<p>I would point out that many whole foods are generally shelf-stable (over at least weeks, if not months) <i>without</i> requiring the introduction of chemical stabilizers that don't otherwise "belong."<p>Chemical stabilizers are generally <i>needed</i> for shelf stability in ultra-processed foods, because of one of the other defining characteristics of ultra-processed foods: their matrix has been disrupted (or constructed anew) such that the food is now highly <i>labile</i> (biochemical term: "labile organic matter"), i.e. very easy to break down into nutrients. Which applies not only to you breaking such foods down in your gut, but also to bacteria and fungi breaking these foods down on the shelf.<p>And as it so happens, because these foods are labile, any such nutrients that do come from breaking down the food, come very <i>quickly</i>. Labile carbohydrates are high-glycemic-index insulin-spiking carbohydrates. Labile fats are atherosclerosis-inducing fats. Etc.<p>Your body evolved to process (metabolize, remove from circulation, etc.) metabolic inputs in an environment where most available foods were the opposite of labile (a.k.a. <i>recalcitrant</i> organic matter). So most meals would give a slow/gentle level of metabolic throughput; with rare spikes of higher throughput from the rare natural labile food, and then plenty of low-throughput time to recover from such events. Your body <i>didn't</i> evolve to be able to deal with getting high-throughput metabolic input spikes from every meal.<p>And this is why the the presence of chemical stabilizers in a food is actually a very <i>helpful</i> criterion in the definition of "ultra-processed food"! The necessity of stabilization tells you that the food is likely labile (as otherwise, why would they have needed to stabilize it?) — and therefore is unhealthy to be consumed on a continuous basis. (Unless it's milk <i>and</i> you're a baby.)<p>But note that the stabilizer isn't itself the problem. Bread <i>is</i> ultra-processed even <i>without</i> a stabilizer, <i>because</i> bread is a labile food with weak matrix integrity. The bread you bake at home is ultra-processed; you're the one who ultra-processed it!<p>The "rules" for UPFs don't assert home-baked bread as a UPF, but that's because the point of the UPF designation is to label commercial foods, and more specifically, to draw a hard-line boundary based on objectively-measurable characteristics that industry players can't argue with or lie about. And lability / matrix integrity, while <i>quantifiable</i>, isn't something with a clear objective way to reduce it to a single number†; so any definition of UPF based on lability <i>would</i> result in endless arguments/pushback from industry players insisting the FDA is "calculating it wrong."<p>But in your own personal life, the definition of "ultra-processed" you should be carrying around in your head and evaluating foods by, should be one that includes lability.<p>† (Instead, lability a high-dimensional measurement of how efficiently any single digestive enzyme, and/or any specific combination of enzymes, and/or any enzyme paired with a cofactor [e.g. a bile salt], will break apart the given food's matrix to release bio-accessible nutrients.)
my wife describes ultra processed food as food that is basically pre digested for you before you eat it, which seems like a pretty good definition to me
> UPFs include:<p>> * Ultra-processed whole wheat bread<p>> * Ultra-processed yogurt products<p>> * Literally all baby formula<p>> * Ultra-processed plant-based meat replacement<p>> * Ultra-processed hummus brands (again: stabilizers and emulsifiers)<p>There, fixed that for you.<p>(I don't know about baby formula, but granting you that one.)
Most of the things you listed are highly processed foods that are not good for you and will contribute to obesity.
Japan has ultra processed foods and they don't seem to have an obesity epidemic.<p>They do have a strong education system that teaches cooking and food budgeting and related.<p>They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.
>Japan has ultra processed foods and they don't seem to have an obesity epidemic.<p>Most of that's from a much stronger national guidance on weight control + societal expectations, but IIRC they also are gaining weight. Their ultra processed foods (in the salt and preservative sense) are also why they have one of the highest rates of stomach cancer.<p>> They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.<p>Not sure if I'd categorize the US as in a marijuana epidemic (and this is coming from someone who doesn't consume it and dislikes being around it) but even if we were, the states with the highest marijuana usage (west coast and NE) and the states with the highest obesity rates (deep south) are almost non-overlapping circles. If we're tying a drug to be obesity rates I'd be much more willing to believe it's the American propensity to chug large amounts of cheap 100-120 calories a pop beer.
Japan is probably evidence that the surrounding food culture matters at least as much as the existence of UPFs. You can sell plenty of processed food without getting the same outcome if portion sizes, eating habits, school meals, and daily activity are different. The marijuana comparison feels like a non sequitur, though.
> They also don't have a marijuana epidemic.<p>I don't see this mentioned in the transcript. What is the basis for you mentioning it? Seems like a weird thing to throw in without explanation. I say this as someone that does not consume cannabis, btw, so this is not a defense of cannabis usage.<p>Japan may come up a lot in discussions about longevity, but doesn't Japan have a drinking culture that is very unhealthy? It's pretty well established that alcohol has a serious impact on health in numerous ways. There is even a condition called alcohol-related dementia.
Japan is one of the countries where people smoke literally everywhere. As for marijuana, it's highly illegal, it's one of the remnants of the colonial history there as everything apart from smoking and drinking is considered evil due to how China was devastated with opium.
Maybe 20 years ago, not so much today. There are a few places around town and a few indoor restaurants where public smoking is still permitted, but this is no longer true in most public spaces. Not on train platforms, not indoors in the vast majority of public spaces, it's just not that common and the number of smokers in Japan has significantly diminished over the last several decades.<p>There are 'smoking boxes' on some train platforms, but I rarely see those in use by more than a few people out of the several hundred who may be waiting. Marijuana is also 'highly' illegal but also not exactly hard to find for people who are 'hip' and it's also not aggressively enforced, much like speeding.<p>Also, Japan doesn't actually have a 'colonial history' having never been colonized by another nation.<p>I'm thinking you have just heard about Japan by rough description?
Yeah I was going to say I don’t remember seeing smokers anywhere other than the ‘box of shame’
> Also, Japan doesn't actually have a 'colonial history' having never been colonized by another nation.<p>It was never colonized but I've often heard it talked about in a similar way due to the effects of the Commodore Perry and the post WWII occupation (i.e. see their infamous pornography laws), as well as neighboring affects from China's colonial history.
They also have society self enforced limits on bringing harm to society restraining capitalism
I recently discovered just how much food engineering goes into products like potato chips and similar items, not only in the flavor, but also in the texture and even the sound it makes.<p>There's someone at the factory who basically spends their time eating samples from new batches to ensure they're exactly as expected.
Is Huel ultra processed food too? They promote themselves as healthy meals and I am long time subscriber. I keep telling myself that even if it is not like cooking from raw ingredients, it is still far from a greasy junk food at kebab shops and McDonalds.
Hyper-ultra-processed, yes. But, as others point out in these comments, a food's degree of processing doesn't determine its health value, although those two things are correlated.<p>Personally, my instincts would favor Huel over fast food, too. I'd be very interested in any study that tested this rigorously. Huel is far from anything "raw," but so long as all the nutritional components are still in there, one has to wonder if it's just as healthy.
Companies should be required to provide the full supply-chain of the ingredients. On the packaging. With addresses. And no PO-boxes.
Reading through this and thinking about the problem in a blame-free way leads me to see the tobacco companies as a through-line for product packaging optimization that transcends any specific use. "The first patented cigarette-making machine was invented by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno of Mexico in 1847." [0] This puts high volume manufacture of cigarettes right at the cusp of the second industrial revolution with improvements in "steel-making processes, mass production, assembly lines, electrical grid systems, large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and use of advanced machinery in steam-powered factories." [1]<p>0. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette</a><p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution</a>
Interesting, but I wouldn't oversimplify this to one cause. Home cooking of meals and making of lemonade/fruit punch used to be a norm. Society chose to move towards taking a lazy way out with microwave dinners and takeouts. On the other hand, Asian countries have healthier fresh made bento boxes in convenience stores so it's not time saving alone. At the end of the day, companies deliver what consumers want and try to discern demand, what else are they supposed to do?
If you're listening to the podcast or video, the presentation starts at 8:58!<p>some other light reading on this topic:<p><a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308501" rel="nofollow">https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2026.3085...</a><p>> Buying into the food industry also facilitated the tobacco companies in applying the knowledge, skills, and strategies developed from their tobacco businesses to another business domain in ultraprocessed foods and beverages. For example, Philip Morris applied its aggressive marketing tactics developed from its tobacco businesses to market ultraprocessed foods to the US public. Furthermore, US tobacco companies and their food companies were systematically involved with developing hyper-palatable foods, which have elevated addictive properties.<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16332" rel="nofollow">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16332</a><p>>Tobacco-owned foods were 29% more likely to be classified as fat and sodium hyper-palatable foods (HPF) and 80% more likely to be classified as carbohydrate and sodium HPF than foods that were not tobacco-owned between 1988 and 2001 (P-values = 0.005–0.009).<p><a href="https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/cigarette-giants-bought-food-companies-used-cartoon-characters-colors-flavors-boost-sales-sweetened-beverages" rel="nofollow">https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/cigarette-giants-bought-food-compan...</a><p>> Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds led the transition to sweetened beverages in 1963 when it purchased Hawaiian Punch from Pacific Hawaiian Products Company, according to the documents. The beverage previously had been promoted to adults as a cocktail mixer, but R.J. Reynolds sought to beef up the drink’s “Punchy” mascot – a counterpart to the “Joe Camel” cartoon character the company used to promote cigarettes – and featured it on toys, schoolbook covers, comics, tumblers, clothing and TV commercials. Punchy became the “best salesman the beverage ever had,” according to tobacco industry documents.<p>> In the ’60s and ’70s, the company conducted taste tests with children and mothers to evaluate sweetness, colors and flavors for Hawaiian Punch product line extensions. The children’s preferences were prioritized, the authors noted.<p>> By 1983, R.J. Reynolds introduced the nation’s first juice box, marketed as a “handy little carton that comes with its very own straw.” This innovation was largely responsible for a 34 percent jump in sales, according to industry documents.<p>other fun things might include just reading the Wikpedia pages on major food companies like Kraft: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods_Inc.#Financial_expansion" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods_Inc.#Financial_exp...</a><p>> At the end of 1988, Philip Morris Companies purchased Kraft for $12.9 billion. In 1989, Kraft merged with Philip Morris's General Foods unit—makers of Oscar Mayer meats, Maxwell House coffee, Jell-O gelatin, Budget Gourmet frozen dinners, Entenmann's baked goods, Kool-Aid, Crystal Light and Tang powdered beverage mixes, Post Cereals, Shake 'n Bake flavored coatings and numerous other packaged foods—as Kraft General Foods. Its aggressive product development was reversed after the merger, as it became slow in addressing issues on its product lines due to its size, and also company politics.[4]<p>> In 2000, Philip Morris (renamed Altria in 2003) acquired Nabisco Holdings for $18.9 billion and merged the company with Kraft Foods the same year.[212][4] Also in 2000, the company acquired Balance Bar.[213] In 2001, Philip Morris sold 280 million Kraft shares via the third-largest IPO of all time, retaining an 88.1% stake in the company.
> In the early 1960s ...<p>Huh? Ultra processed foods got very popular long before the 1960s. Wonder Bread came out in 1921. Kellogg came out with corn flakes in the 1900s. Etc.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems.
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We eat engineered low-quality material, not real food.