Ultra-processed foods need tobacco-style warnings, says scientist

Can we start with an actual definition of "ultra-processed". I've seen studies that defined any product with more than five ingredients as "ultra-processed" which seems both arbitrary and broad.

Has anyone shown actual harm from these foods or is it more a correlation where people that each ultra-processed have a lot of other factors that contribute to unhealthy outcomes?

It's not just the UPFs, we need scientifically-backed truth-in-advertising for all foods. For years I thought I was eating very healthy, but then my blood tests got worse and worse until my doctor wanted to put me on medications. I asked for six more months, and spent that time reading the labels on all the "healthy" foods I was consuming. It was eye-opening. So much added sugar, saturated fat, and simple carbohydrates spiking my blood sugar and driving up my cholesterol. I dumped all the processed foods, went whole-foods, Mediterranean Diet, pescatarian, and blew my doctor's mind when all my tests came back healthy.

We have an epidemic of declining healthspans forcing most of us to spend the last decades of our lives as invalids, surrendering our life-savings to the medical industry after the food industry is done ruining our health for profit. This is not about personal responsibility. This is about a food industry that is lying to us about the health effects of eating their hyper-palatable, hyper-processed foods. Corporations lie to sell us food engineered to make us addicted, render us sick, and then sell us the medications to keep our hearts beating so we can continue to consume.

To the extent that people are curious about the definition of ultra-processed foods, I recommend Chris Van Tulleken’s book “Ultra Processed People.” From it, I got the sense that the real emphasis is on this aspect of the NOVA definition:

“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…modified starches…modified oils…protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, colours, emulsifiers, thickeners…) in their list of ingredients.”

The history of NOVA is that as the obesity epidemic was spreading, a Brazilian nutrition scientist, Carlos Monteiro, did a large scale project to identify likely causes right as it reached Brazil and obesity in Brazil started to rise. In short, he found statistical evidence indicating, basically, that as as people stopped cooking they became obese. In the book, he observes that connection was so strong that if the one single thing you knew about a person was that they had bought sugar, it predicted that they would not be obese because sugar, while unhealthy, is usually used to cook with. Thus the emphasis on “traditional culinary uses”.

Cooking has a lot of virtues, but evidence that the ingredients themselves are the issue came when an NIH researcher, Kevin Hall, did an experiment where he had people live in an NIH facility and half ate “processed” food (in the NOVA system) and half ate “ultra-processed” food with equivalent nutritional content, and the UPF group gained weight very quickly relative to the “processed” group. The Hall excitement is when Monteiro’s theory really started getting traction.

I just wish there were a good definition of "ultra-processed food", because most of the ones I saw basically equivalent to "I'll tell you when I see it". Like wikipedia [0]:

"An ultra-processed food (UPF) is an industrially formulated edible substance derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds."

But this describes almost any prepared food. For example take an good cheese, something made only with milk and rennet:

"industrially formulated" - check! (surely a cheese industry changed formula at least once in last 200 years);

"edible substance" - check! (very edible, yum-yum)

"derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds." - check! (what isn't)

.. so it's an UPF and should get a warning label?

If they want to start passing the laws related to UPF, I'd like to see a good clear definition first.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food

There would be virtually nothing in the USA without this tag on it

Imagine a future where all food stores have 3 sections:

- The Green section (Food) - Natural food our ancestors would have eaten.

- The yellow section (Food-derived) - Things made partly from food, but in a factory, with huge servings of sugar, salt, and other artificial flavors -- granola bars, tomato sauces, etc.

- The red section (Calories) - Products that have calories but no nutritional value, no or negative impact on microbiome, indefinite shelf-life, >50% calories are refined sugar.

I am generally against banning things that can harm our bodies and minds, but I think that we need to regulate a lot more aggressively. There is no doubt that ultra-processed foods are unhealthy, and although a bit hyperbole maybe, the relationship between regular and ultra-processed food is analogous to the relationship between coca leaf and crack cocaine. Although both are technically the same substance, the means of delivery makes a huge difference on how immediately gratifying and habit-forming they are.

I think we should make regulation that enforces stronger separation between food and beverages that we consume as part of a healthy diet, and candy and psychoactive substances that we consume for fun. We should acknowledge that a significant and growing fraction of the population are forced to actively fight their inner voices telling them to consume these things whenever they go to a supermarket, which they have to because we all need to eat. Alcohol, tobacco and ultra-processed foods have no place in food stores, but should be confined to dedicated outlets.