Study on super processed foods

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, it seems like you need to plan on grocery shopping almost every day. I wish American supermarkets would make smaller packages of things. For example, smaller loaves of fresh bread. I can’t see starting to bake bread. And we can’t eat a giant loaf in a few days. Or I guess maybe we can just give up bread?

Just freeze it and toast as needed. My mom did that in the 80s and I do it now.

Freezing is processing! Chuckle. Sorry researchers I am not going to feel guilty about frozen vegetables. Other studies say they are often better than fresh because they are frozen right away.

Cqn you not understand the post or are you just being argumentative? Frozen veggies are categorized in list 2. List 4 shows the foods linked to greatest risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you read the study they divide food into 4 categories:

1) unprocessed (e.g. fruit, vegetables, milk, meat)

2) processed ingredients (e.g. grains, sugar, vegetable oil)

3) processed foods (canned fruit or vegetables, fresh baked bread, cheese)

4) ultra processed food (snacks, store bought bread, breakfast cereal, soda, processed meat, ready to eat meals)

The correlation they found was with the last category, although I don’t know if they looked at other correlations.

It was interesting to me, because for my family, bread and breakfast cereal are relatively easy changes I can make for my teens. Usually if my kids eat them it’s at home because they are easy and fast and not because they love them so if I make some other carb that’s easy and fast, or buy or make fresh bread, they won’t care.

Are all breakfast cereals bad? How about Alpen museli and the like? Multi-grain cheerios no good?

I don’t think this study went into the level of detail you would need to answer that question. They had people list what they ate, classified it into the four categories above, and then looked for patterns in the rates of illness in the different groups. Is it possible that there were things that ended up classified as ultraprocessed that don’t contribute to negative outcomes? Probably. Are some ultraprocessed foods better or worse than others? Almost certainly.

I also think that if you are looking at individual kid level the choices might be different. I know, for example, that one of my kids went through a picky stage when the only green veggies he would eat consistently were frozen peas (processed) and lettuce or baby spinach dipped in bottled Caesar dressing (ultraprocessed). My guess is that if there was a study, the benefits of eating something green outweighed the downside of the processing.

So frozen peas are processed?? The only ingredient listed is peas!

Freezing is a form of processing. Is it a more benign way of processing? Yes, almost certainly. But it still qualifies.

My point is that we can become so focused on perfection that it can be the enemy of the good, especially with picky kids and busy lives. The study just has 4 categories, and only looked at the impact of one of them. The take away shouldn't be "OMG don't eat things from this list!" The takeaway should be "the degree to which a food has been processed is one thing to think about when making decisions". If you're making decisions between foods then how heavily they've been processed might be one factor. But other factors, like how much protein, or how much fiber, or how much time they take to prepare, or how much people enjoy eating them should figure in too.

Here is the study:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00017-2/fulltext

I agree - realistic takeaway should be that if you aren’t taking degree of processing into account in your decision making you should start including it.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good though!

[Anonymous]

Back to home and hearth, women!

This all makes sense, but it just feels like another log on the immense bonfire of guilt for how you’re taking care of your family. And the food industry will soon come out with its study as to why this isn’t true because blah, blah, blah. Further confusing and stressing everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you read the study they divide food into 4 categories:

1) unprocessed (e.g. fruit, vegetables, milk, meat)

2) processed ingredients (e.g. grains, sugar, vegetable oil)

3) processed foods (canned fruit or vegetables, fresh baked bread, cheese)

4) ultra processed food (snacks, store bought bread, breakfast cereal, soda, processed meat, ready to eat meals)

The correlation they found was with the last category, although I don’t know if they looked at other correlations.

It was interesting to me, because for my family, bread and breakfast cereal are relatively easy changes I can make for my teens. Usually if my kids eat them it’s at home because they are easy and fast and not because they love them so if I make some other carb that’s easy and fast, or buy or make fresh bread, they won’t care.

We can’t read it cause no link!!

[Anonymous]

I cook with pasture allowed slop fed pig’s lard that spend most of their day outdoors and it is just purely rendered from my local farm. Hence, I better than all of you here and better than even those that don’t buy fresh churned butter from a local farm. My vitamin D is straight from sunbathed lard.
Who can beat that?

[Anonymous]

The worst thing for your health is excessive stress. Something ultimately will kill us all. Some lunchmeat and bread with preservatives along the way won't make that much difference. Just have a salad with it and chill tf out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is store bought bread worse than homemade bread? Dave’s killer bread seems far more nutritious than any homemade bread I’ve ever had.

I bake my own bread using the following ingredients: whole wheat flour, rye flour, salt, water, sourdough starter. Sometimes I add ground-up oats or white flour to the mix. Store-bought bread tends to have more ingredients including sugar and preservatives.

I usually have to freeze my leftover bread after about 3 days because it starts to go stale. Even after one day I usually toast it. Store bought bread is more convenient. But I like bread without sugar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is store bought bread worse than homemade bread? Dave’s killer bread seems far more nutritious than any homemade bread I’ve ever had.

I bake my own bread using the following ingredients: whole wheat flour, rye flour, salt, water, sourdough starter. Sometimes I add ground-up oats or white flour to the mix. Store-bought bread tends to have more ingredients including sugar and preservatives.

I usually have to freeze my leftover bread after about 3 days because it starts to go stale. Even after one day I usually toast it. Store bought bread is more convenient. But I like bread without sugar.

Eh, you can buy bread like that at the store too. The 1.99 Trader Joe’s baguette only has flour, water, salt, yeast. Same with the whole wheat pita bread I buy for around $2 at the middle eastern market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing for your health is excessive stress. Something ultimately will kill us all. Some lunchmeat and bread with preservatives along the way won't make that much difference. Just have a salad with it and chill tf out.

Yes this. Stress, plus smoking, plus alcohol. If you can avoid these you are golden

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back to home and hearth, women!

This all makes sense, but it just feels like another log on the immense bonfire of guilt for how you’re taking care of your family. And the food industry will soon come out with its study as to why this isn’t true because blah, blah, blah. Further confusing and stressing everyone.

But now that you are "saving" 2-3hrs a day of no commuting, getting ready to leave the house for work and all that jazz because you are now WFH, you have extra time to prepare healthy meals to feed your family. Put that apron back on!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who has time for all of this? When I saw the study, I thought through our family eating habits and I just don't even know where to start - my kids eat cereal or oatmeal or toast (store bought bread) for breakfast. Then for lunch, they take a sandwich - usually with storebought bread and either storebought jam or peanut butter or cheese. They also may take store bought popcorn, or a fruit roll up or a store bought cookie. Maybe store bought hummus and crackers for dipping. For dinner, we have store bought pasta sometimes - I will make my own sauce but I don't have time to do that all the time (and don't suggest making a huge batch - I have 4 kids to feed, I'd have to have an entire freezer to keep it in!)

And then they have ice cream or maybe make a store bought cake on the weekends and eat that for dessert. On the weekends, they eat fast food. And don't even get me started on snacks.

Literally every meal has some element of super processed foods in it. My kids seem healthy enough, play sports, get good grades. Can someone post their no-super processed foods meal plan?

I have teen boys so they eat more than usual.

Here are some things they might have that are l relatively easy

Breakfast:

Smoothie with frozen fruit, whole milk Greek yogurt, handful of spinach

and one of the following

Scrambled eggs and toast made with bakery bread
Bakery toast with peanut butter
Oatmeal with peanut butter and other stuff added in

Snack

I totally understand when you say there is not enough time, small changes can help. A few month back I got by 10 and 12 yr old on better eating track, breakfast options;

Steel cut coats with little maple syrup, walnuts and half cup of fresh berries.

Mashed avocado on bakery sourdough bread with a fried egg on top.

Boiled eggs with a cup of banana, strawberries and blueberries.

Cheese omelette with a cup of banana and orange slices.

Vanilla yogurt with granola and a cup of fresh berries

Once in a while they eat plain bagel with cream cheese + cup of fresh fruit.

No cereal, only bakery sourdough bread.

I am spending a lot on berries but honestly it’s 1/3 of what I was spending on takeout.

[Anonymous]

^^to the berry poster. I’m there with you. I’m like the berry hunter. I’ve got a few places I look and I’m usually successful. Sometimes I have to move on if the selection isn’t up to par.

Eating real food is a pain in the ass. But so is dealing with the health issues that come from eating ultra processed foods. Like I’m general is a pain in the ass, but it’s a whole hell of a lot easier than jt was 100 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who has time for all of this? When I saw the study, I thought through our family eating habits and I just don't even know where to start - my kids eat cereal or oatmeal or toast (store bought bread) for breakfast. Then for lunch, they take a sandwich - usually with storebought bread and either storebought jam or peanut butter or cheese. They also may take store bought popcorn, or a fruit roll up or a store bought cookie. Maybe store bought hummus and crackers for dipping. For dinner, we have store bought pasta sometimes - I will make my own sauce but I don't have time to do that all the time (and don't suggest making a huge batch - I have 4 kids to feed, I'd have to have an entire freezer to keep it in!)

And then they have ice cream or maybe make a store bought cake on the weekends and eat that for dessert. On the weekends, they eat fast food. And don't even get me started on snacks.

Literally every meal has some element of super processed foods in it. My kids seem healthy enough, play sports, get good grades. Can someone post their no-super processed foods meal plan?

This is the problem. You know we spend a lot of time mocking women in the 50s/60s for how everything they did was cooking and recipes but what this does not adequately capture is that prior to the invention of both the refrigerator and modern food processing/preservatives the reason many women stayed home was not JUST lack of opportunity in the professional world. It is because the job of getting meals on the table was a FULL TIME JOB. Getting food, storing food, preparing food, etc etc etc most of human history has revolved around the acquisition of and safe preparation of food. We really cannot even fathom what the daily food requirements of a housewife living in 1948 were. It is a world as different to us as a world without internet is to kids born today.

I see entirely that our overreliances on chemicals in food could be causing some unintended side effects. But reverting to a non processed food world will take creativity because our society will not (and honestly IMO SHOULD NOT) revert to a pre 1970s lifestyle where women HAVE to stay home in part to feed their family. The processed food revolution has perhaps made us sick and fat, its also given us freedom and dramatically reduced starvation. Pros and cons for every new frontier.

+100
And I’ll add that every time I hear a WHO or study lecturing on the need for breastfeeding to age 2+ or entirely shunning all processed foods it makes me wonder if “barefoot and pregnant” isn’t the ultimate goal…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back to home and hearth, women!

This all makes sense, but it just feels like another log on the immense bonfire of guilt for how you’re taking care of your family.

+1

[Anonymous]

This is actually a structural and cultural problem.

We moved from DC to western Europe and it is super easy to cook and eat like this because fresh food is so readily available and even the processed food, the ingredients are much more restricted here.

We have a farmers market steps from our house 3x a week. Many organic items. Almost everything is from our country or a country that borders ours. Prices are same as or lower than in the US.

We have easy access to fresh baked bread and buy it multiple times a week.

We have frozen foods, but they tend to be very simple and without preservatives. They are also all labeled with an A to E ranking for how healthy they are.

There's also plenty of highly-processed food available, but I find we just don't need it because other foods are "easy."

Also, people take time to eat meals here sitting down. So yes, you may cook your lunch if you work from home, but you also have a long enough lunch break to do so. And every child eats lunch at school so there's no packing processed foods for lunch.

Our meals look like this:
Plain oatmeal with fresh or frozen berries and honey from the farmers market
Fresh pasta with some roasted vegetables from the farmers market and a bit of cheese made locally
Fresh baked bread with butter and a piece of fruit for snacks
Grilled chicken with roasted vegetables